A little loose e-mail, even when it’s sent with the lightest of intentions, can be a dangerous thing. Most people worry about having their messages secretly monitored by a boss–and they should, since the courts have declared that employers are entitled to any e-mail that passes through the office. But the real threat to keeping terminal-to-terminal chatter private is not a snoopy supervisor (or even an office jokemeister) but human error. Electrons move a little too quickly for us mere mortals: every day people compose messages (frequently of the romantic variety) and then accidentally send them someplace unintended–like to everyone else in the office. “Think of e-mail like a postcard,” warns Barry Lawrence of the Society of Human Resource Management. “Anyone can read it along the way.”
Most stray e-mail results in nothing more painful than red faces. Susan Grady of Manhattan was sitting at her desk one day when a sizzling message scrolled across her screen. “I’m standing here naked, dying to caress your breasts,” it began. She knew the author–but, well, not that way. Grady corrected the obvious error with gentle humor: “Don’t break my heart and tell me that it wasn’t meant for me.” Less fortunate was a gay man who worked at an Internet service provider in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. He mistakenly sent 60 pleading love notes out to the firm’s user list of 5,000 people. Or take Sean of Tampa, Fla. (now a stringer for NEWSWEEK), whose co-worker Anne began sharing tiresome details of her love life. One day she messaged Sean that the man she was dating liked a certain highly specific feature of her anatomy. Sean then complained to another friend by e-mail that he was sick of hearing of such intimacies–only he sent it to Anne. Whoops! On the bright side, Anne stopped confiding.
Sometimes the damage from such misplaced e-mail can be far more lasting, as two married reporters who were carrying on a torrid love affair at a Midwestern newspaper learned. Circulating a recipe for turkey salad in a public queue, he accidentally attached a note from her about how great last night was. Both spouses soon found out. Two divorces ensued.
Misaddressed e-mail may be a costly liability for business, too. Two black employees of the brokerage firm Morgan Stanley & Co. recently got hold of a misdirected e-mail circulating among white staffers about a foulmouthed 18-year-old ninth grader named “Leroy.” Asserting that the note was “racist” and created a “hostile environment,” the two are suing for $30 million. The court ruling could add another chapter to harassment law. Meanwhile, the lesson for individual employees is clear: if you can’t predict (where your note will end up, that is), you must omit.
