Is this misconduct?

KatrinaWaves

You don’t seem to have any proof it was sent from your email at all, only that it has your signature which could have easily been copied in from the draft.

If it came your account, how has the third party obtained a copy of this email? 

rossm6

KatrinaWaves said:

You don’t seem to have any proof it was sent from your email at all, only that it has your signature which could have easily been copied in from the draft.

If it came your account, how has the third party obtained a copy of this email? 

I know I don't have any proof at this point.  The question is assuming that what I suspect happened did happen.
Your question though is a good one.  But it's one I don't know the answer too.  Then again I don't know how somebody could send an email from somebody else's email address in the first place but a quick Google suggests it is possible.  So if it is then I presume the person who did it has it in their sent box.  I certainly don't !

KatrinaWaves

I guess I just don’t understand why it was necessary to send this email to the customer twice. And how the second person got hold of the email to send it again. And why didn’t the customer reply to you and say ‘here is my response to this’ as opposed to this third person?

I don’t think it came from your email as surely you’d have a reply, not the third person who forwarded the email again to the customer for ~reasons~

Unless customer complained they had no response. Third person picked up complaint and asks manager ‘has no one got back to this person’ and the manager says ‘yeah we emailed them, here send it again’ and sent that person some  half drafted version they had saved rather than the final one. 

Anyway we clearly don’t have enough info as there’s a lot of unanswered questions

JamoLew

its hard to know the exact chain of events really -- maybe the OP can clarify.
It seems that:

Manager asks OP to draft a customer email
OP compiles the email and sends it to the manager
Manager modifies it (forgets or neglects to change the sig)
Manager sends it to the customer

If this is the case - nothing wrong

OP - if you think someone has sent an email from your account it may show up in your sent items - does the email that was finally sent to the customer appear there ?

74jax

Do you mean logged into your email and sent from that? I had the email boxes of others as a drop down to my inbox so I didn't have to log in to other people's emails, I just had them. Could it be that situation? 

Do you mean to sent 'on behalf of' you? Again this is a drop down box so wouldn't need your password. 

Both the above were extremely common in my workplace. What wasn't was using someone else's personal email. If it's that yes I would logging a formal complaint. 

Again in my workplace managers did not type the emails. Others drafted on their behalf and altered. 

TELLIT01

Surely the only way to be certain what happened is to ask the manager.  It's not an unreasonable question if you have received a 'reply' from a customer to an email you didn't send.

caeler

There are many people here suggesting it is normal and common for managers to have access to an individuals work emails and have the ability to send emails.  It isn't!  Whilst work emails aren't for personal use if the email is identified as an individuals name then senders would expect it to be from that individual, not some manager posing as the individual (unless an email was marked "sent on behalf of by XYZ") and the individual could expect some level of privacy.  Shared mailboxes are a different matter of course.  It slightly depends on what the company state in their privacy notice, might be worth a check along with the company's IT policy on access to emails/passwords.  I do agree with others though, I wouldn't say this is misconduct, it is just a bit odd and I'd be asking my manager why I couldn't be trusted to respond to the customer myself. 

KatrinaWaves

TELLIT01 said:

Surely the only way to be certain what happened is to ask the manager.  It's not an unreasonable question if you have received a 'reply' from a customer to an email you didn't send.

He hasn’t received a reply tho. He’s seen a ‘copy of the email’ sent to the customer ‘again’ from a third person, not the manager! 🤷🏻‍♀️

KatrinaWaves

caeler said:

There are many people here suggesting it is normal and common for managers to have access to an individuals work emails and have the ability to send emails.  It isn't! 

Well I’m glad you’re here with your vast knowledge of what’s common and what isnt. It’s common enough for many people on here to have experienced it. Everywhere I have worked with a work email account it is explicitly stated in the IT use policy that both It and management have access to my emails at any time for monitoring.

Are people saying that management sit and watch people’s emails all day? Nope. But if there was disciplinary issues then absolutely their email behaviour would be looked at. Is it common for management to send emails on behalf of others! Again, probably not. But to say it’s not common for managers to have access is at worst patently false and at best a difference of opinion at odds with the experience of many. 

AskAsk

work emails can be accessed by the company.  they have to get IT to release the emails but it is indeed possible as they do this if the employee is off sick or goes awol.  they also monitor the email box when the employee leaves the company and they are still receiving emails to their inbox.