Infamous Emails Don't Always Kill Careers

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "Those oft-forwarded email gaffes don't always lead to career meltdowns for the ashamed senders, Jared Sandberg writes in the Wall Street Journal. In some corners of the business world, preserving a reputation can be less important than acquiring one in the first place. For instance, the 2003 legal summer associate who accidentally emailed 40 colleagues to announce he was 'busy doing jack' ended up getting a job at the firm. More recently, the young woman who told off a lawyer offering her a job -- and saw her email forwarded worldwide -- is quite confident that the notoriety can't hurt, and might even help, her career."

Comments

It's the old adage...

[fak3r]

there's no such thing as bad publicity.

(1st?)

They do more often than they don't

[winkydink]

You can't extrapolate from one intern who was hired despite having sent out a stupid email. TFA implies he spent the rest of the summer kissing ass and working his butt off.

As for Abadala, she's a trust-fund baby. I suspect she'll learn the hard way that professional networking is extremely important in a services career.

Many people have been passed over for hire for something stupid they posted to Usenet or an Internet forum. Googling a person before hire to learn as much about them as possible is standard practice these days.

Re:They do more often than they don't

[cavtroop]

Googling a person before hire to learn as much about them as possible is standard practice these days. Not at Radio Shack :)

Re:They do more often than they don't

[dal20402]

Lawyers are not paid to "give the smack down." They're paid to achieve the best possible result for clients. Once in a while, that may involve being forceful. But, more often, that involves succeeding in negotiations and working with the opposition to achieve a resolution that works for both parties. Even in litigation, things go more smoothly for everyone when opposing counsel have a good working relationship.

If I were a client, I wouldn't touch Abdala with a ten-foot pole; I wouldn't trust her to have the good judgment and professional collegiality necessary to get me a good result. If I were a lawyer, I'd dread any situation where I had to work with her, and I certainly wouldn't hire her to work in my firm.

Re:They do more often than they don't

[cluedweasel]

"Googling a person before hire to learn as much about them as possible is standard practice these days." Well that explains a lot. Googling myself (don't do that in public) the other day I found someone convicted of supplying heroin with not only the same name as me but the same age and living in the same town as I worked in at the time of his conviction. I wonder how many HR folks put 2+2 together and got 5 on that one?

Re:They do more often than they don't

[doxology]

Is your name Michael Bolton?

Re:They do more often than they don't

[Daniel Wood]

You would have to be stupid to post on slashdot under your real name.

CLM Vrs CEM

[eldavojohn]

In the company I work for, misuse of e-mail may constitute a CLM.

That's a Career Limiting Move. Not to be confused with sleeping with the boss's daughter--a Career Ending Move.

A sample email

[creepynut]

>>>>
>>>> SEND THIS EMAIL TO AT LEAST 50 FRIENDS AND YOU WILL
TOTALLY
>>>> GET A JOB AS A LAWYER. IT WORKED FOR ME LOLZ. IF
YOU
>>>> DO NOT SEND IN THE NEXT 10 MINUTES YOU WILL NOT GET
THE
>>>> JOB AND A LAWYER WILL COME AND BEAT YOU UP LOLZ
>>>
>>> DO THIS GUYZ IT WORKS
>>
>>
>>

Does anybody see the Office Space Parallel?

[neonprimetime]

Does this article remind anybody of when Peter got the promotion, and Michael and Samir got layed off?

Re:Does anybody see the Office Space Parallel?

[MarkGriz]

"Does this article remind anybody of when Peter got the promotion, and Michael and Samir got layed off?"

It's not that I'm too lazy to RTFA, it's that I just don't care.

To: DL:All-Employees

[PIPBoy3000]

Hey, I was busy putting off my project work and came across this funny page: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/21/175222 6
You guys all get the irony, right?

Re:It depends

[flewp]

Or if your boss's name is Jack...

Windows didn't hurt Microsoft

[EmbeddedJanitor]

C'mon folk, this is /., gotta keep the crusade going!

Office Space

[albeit unknown]

I'd like to move us right to Peter Gibbons. We had a chance to meet this young man, and boy that's just a straight shooter with upper management written all over him.

Re:Ummmm

[poot_rootbeer]

Maybe this is because in the legal profession you need to be forceful and unyielding in order to help you argue your cases.

"bla bla bla"

Re:It depends

[pilgrim23]

testimonial: I was leaving work one day and...the elevator stopped between floors. I pushed the emergency talk button and got a P..rson talk.. th..sounded ..ike t.is (the sound cut in and out) . I was told, by the dispatcher (what I could hear of the conversation and from later discussion) communication problems were my fault (huh?). Since I could hear little, I talked into the mike and explained where I was and what the circumstance was. then settled back on the floor of the car, and waited 2 hours for someone to get me out. This was a Friday night and I was perhaps the only one in the building by then...
By the way this was the 2nd time I had been stuck on an elevator in that building and the final upshot was the maintenance company lost the contract. But, on to the thread: I sat down with my iBook and wrote a log of my experience via email(s) and sent it to Building maint. CCed to my supervisor (wireless) and by 1.5 hours the email contained the word "damn" in one line. Nothing worse; just that.
Next Monday I was called on the use of offensive language.

Re:Unbridled Optimisim

[PriceIke]

Her finances are going to be just fine. Did you see her picture? That's professionally done promotional photo, not a candid by some hack ABC photog. I'd lay money she'll get a few dozen job offers, and probably a few marriage proposals out of the deal. She could probably even start up an email-etiquette advice column in some legal rag.

This was such a non-story on a slow news day. "bla bla bla"? So what? I've seen much worse.

Must be nice

[MrNougat]

From TFA:

As for Ms. Abdala, she says a mea culpa "will never happen." She's living on funds provided by her father and has rented office space for her own practice. "I've never been the type to work under someone," she says.

I won't work under someone, earning my own way, but I'll shamelessly nurse from the teat. That doesn't work for people whose parents don't have the funds to be venture capitalists for their children.