Slashdot Mirror
Secretaries Sacked After Flamewar at Work
ross.w writes "Two legal secretaries in Sydney have been sacked after a flamewar over a ham sandwich got circulated throughout the cities financial district. The insults about figures, boyfriends and jobs flew thick and fast and ultimately resulted in the dismissal of both of them for mis-use of the email system."
The spokesman said he still did not know whether or not Ms Nugent's lunch was stolen.
Rumor has it that Nugent's lunch was stolen by her ex-boyfriend who is now with Bird.
Warning: Do not pass this on.
Regardless, the person who forwarded these emails to external parties should be fired because company emails shouldn't be forwarded to unintended recipients without original author's consent.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
That's exactly why you use personal email for personal things...
What were they doing playing football?
That must have been quite a flame war to be reported on dozens of news sites and finally Slashdot. I hope nobody was killed over it.
Though they were fired over email, I doubt this is material worthy of the "Your Rights Online" section. They were both in the same office, cursing each other during work hours, except via email rather than verbally. Then they forwarded the emails to the rest of the office to get everyone involved, rather than working like their supposed to.
I have all my email forwarded to a gmail account. If I get something personal that I wouldn't want anyone to know about or something sketchy at work, I reply from gmail.
Wow, IANAL but I'm surprised that you can be sacked for something that tame. Still, the old adage applies - never write something on an email that you wouldn't put on a postcard.
Maybe the economy would be a little better if businesses would focus on business instead of finding new and interesting ways of scanning and banning personal Internet use (or a dozen other irrelevant employee-control functions that cost money and time without producing product...)
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
news for nerds? nope stuff that matters? nope
This is even worse than a Zonk post. What a retarded story.
Flaming over E-Mail?
"Damn you person on the intarweb!11 DELIVER, POP3! FOR GREAT JUSTICE!"
BANNED!!! OLOLO
Are either of them hot, or possibly both of them?
That would make my day (night)
Ham!
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Dear Work Colleagues,
In response to the flagrant theft of my steamed ham sandwiches and the issue of deeply complex sociological decay surrounding it I am forced to make it known that each and every morning before work I shall now take a moment out of my busy schedule to lay a small deposit of my finest, high grade quality "pre-brush morning saliva" upon the steamed hams in question.
While cleaning the nineteenth floor, I noticed the fridge had been left open. Naturally I threw out all the spoiled contents. I hope I didn't cause too much trouble.
Really reinforces why my girlfriend and the other women in my life prefer a male-dominated office to a female-dominated office. Hell, my mom won't work for another woman again unless either she knows her well or hell freezes over thanks to the last time...
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
This is how National Lampoon would classify it (in it's "true section on the level")...
I put on my robe and wizard hat.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
News At 10... behaving poorly at work can get you fired!!! We must fight for our right to get paid to think of rude, yet clever insults of our fellow coworkers!
<delzi> Arguing in the internet is like running in the special olympics, even if you win you are still retarted.
"What does slashdotting mean?"
"You've never heard of slashdot?"
"I know it makes websites not work."
I used to work with two Japanese coworkers who had an email spat. They sat next to each other, but one day they had a heated debate. After that finished, they stopped all verbal communication and started sending nasty emails to each other... despite sitting only a meter apart.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
That must have been quite a flame war to be reported on dozens of news sites and finally Slashdot.
Well the thing that made it so big was the fact that the secretaries got sacked over such a triffling matter. And they weren't even the ones who mailed the stuff out of the firm.
Here's some of the mail I received:
News from Fark. Stuff that doesn't matter.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Part of the wonderful part of being a sysadmin is getting to read everyone's email and find out who is doing what (and is is having an affair with who) and then ratting on them. The first company I worked for that had email announced that there was no personal email allowed at work. People ignored the decree and put nasty things in email about coworkers and the boss and then selected emails were posted on the company bulletin board and it stopped after they figured out that the boss knew who was saying what about him. I laughed myself silly over this one.
none needed.
http://www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,2028 1,16522876-5001022,00.html
Does anyone have a copy of this transaction? I'm looking for some good humor tonight, and this just might fit the bill. :)
Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
Slapped-up mirror of sorts here. Might be a little quicker (for US and European slashdotters) than the Aussie original. These two articles offer additional commentary and are good for a laugh.
I want the latest mail, with headers!
This [image] was as close as I could find...
Found it.
Since this stupid story was just inside at the front of the paper today, I might as well transcribe the transcript for you all...
Katrina Nugent
Yesterday I put my lunch in the fridge on Level 19 which included a packet of ham, some cheese slices and two slices of bread which was going to be for my lunch today.
Over night it has gone missing and as I have no spare money to buy another lunch today, I would appreciate being reimbursed for it.
Melinda Bird
Katrina, There are items fitting your exact description in the level 20 fridge. Are you sure you didn't place your lunch in the wrong fridge yesterday?
Katrina Nugent
Melinda, probably best you don't reply to all next time, would be annoyed to the lawyers.
The kitchen was not doing dinner last night, so obviously someone has helped themselves to my lunch. Really sweet of you to investigate for me!
Melinda Bird
Katrina, since I used to be a float and am still on the level 19 email list I couldn't help but receive your rediculous email - lucky me!
You use our kitchen all the time for some unknown reason and I saw the items you mentioned in the fridge so naturally thought you may have placed them in the wrong fridge.
Thanks I know I'm sweet but I only had your best interests at heart. Now as you would say, "BYE"!
Katrina Nugent
I'm not blonde!!!
Melinda Bird
Being a brunette doesn't mean you're smart though!
Katrina Nugent
I definitely wouldn't trade places with you for "the world"!
Melinda Bird
I wouldn't trade places with you for the world...I don't want your figure!
Katrina Nugent
Let's not get person (sic) "Miss Can't Keep A Boyfriend".
I am in a happy relationship, have a beautiful apartment, brand new car, high pay job...say no more!!
Melinda Bird
Oh my God I'm laughing! happy relationship (you have been with so many guys), beautiful apartment (so what), brand new care (me too), high pay job (I earn more)....say plenty more.....
I have 5 guys at the moment!
haha.
Its stories like this that dare me to troll. I literally thought that I was reading an Onion spoof...
Its even worse that this is presented as "big news", when the true banality of this revelation is oft-repeated throughout the world every day, without the use of anything "high tech" as *email* :
"Two Co-Workers Get in Office Scrap. Both Now Neither Co nor Worker."
"Senior Accountant Fired After Overheard Making Fun of Boss at Office Party"
"Sales Engineer Canned For Slander After Voicemail of Supervisor Fails To Hang Up"
"Employee Gets Drunk. Employee Shoots Mouth Off. Employee Now Ex-Employee."
Yawn...
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Apparently it kills more than just folk singers.
I knew a better link was sure to be found. And dammit, now I'm hungry...
the ensuing " Two Linux Engineers were fired for having a public kde-gnome e-mail flamewar"..
I still wonder why it has never happens over the years?
Timang tinggi tinggi
parang sudah asah
alang alang mandi
biar sampai basah
Fantastic4 movie should take the responsibility.
[EOM]
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
OK, who is going to post the text of the flamewar?
email catfight ends in dismissals. Film at 11.
everything in moderation
The company could have used this as a viral marketing tool to their advantage - or sold it to some entertainment company (new reality show, with an email component?). It clearly caught the interest and attention of many people.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
I once worked in a department that was all guys when I sent out an email asking if anyone had any althete's feet cream since I was having problem. Not only did that provoked a spirited round of emails during the lunch break on how I grossed everyone out, I got sent to the HR office for creating a disturbance. With foot on desk (which did gross out the HR rep), I pointed out that I had a medical problem and that none of the First Aid kits had any kind of cream or bandages. HR sent my manager to the store to get what I needed and he apologized for sending me to HR. Though they never did replace the First Aid kits.
does anyone else realize that the only reason this is news is because some schmoe was searching online for "katrina" and came across this pointless story?
This isn't news. Two secretaries got into a personal fight and were fired over it. The fact that it happened over email is irrelevant. When did slashdot become the gossip section of the internet?
AccountKiller
Someone is going to find the sandwhich in some refrigerator, and it's going to be great.
XaNk: now I remember why I hated the girls in high school
XaNk: because none of them would talk to me
The exchange is not especially funny; mostly silly.
But I'm surprised they got sacked over THAT. Why couldn't their manager just have a serious talk with them? Couldn't that have cleared any problem?
If having this exchange is improper, then what about the guys that sent it to rival law firms? Isn't that more improper? Were they sacked? Why not?
Is this an example of sexism?
)9TSS
Probably the best e-mail exchange ever:
http://www.harpers.org/DontHaveACowMan.html
From an exchange of emails in fall 2001 between Judd Apatow, the creator of the sitcoms Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared and a successful writer of Hollywood screenplays, and Mark Brazill, the creator of That '70s Show. Topher Grace is one of the stars of That '70s Show. Originally from Harper's Magazine, March 2002.
"show me all the blueprint show me all the blueprint show me all the blueprints"
Hard to believe that any company would fire anyone over that. Either there is something more to the story (e.g., they were looking for a reason to fire one or both of them anyways) or I think the manager who fired them has his/her head up his/her head up their ass.
Hardly. More like embarrassing themselves completely. How pathetic.
The only fair way to resolve this dispute is for the both of them to get naked and wrestle in a pool of jello.
Same article, but with pics of the two ladies.
9 6,00.html
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,16531641-365
Not only is that the lamest, most pitiful flamewar I've ever seen, but shouldn't legal secretaries, of all people, use good grammar?! Even people on Slashdot are more literate!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I do service calls for PC and network tech support in my home city, and just last week I was at ground-zero when a fist-fight broke out between two secretaries. I tried to get the hell out of there, but still had to stick around as the police gathered statements. It was worth it, though, as I did get the joy of seeing the one that started it all get cuffed and dragged off to jail.
"Sometimes you have fun, and sometimes the fun has you"
I find your ideas intriguing and wish to subscribe to your newsletter!
See its crap like this...that's making womens' mud wrestling redundant...
email flamewars!!?? Puuhh leezz!!
Sig Under Construction
This is the kind of shit that happens when people hide behind e-mail instead of working out issues face to face. The tone of someones e-mail is too easily misinterpreted. And no I didn't RTFA!
Seriously, are we supposed to care? and since when does a story about a ham sandwhich getting stolen makes headlines on Slashdot? How did this get posted to the main page, but my stories usually get rejected?
You were fervently aligned.
You were fast.
You are dead.
music lover since 1969
Ah... the no blonde" defense.. she should have known that didn't work in Dumb vs. Dumber.
yeah right
I find this quote very meaningful. It has more punch when it is pictorially represented, like this one.
w00t
Email is a business tool, it is not a personal messaging system
News to me
...for quoting *and* italicizing the text. Only the quotation marks are needed. The italicizing is redundent and an eyesore.
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Oh my. (1) I asked for you to not fill in the missing ones and most importantly (2) That's the lame joke in the post to which I replied. Except that moron got it (closer to) right. It's Soviet Russia and it's just not funny anymore. Do you even know where that comes from? Is that idiot comedian even still alive? Sigh.
everything in moderation
The names in one sound made-up, too.
I wonder if this is an urban legend?
The cat ripped my tongue out and shit on it.
In Soviet Russia, dead horse beats YOU!
>Regardless, the person who forwarded these emails to external parties should be fired because company emails shouldn't be forwarded to unintended recipients without original author's consent.
Why? Was that in the company's acceptable use policy (AUP)? NO?
Many companies have yet to effectively leverage the online employee comportment solutions that are available in the idea marketplace. In the online world, synergies for mitigation of "water cooler" discussions can be harnessed LIKE NEVER BEFORE!
Does your company's AUP need dusting off? Is the disused lavatory that houses the locked Employee Manual filing cabinet just not recieving the foot traffic it deserves because the door is missing its 'Beware of the Leopard' sign? ACT NOW!
Check out some of the quality AUP elements that are at work on my own personal mailbox sender storage space use policy:
- Senders must grant unlimited reproduction, modification, and distrubution of their message contents
- Senders agree to have all AUP-related feedback handled by the on-line erectile disfunction medication retailer that I've received the most spam from this week (currently instant-pharmacy.net, in case you're interested)
Remember: It's quality outsourcing possibilities like these that let me keep my service levels up! Imagine how dissappointed I would be if my customer service workload made me LOSE OUT on the EXCELLENT FREE KARMA available by forwarding little Johnny's request for postcards out to 20 of my BESTEST FRIENDS (who judging by my inbox contents are all direct e-mail marketers)! Now that would just be plain sad.
(Apologies to the late Mr. Adams for blatant fair use of the leopard bit.)
-aT
google that and you'll see that the US, for the most part, still uses emplyoment at will.
How about changing the YRO category to something more describing it's actual contents? Like Your Brain Matter Leaking Online? Is the editor saying the two women got fired and it violated their rights? How? Or my rights? How? I am confused here. How about thet Big Brother thing. Now there's a violation of people's rights... Oh yeah and that Ipod Nano totally violates my rights as I don't yet have one.
Me Too!
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Shit... Lost all the formatting.. Use this link instead http://members.iinet.net.au/~codebasher/rofl.htm
The article makes mentions of "high flyers". What in the world is a "high flyer"?
..the secretaries were sacked, or the lunch was sacked?
Now, 15 years older, I find myself in a male only IT dept and long for: 1. that old work envrionment, 2. the knowledge of the "fairer-sex" that I have gained in the 15 years since, and 3. To be 19 again!
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
HAHA. It was yummy too. Stupid bitch.
http://members.iinet.net.au/~codebasher/rofl.htm
Exactly why we banned guns in Australia.
Some of the problems in America could not happen in Australia as a result. (Oops probably a flamewar in the making)
It's your future that scares me.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
Fair dinkum, mate.
News Ltd affiliates (tabloid bog paper) came out a day later with a full page story, photos, names.
The spirit of Fleet Street is alive and well and living in Sydney.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
flat-out unintelligable gibberish
Spelling is the least of thier problems
I would go so far (as) to say that
Infuriate left and right
Maybe the real reason they got fired was that they were behaving like children, and the abuse of the email system thing was just a convenient excuse.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
If you were wondering what these two felines looked like... Here are their pics:
http://firepacket.net/mirror/flamewar.html
For two legal secretaries who presumably have to deal with the written word on a regular basis there sure are a lot of spelling and gramatical errors in those emails. I hope she doesn't have too much difficulty affording lunch now that she's canned!
I don't understand manager's fascination with firing people. It doesn't make any sense, it's like cutting off your hand when it tickles.
Isn't there any other way to teach these women a lesson? Make them work without lunch for a week. Don't give them a bonus. Reprimand them. But firing? Do the managers expect a random new hire to work better than these experienced (though easily excitable) employees? If yes, why haven't these two been fired years ago? If no, why do managers waste company's money while trying to save face in some idiotic way?
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
...what is she doing with five guys at that exact moment that requires being near a computer on the Internet? Or is there more to her Internet habit than we're being told?
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Yep - That's the Australia I remember.
you had me at #!
Poland?
Get your Unix fortune now!
because he didn't get it in the first place
because he did it wrong
because you asked him not to do it
c'mon. it was so stupid i had to laugh.
sum.zero
Somebody shoot parent with a shot of IQ please. We yet may be able to counter the effects of stupidity!
That's more discussion than for "Stuff that matters" like:
Katrina Delays Shuttle - 178
Intel Enters Anti-Virus Market - 124
CA Releases Patents to OSS - 77
Introduction to Competitive Programming - 161
Microsoft Sues EU - 198
What is Responsible Disclosure for Security Flaws? - 205
New Tool to Track Kernel Testing Time - 92
It seems that even the /. crowd likes to devour a cheesy, tabloid "human interest" item once in a while. However, and I know I shouldn't grouse about rejected stories, I still think my submission on DVD players that play Blu-Ray and HD-DVD is much more news-worthy than this tripe :)
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
I've heard that their periods attract bears...
The bears can smell the menstration!
Or maybe the point of the joke is that law firms really are lousy places to work? I'd heard rumors to that effect, though my own brief experiences weren't so bad (in days of yore when I sometimes worked as a temporary word processor specialist).
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Dear Blondie and Fatso:
Joo R so teh banenated from this firm. P0wned! I own J00! LOL!!
-HR
Two legal secretaries in Sydney have been sacked after a flamewar over a ham sandwich
I know I'm showing my American here but the first thing I thought of was that commercial where the football player flat out tackles people in the office over TPS reports and whatnot... Reguardless, it was funnier when I thought people were being mowed down like quarterbacks.
RTFA, for crisakes.
http://www.melindabird.com/
The emails seemed friendly enough until this bit:
Elizabeth: Thanks I know I'm sweet and I only had your best interests at heart. Now as you would say, "BYE"!
Regina: I'm not blonde!!!
Then it just got wierd, and kind of lame.
There must have been some really odd past personal history behind this where *BYE* gets you a response of "I'm not blonde!!!"... and then the other person takes that as a personal barb (even if they are blonde).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
... due to the flames.
Who would have thought!
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
It appears that not only is he alive, he's online.
http://www.yakov.com/
I dunno about poised and stately.
Most guys aren't that interested in clothes or other stuff in department stores. Not enough to draw blood anyway...
Maybe if it were some other stuff say a BMW at 90% off, then you'd see some kicking and shoving. But clothing? Shirts or trousers? Nah...
Also most guys know that there's a significant chance that the other guy would kill or severely harm you if you really piss them off. "Damn the consequences" is a common guy thing - just look at the newspapers of people killing and being killed. Mostly guys involved.
So for guys, shoving around other guys is a bad idea.
Ladies/girls often get away with shoving/smacking guys. We tend to be more bemused or sometimes even amused when that happens.
Yes, the flame war was lame. What was interesting is this flamewar circulated throught Australian law and finincial organisations very quickly. The record of previous fwds was huge, including many powerful companies and people. I was about number 32 down the line, so this got out to most people.
A similar incident occured when a bank in Brisbane hired someone recently convicted of a $50,000 fraud. The emails of that circulated through some high places, tho was not as well known.
And yes, I want them to battle in a lesbian fight too
"You've got nailed!"
Libertas in infinitum
I agree, this is pretty stupid.
Stupid doesn't begin to describe it. Try pathetic. They wouldn't last 30 seconds on alt.flame.flame.flame.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
so im one of Melinda's 5 boyfriends...F**K!..she's a cheater!
"George Bush is responsible somehow."
That's what the Commie / Greenie / Hippy / Unwashed / Socialist / Liberal / Lesbian / Girly men at the NYT want you to think.
******>> Puts on tinfoil hat and sticks toy US flag ontop of the monitor.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
NEW ORLEANSThroughout the Gulf Coast, Caucasian suburbanites attempting to gather food and drink in the shattered wreckage of shopping districts have reported seeing AfricanAmericans "looting snacks and beer from damaged businesses." "I was in the abandoned Wal-Mart gathering an air mattress so I could float out the potato chips, beef jerky, and Budweiser I'd managed to find," said white survivor Lars Wrightson, who had carefully selected foodstuffs whose salt and alcohol content provide protection against contamination. "Then I look up, and I see a whole family of [African-Americans] going straight for the booze. Hell, you could see they had already looted a fortune in diapers." Radio stations still in operation are advising store owners and white people in the affected areas to locate firearms in sporting-goods stores in order to protect themselves against marauding blacks looting gun shops.
Dominic Knight, from the Chaser Magazine, is the source? Guys, this magazine is sortof like The Onion. Add to that this info is coming from an email he happened to get forwarded... April came early this year. Though I'm sure there are people who know people who know the people involved...
usuall takes me at least 2 lobster dinners and a flower delivery
did any of the emails contain Natalie Portman and grits?
Someone could have been offended by it and threw it away. There is case of some company in Florida banning pork products because it offended some employees religion. Someone got in trouble there over bringing a ham sandwich to work.
.. is dangerous and should only be attempted by qualified zoo-keepers.
Or an instant messenger :-) Email is always risky and one is asking for trouble.
Tarry
http://tarrysingh.blogspot.com/
Now selling "I TOOK THE SANDWICH!" t-shirts.
Only five dollar... cheap!!!!
(Flame)war was beginning. Brunette: What happen? Blonde: We get signal. Brunette: What ! Blonde: Microsoft Outlook turn on. Brunette: It's You !! Boss: How are you women !! Boss: All your jobs are belong to us. Boss: You are on the way to destruction. Brunette: What you say !! Boss: You have no chance to survive make your office empty. Boss: HA HA HA HA ....
Brunette: Take off every 'email' !!
Brunette: You know what you doing.
Brunette: Move 'email'.
Brunette: For great justice.
(Okay, I could have done better, don't mod me down for rushing :))
Linux Engineers have flamewars about vi vs. emacs.
Slashdot trolls have flamewars about Gnome vs. Kde.
In my opinion, Scientology is a cult you should avoid.
This pic is less blurry.
Think about it without the "topquoting if for losers and idiots" blocks...
Most likely, those people know what you wrote them, so they only need to read your answer.
But in case there is any uncertaincy, the original follows so one can queck is.
OTOH, bottom quoting would require to check all references that are send with the email before even getting to the point...
(and PLEASE dont while about "wasted bandwith". A single movie download will need more bandwith than i will ever use for writing emails...)
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Maybe that's what the guy in the article who said "Email is a business tool, not a personal messaging system" meant, but that particular sentence is totally false. Email is a set of network protocols that can be used for whatever. What is acceptable usage needs to be explicitly defined in company policy.
Even it is true enough that these secreteries misused the E-Mail system. However, I get the feeling they were not fired for that. They were fired for the fact that the correspontence became public and their employer was embarrassed. I rather doubt they sent this to rival firms them selves let alone the entire city of Sydney so I still say the secretaries should have been reprimanded, severely repremanded, and the pinkslip should have been reserved for the moron who made company E-Mail coresspondence public property. I get the feeling that if this flame war had not been leaked a reprimand is all these women would have gotten.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Ok so I hafta ask, proving that I am a n00b. Where does this sentence come from? What's the source?
My Favourite Meme
In the company where I work, there are a couple standard things that happen when someone's offcially getting chewed out over e-mail. One of them is that an e-mail asking for a correction or an explanation is sent out, and openly cc:-ed to the department heads of the involved parties, as well as the general manager and HR. This is not a subtle hint. I have never actually seen the results of someone ignoring a "suggestion" like that, but I would imagine that they are not pretty, and could involve some pretty stringent disciplinary proceedings.
If their HR department got not only a barrage of catfighting e-mails, but a corresponding exponential pile of politely-worded carbon copies essentially telling the ladies (and I use the term loosely) that no one but them cares about their disagreement, and to please work it out or at least make it private, I'd bet that's one pissed-off HR department.
Even with an arithmatic series, the load on HR could be impressive. Say the first mass e-mail generated 5 STFU mails, the second one generated 10, the 3rd one generated 15, and so on. By the 10th exchange, HR has a couple hundred complaints to wade through, and is wondering why the merry fuck they did not stop spamming the whole damn office with this stupid shit that no one cares about. Even with a less enthusiastic response, they are bound to have gotten more than one complaint, probably at different points in the exchange. Any reasonably-intelligent user of an e-mail system should realize that when a personal exchange being broadcast to the entire company gets complaints, it's time to take it at least semi-private. Include HR and your supervisor and their supervisor if you must, if you think you're in the right or that doing this will cover your ass, but continuing to spam the entire company after that point is inexcusable.
Speaking as a supervisor who occasionally has to deal with repeated obnoxious behavior and verbal catfights and the like, I am far less inclined to be lenient when it's clear that someone knew that what they were doing was pissing people off and kept on doing it anyway. I expect that company's HR staff doesn't differ much on that account.
If either of them had a history of complaints with HR for forwarding idiotic jokes, urban legends, or bogus virus warnings, then their firing is not in any way a surprise.
I have rarely seen a more accurate depiction of US society. You have put your finger on the problem precisely (though I would tend to think that this primarily a south-westerm US problem.
I had thought that the big issue about Katrina was not the breaking of the levees (they seem to have been hit by barges rather than failed), or the incompetent response (we all have poor politicians, though few of us have whole police forces that run). The real issue was that in an emergency a common response from many NO people was to go survivalist and shoot anything that moved.
You idiot.
Can someone please mod this down?
Serving Suggestion: Defrost
We all know vi is superiour.
^_^
Since they misused email as well, everyone who forwarded it along should have been fired.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
But vi really isn't worth the time to use in this day and age. Its key bindings are designed for computers without a mouse and its interface is a total hack, what with its "command mode" and "edit mode".
Emacs, though not much better, at least brings editors into the late 20th century with its use of menus and support for pointing devices. Not to mention that Emacs is essentially "infinitely programmable" through its Lisp bindings, making it possible for you to mold the editor to you rather than you adapting to the (bad) editor.
It would be tempting to call these secretary's slow learners, but I can remember reading a slashdot article about men in an IT company plotting to take other personnel ( and customers ) with them to form their own breakaway company. They used company blackberries for these communications!
So, it isn't about being tech savvy, it is about common sense or the lack of it.
The secretaries were in the wrong, they got fired.
However, other people in the company, lawyers, were the ones who passed the email exchange onto people outside of the firm.
If you ask me they have equal responsibility in embarrassing the company and should get an equal penalty.
If they haven't my guess would be because they are more valuable to the company or the company is like most in being cowardly and does not want to risk firing lawyers.
These guys ( in addition to the secretarys ) should be ashamed of themselves.
Here are gun-related deaths per 100,000 people in the world's 36 richest countries in 1994:
United States 14.24;
Brazil 12.95;
Mexico 12.69;
Estonia 12.26;
Argentina 8.93;
Northern Ireland 6.63;
Finland 6.46;
Switzerland 5.31;
France 5.15;
Canada 4.31;
Norway 3.82;
Austria 3.70;
Portugal 3.20;
Israel 2.91;
Belgium 2.90;
Australia 2.65;
Slovenia 2.60;
Italy 2.44;
New Zealand 2.38;
Denmark 2.09;
Sweden 1.92;
Kuwait 1.84;
Greece 1.29;
Germany 1.24;
Hungary 1.11;
Republic of Ireland 0.97;
Spain 0.78;
Netherlands 0.70;
Scotland 0.54;
England and Wales 0.41;
Taiwan 0.37;
Singapore 0.21;
Mauritius 0.19;
Hong Kong 0.14;
South Korea 0.12;
Japan 0.05.
source
Supposedly from a Centre For Disease Control study conducted in 1998 based on 1994 data. I can't find the actual study on the CDC website, so take with a grain of salt.
-- The doctor said I wouldn't get so many nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of there!
Murder Rate Per Capita (link).
The United States has 4 times as many intentional murders per 1000 people as Australia.
-- The doctor said I wouldn't get so many nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of there!
got circulated throughout the cities financial district
:-D
UGH! I'd fire you for mis-use of the English grammatical system...
Thank you for telling us they were Japanese. That detail was absolutely essential to following your story.
Good thing my e-mails aren't read in my company...
dayum....I wonder who the other 4 guys are?
I sign-laughed so hard I broke a finger!
It's none other than Homer J. Simpson. For more classic lines (and the context the quote was used in), check out:
http://www.shanemcdonald.com/laughs/l-homer.html
this guy's fast!
OMG, Is somebody REALLY selling this on EBAY ?
i tem=5614107916&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMESE%3AIT&rd =1
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&
Your mare won't start a flamewar!
Do you really believe that criminals in Austrailia don't have access to guns? Dream on.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Peterman: Well, I see what's going on in here. I am smack dab in the middle of a good old fashioned cat fight.
Elaine: Mr. Petermen, this is not a cat fight. This is violent psychotic behavior directed at me all because are told her to swing her arms.
Peterman: Woof!
Elaine: Do you mean "reer?"
Petermen: Yes, that's the one! Good day Elaine.
And...
Kramer: Cat fight?
Elaine: Ok, why? Why do guys do this? What is so appealing to men about a cat fight?
Kramer: Yeye cat fight!
Jerry: Because men think if women are grabbing and clawing at each other there's a chance they might somehow kiss.
Kramer: T-t-t-t...
What, me worry?
Whatever happened to a sane style of communicating with people over e-mail?
I remember times where people actually quoted relevant material from previous mails, trimmed down unnecessary garbage and answered questions *below* the question itself.
These days you need to sift through millions of lines of excessive "Original Message" quoting without any reference to the actual contents of previous messages. Sucky line breaks, HTML-crap, incoherent writing and idiotic bitmap smileys have made e-mail communication a Pain In The Ass, but certainly not an effective means of getting things done in a coherent fashion.
Thank god there are some lonely islands in usenet with old-fashioned people who take the three seconds to trim down excessive quoting, who put answers *after* the questions and who know how to use an editor to get a message across.
One of these days I am going to start a company that uses a newsserver as its main means of internal communication and I'll fire everyone who doesn't play by the rules of old style usenet posting.
I am just about to click on TheHoneyBaked Ham Co in my Opera Ad bar!
Of course they got fired. That ham sandwich was INDICTED by the Grand Jury :)
Your sense of humour is so, so old
You must be new here...
Regardless, the person who forwarded these emails to external parties should be fired because company emails shouldn't be forwarded to unintended recipients without original author's consent.
The entire concept of considering all emails at work "business communications" is ridiculous. You ever say something personal to the person in the cubicle next door? Yeah? You ever use your PBX to talk to the person down the hall? Email is just the modern way of doing that.
Now, granted, they shouldn't have got in a spat, but a *firing offense*? That's absolutely absurd. What actual damage did they cause the firm, maybe an hour of wasted time on each of their parts?
Now, I can understand people being concerned about massive goofing off at work -- Slashdot, email, and so forth make it easy for that to be an issue. But expecting *no* personal communication at work is ridiculous. I don't cease being a human when I'm at work -- you can expect me to be working the strong majority of the time, but if you don't expect me to comment on, say, Katrina to co-workers, you want robots working for you, not humans.
Finally, having your lunch stolen is a real pisser -- I remember when I was working at a research firm and someone (would have had to have been at least a thirty-year-old, and most people there were more like sixty) who had to have been making a pretty significant chunk of change swiped one of the sandwiches from my lunch. I was pretty pissed -- there's no real way to defend your lunch in a common fridge -- and while I didn't send out an email asking for reimbursement, I can understand being as pissed as she was.
Why didn't they just sit down with the secretaries, have 'em shake hands and make up, tell 'em not to CC lots of people or make personal attacks, and let them get back to work? It's just ridiculous. Every now and then in their life, people get pissed off enough to do stupid things. Most of them, fortunately, are not in a situation to do something stupid, but these ones were. So now, instead of the company having two experienced secretaries who won't get in flamewars again, they're going to have to go hire two new people. Great.
There are times when you want to fire someone -- when that person is just not suited to work at the company. However, this smells awfully like a knee-jerk from some guy upstairs -- and that's not good management.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
It wasn't a violation of acceptable use ,it was the correction fluid on the computer display that did them in...
As usual, there is probably a LOT more to the story.
As a manager, such a tepid 'flamewar' hardly rates my attention, much less the actual FIRING of two full time employees. Please. People have personalities, and they won't always be a wonderful happy always-loving bonded group of soulmates. Sometimes they'll fight, sometimes they'll fight over really, really STUPID things.
But to fire them?
I'd have them both in my office, show them the now-public email, and discuss with them the appropriate use of email and work time. Maybe I'd make a little issue over the embarrassment to the company of the public email. It probably wouldn't hurt to remind them that company emails are monitored, and theirs in particular would be up for scrutiny.
I'd also make a departmental or, (if I was high enough in the management) companywide point about the forwarding of obviously personal emails of others. I agree with the posters here that the schmuck that forwarded it 'out' is also a bit culpable.
But FIRING them? That's overreacting entirely, IMO.
-Styopa
Flamewar? That wasn't a flamewar, but a little spat! At least, from the crappy details we got from the news article.
Let these folks learn about Usenet, and them drop them off in one of the more entertaining newsgroups, sans Nomex undies. Maybe then they will experience a flame war.
That's the one telling us that someone died and that you are now King. Thanks in advance.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
I bet you're such a sensitive sitzpinkler, too.
Wuss.
PS - it's up to +5 now. Ha ha.
PPS - Fuck you and all the twits who think like you.
*** Topic in #company is 'how was your weekend, chaps?'
*** m4nag3r changes topic to 'only work here'
*** Joins: K4t3
*** Joins: M3lind4
<K4t3> I cant login to my boxen. It was on 192.168.0.19 yestreday.
<K4t3> You stolen my leet boxen! Give it back!
<M3lind4> Chicx, i scaned your boxen, its on 192.168.0.20
<M3lind4> and its not leet, it sux
<K4t3> msg me on priv now.
<K4t3> omg dont be gay gimmie my boxen on 192.168.0.19
<M3lind4> oh what now biotch
<M3lind4> use your pwn static IP
<M3lind4> and rtfm
<K4t3> Im not n00b!!111!2!
<M3lind4> dont be a commie. oops too late
<K4t3> u sux
<M3lind4> u r ph4t fock
<K4t3> ur fockin gay
<K4t3> i got leet sex0r, leet boxen, & more c4sh than YOU!
<M3lind4> omg lol, yousa 'ho , biatch.
<M3lind4> my clan got 5 sexx0rz!
<M3lind4> lol.
*** m4nag3r sets mode: +b K4t3*!*@*.* M3lind4*!*@*.* (off-topic, biatches)
*** K4t3 has been kicked my m4nag3r
*** M3lind4 has been kicked my m4nag3r
That's exactly why you should have a seperate personal email account, even if you have one from your place of business: use the personal account for personal matters, and use the business account for business matters.
It's like using personal stationary versus corporate letterhead for snail mail.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Pretty funny how their email chain was circulated, although not surprising... after all, men love a great catfight.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
I don't think many people whose religions forbid pork care who else eats it. I believe the Jewish and Muslim books say "YOU should not eat pork", not "EVERYONE should not eat pork". Personally, none of my Muslim co-workers ever seem to a damn what I eat...
Freedom: "I won't!"
I don't know though, the mailing seemed like it was to a floor list - most of those people would presumably know her hait color.
I think instead the "I'm not blonde!" was more of a taunt, as in "I may have forgotten my lunch but at least I'm not blonde!".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Of course, stuff left over the weekend is fair game.
At least one of my friends tries to make this a Unix versus Microsoft Windows holy war, but I set my mail client to reply at the top no matter which one I'm using, because it makes sense to me and apparently to almost everyone else who uses email too.
Sometimes people have ideas and improve how things are done. Just because it's new and different doesn't mean it's worse. I think this is one of those occasions.
OK thanks I'm done now ;-)
www.clarke.ca
It is my god given right as an American to piss standing up. I say let them install those devices here, I'll piss on it too.
this report on a flamewar is likely gonna start several new ones here. this is throwing a burning torch out the window.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
This is nothing more than another successful action by employers to seize power from employees. Although employers own the e-mail systems, it is ludicrous to fire people for "abusing" it. Apart from the fact that any worker will not consider the use of the e-mail (in this example) abuse, it is simply management overpowering workers...
:(
Oh well, I suppose it was inevitable... companies were going to fire workers sooner or later for so-called abuse of e-mail... Next on the list: abuse of internet bandwidth...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
What is happening to your Culture down there?
"Crikey!"
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
The email eventually got forwarded to the whole company (and beyond). But if you read the exchange, the reason why the other person on the other floor got the email was that she used to work on that floor and thus was on the list. So originally the target audience was much smaller. Really I don't think you can read the "Not Blonde!" thing as anything but an attack on the person the email is sent to, who is in fact blonde.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They weren't fired for mis-using company email; they were fired for making the company look bad to its rivals and potential clients. The "flamewar" looked foolish and unprofessional, and firing the women gives the company the chance to distance itself from such behaviour and limit the damage to its image. It's all about PR.
(And, before someone points out "haha, firing them got the story into the news!!!", that doesn't matter---the story was already well-known inside the industry, and I frankly doubt they give a damn what you or I think. Firing the women makes the company look better inside the industry, and us outsiders are irrelevant.)
In Capitalist Amerika, you fire off flamemail.
In Soviet Russia, flamemail fires you!
Top posting is fine, but I've found that some people like to hit "Reply" on an existing correspondence rather than "Compose" when the topic is completely unrelated to that existing correspondence.
:o)
:o)
Such as:
by C0deM0nkey (203681) on Thursday September 08, @11:49AM (#13509914)
seems to be more readable to the average user
Only because the average user has been *trained* by bad messaging habits to read email that way.
Top-posting is fine (it annoys me, but its tolerable) if you are engaged in a single-threaded, IM-style conversation where you only have to answer one question at a time. When someone asks multiple, unrelated questions in a single email or touches on multiple topics that cannot all be dealt with in a single response, top-posting falls flat on its face.
The division on this issue seems to be squarely along business users and technical users. Most technical users have been trained in Usenet-style posting: trimmed messages, clear annotation, appropriate response. Business users have been trained by Microsoft - fire and forget.
In reply to:
by robertjw (728654) on Thursday September 08, @11:25AM (#13509685)
I bet top posters drive you crazy.
You know what's interesting? I have friends that I have attempted to email the way the GP described and they emailed me backup complaining that they couldn't figure out what I was talking about. Now I just top post - seems to be more readable to the average user.
In reply to:
by Doc_NH (898298) on Thursday September 08, @10:30AM (#13509188)
I bet top posters drive you crazy.
Whatever happened to a sane style of communicating with people over e-mail? I remember times where people actually quoted relevant material from previous mails, trimmed down unnecessary garbage and answered questions *below* the question itself. These days you need to sift through millions of lines of excessive "Original Message" quoting without any reference to the actual contents of previous messages. Sucky line breaks, HTML-crap, incoherent writing and idiotic bitmap smileys have made e-mail communication a Pain In The Ass, but certainly not an effective means of getting things done in a coherent fashion. Thank god there are some lonely islands in usenet with old-fashioned people who take the three seconds to trim down excessive quoting, who put answers *after* the questions and who know how to use an editor to get a message across. One of these days I am going to start a company that uses a newsserver as its main means of internal communication and I'll fire everyone who doesn't play by the rules of old style usenet posting.
In reply to:
by DF5JT (589002) on Thursday September 08, @08:50AM (#13508273)
Whatever happened to a sane style of communicating with people over e-mail?
I remember times where people actually quoted relevant material from previous mails, trimmed down unnecessary garbage and answered questions *below* the question itself.
These days you need to sift through millions of lines of excessive "Original Message" quoting without any reference to the actual contents of previous messages. Sucky line breaks, HTML-crap, incoherent writing and idiotic bitmap smileys have made e-mail communication a Pain In The Ass, but certainly not an effective means of getting things done in a coherent fashion.
Thank god there are some lonely islands in usenet with old-fashioned people who take the three seconds to trim down excessive quoting, who put answers *after* the questions and who know how to use an editor to get a message across.
One of these days I am going to start a company that uses a newsserver as its main means of internal communication and I'll fire everyone who doesn't play by the rules of old style usenet posting.
In reply to:
by Nan0c (114572) on Thursday September 08, @12:38AM (#13506503)
All bad really however you look at it. Link to email extra
A culture of entitlement is not only because of social nets its because the view people have of them. In the US so much is excused because of a persons life story, we love to turn into . Notice I said lack of entitlement *AND* lack of personal . A net is a fine, fine thing but in the US we have a with generation after generation sleeping in it. Parents that even know what school their kids go to!
but I doubt that New Deal is the source of the problem considering that in the developed world we have both the highest crime rates and the smallest of the programs you blame for it.
Ten minutes you posted this I corrected myself and said Great Society.
Did the previsously mentioned sandwich have a moist-maker? Remember the Friends episode when Ross had a Thanksgiving left-overs sandwich with a mo... Ugh, forget it, just forget it. Nothing to see here.
Favorite quote: "
I've been in the situation many times where I left things in white-collar work fridges and had them stolen or used, eventhough it's always been clear that they shouldn't be.
Why would well-paid people do such petty things, as stealing your food?
Clintons Welfare reform in the 90's, while republican inspired, was a great middle ground. We will help you but soon after you must go out and work (Germany has a similar program). That program greatly angered those who are in the industry of poverty who were mostly politicians and many social workers.
What do you expect from women? Between the hair pulling and the bon-bons, there's not much time left over for actual work (you know, making coffee and answering phones).
Like I said, sexually deprived white men. In this case *boys*.
> in England violent crime went UP?
Care to explain the notion of "correlation vs. causation"?
There's no indication Britain's violent crime wave is a result of its gun laws. Certainly, Canada is not suffering a similar surge in violent crime, despite having quite restrictive firearm (especially handgun) laws. Perhaps some other factor is at play?
> Can you show that banning guns accomplishes anything other then promise criminals saftey?
It removes the ability of suicidal individuals to use an extremely effective means of suicide. Since suicide is by far the leading cause of firearm death in countries like Canada with low firearm violence, banning guns in such countries lowers the number of suicides by virtue of making any attempt at suicide less likely to succeed. (Certainly, some of those people would keep trying until they succeeded, but many would not, and would go on to be healthy and productive members of society.)
> Tell you what if guns are so bad how did socitiy surivie for generations
> with all the fireaarms hung over the door?
Guns were too expensive for most people to own? Death from disease killed people far more frequently than guns do, even in the US? People were more responsible back in the day?
I don't know. Neither do you, though, and we both should admit it.
> Fact in the "Gun Free" slaughter dome in NO they have found 40 people so
> far beaten and stabbed to death includeing a 7year old.
And you think the criminals who did that would have been less murderous if they'd been allowed to bring guns in?
Unlikely.
Also unlikely that you're right about what happened in the Superdome, considering that many of the horror stories appear to be nothing but rumour.
> Use your brains for once.
Yes, please do.
Note that I'm not saying guns are not valuable tools for self-defense in the hands of citizens. I'm just saying that you're spouting nonsense, and making pro-gun people look like fools by association. Big difference.
I knew the spelling nitpickers had got far too much confidence on this forum when some fool tried to correct my spelling of aluminium based on his regional spelling, which is different to mine. Consider obvious things like that, and that correct spelling on a forum such as this is really as relevant as spellchecking mobile telephone messages.
Wouldn't it be better if a reply were an individual entity, they were linked together, and you could sort them the way you like? Rather than a huge mass of text with a million "> > >"s in front?
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&i tem=5614107916&rd=1&ss
C-c-c... catfight!!!!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I'm in a low-paid job (IT), and yet I can still afford a sandwich.
Even if I couldn't afford a sandwich with the money I have on me, I have the tools to be able to obtain sufficient dunging (legs, cashpoint card, near-by cashpoint).
It removes the ability of suicidal individuals to use an extremely effective means of suicide. Since suicide is by far the leading cause of firearm death in countries like Canada with low firearm violence, banning guns in such countries lowers the number of suicides by virtue of making any attempt at suicide less likely to succeed.
I think the next most common method, is hanging which is also highly lethal, so it wouldn't make suicide attempts less likely to succeed. Hanging is preferred by women over guns.
(Certainly, some of those people would keep trying until they succeeded, but many would not, and would go on to be healthy and productive members of society.)
I'm not so sure about that. More info here http://suicidemethods.net/
Just keep forwarding the e-mail around - pass on the bad karma, why don't you?
Thanks!
--LWM
PS - should I call you Mr Can't Keep a GirlFriend?
Do you need a game-programming slacker lackey