Advice please

billie25

I am a paid employee (carer) of a charity. One of my clients recently passed away and his daughter wanted to contact me. The office told her to contact me via them. A few days later, I received a thank you card from the daughter via the office. The card was not in its original envelope, which was not forwarded to me, and the office sent a note with it apologising for it appearing to have been opened. Apparently, it was received in the office with a donation! I know that the daughter would have put the card in an envelope with my name on it and my question is 'Do they have a right to open a letter addressed to me without asking my permission? I have asked for an explanation but they are ignoring me. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

General_Grant

billie25 wrote: »

I am a paid employee (carer) of a charity. One of my clients recently passed away and his daughter wanted to contact me. The office told her to contact me via them. A few days later, I received a thank you card from the daughter via the office. The card was not in its original envelope, which was not forwarded to me, and the office sent a note with it apologising for it appearing to have been opened. Apparently, it was received in the office with a donation! I know that the daughter would have put the card in an envelope with my name on it and my question is 'Do they have a right to open a letter addressed to me without asking my permission? I have asked for an explanation but they are ignoring me. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

You are an employee of the charity. The envelope may have been addressed to you by name but it was obviously sent to the employer's address and therefore should be considered as a business communication and therefore they can open it. They do not need to ask your permission.

elsien

In my last role which sounds a similar company to yours, any letters addressed to individual staff could be opened unless marked confidential.one reason being if it was a part time worker doing shifts, they may not be in for a while and sometimes appointments were addressed to staff not to clients and would have been missed otherwise. There are other equally valid reasons.
And if you're wondering about the money, the company will have a policy on accepting gifts. Which is likely to rule out you accepting money from families.

Savvy_Sue

I've worked in many places where all post was opened centrally and then distributed, not least because it was the only way of making sure that any money ended up where it was supposed to and properly accounted for! Far easier to train a team of six (in my last job) in how to record money coming in than to expect everyone to know what to do.

The only odd thing is the apology for it having been opened IMO!

Annisele

I don't see any problem at all with your employer opening post sent to your employer's address - whether or not it had your name on it.

Where I work you'd have been lucky to have received the card at all. Unless somebody in our postroom made an exception, you'd just have received a .pdf file with a scan of it.

PlutoinCapricorn

I have to agree: I have worked for many charities and all post is opened centrally then put into pigeonholes. There are many reasons for this: for example, people used to address unsolicited CVs to the CEO, who was not the right person to deal with them. Two people usually open the post as part of a policy, to ensure that any enclosed donations reach the right place.

I suppose that something marked "Private and Personal" might have slipped through, but these are rare.

comeandgo

I work for a charity too though in education, and if envelope marked private and confidential then it gets to me unopened as I do deal with some delicate information but if it's just addressed to me and then the company name and address the post room or admin team open it.

Your employer opening the mail helps you too, if you and the staff were to get envelopes from clients who's to say what's in it, there may have been £20 notes to give to the charity and you may run the risk to being accused of keeping the money.

footyguy

billie25 wrote: »

I am a paid employee (carer) of a charity. One of my clients recently passed away and his daughter wanted to contact me. The office told her to contact me via them. A few days later, I received a thank you card from the daughter via the office. The card was not in its original envelope, which was not forwarded to me, and the office sent a note with it apologising for it appearing to have been opened. Apparently, it was received in the office with a donation! I know that the daughter would have put the card in an envelope with my name on it and my question is 'Do they have a right to open a letter addressed to me without asking my permission? I have asked for an explanation but they are ignoring me. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

You say they've apologised.

The explanation therefore would appear to be that the envelope was opened in error by them.

I'm not sure, and presumably your employer likewise, what further explanation you are looking for.

HTH

Transformers

So, I assume this is really about the 'donation' - do you think it was intended for you personally?

billie25

Thanks for all the comments. I do see and understand the bigger picture. I just wish that the office would do me the courtesy of replying to my query and advise me of the organisation policy (of course, I do know we are not allowed to accept gifts understandably), or am I being naive to ask for this. It appears that I shouldn't have any expectations regarding this. I just wonder what the sender of the card will think. Thank you all for your time.

billie25

Transformers wrote: »

So, I assume this is really about the 'donation' - do you think it was intended for you personally?

No, Transformers - it was never about the 'donation'. It was about the gentleman and his family and attempting to maintain my integrity with them by knowing the facts, that's all. Thanks for your interest, anyway.