question for office drones

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if an employee with some degree of responsibility is out of the office for an extended period of time, how common is it for that person's coworkers to check his or her business e-mail? is that generally the done thing?

― born-again christians in the old corral (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 23:50 (twenty years ago)

i know that sometimes there are "i'll be out of the office until such-and-such, please speak to so-and-so in the meantime" auto-messages, but you'd be surprised how many offices don't have any idea how to set that shit up.

― born-again christians in the old corral (Jody Beth Rosen), Wednesday, 28 December 2005 23:52 (twenty years ago)

I've never heard of that being done - it would take some extreme need and extreme measures for it to ever happen in our department.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 29 December 2005 00:00 (twenty years ago)

We're a very small team and are constantly checking each other email; there's one person in particular whose primary job it is to build up client relationships and she frequently gets the task-specific emails that should really be coming to me or another colleague. If I was off for a week, I wouldn't trust an Out-Of-Office autoreply to do the trick - I'd want people to be checking my email. Strangely, I felt the opposite in my previous job.

― Michael Jones (MichaelJ), Thursday, 29 December 2005 00:11 (twenty years ago)

No one checks anybody else's e-mail unless they're specifically asked to in my office. We're 6-7 people. I guess if there's something in particular you need to get out of someone else's e-mail, it might be justified, but I'd get their permission first anyway.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 29 December 2005 00:13 (twenty years ago)

If 'some degree of responsibility' = 'senior-level executive', their admin will likely be checking their e-mail and delegating what needs to be delegated.

And a lot of out-of-office autoreplies will say 'I'm out 'till (this date); if you need immmediate assistance, please contact person x'. In that case, you can assume the addressee isn't going to read it 'till they get back.

Note that a lot of companies will not sent autoreplies to external addresses/domains; if someone makes a spam run, an autoreply will just confirm a live address.

― Jeff Wright (JeffW1858), Thursday, 29 December 2005 03:41 (twenty years ago)

if you've asked for a reply and you haven't gotten one by the end of the day, should you assume that no one has read the message?

― born-again christians in the old corral (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 29 December 2005 03:46 (twenty years ago)

this is why we have PHONES and ROLE email aliases (CUSTOMER.SERVICE@BIZ.COM)

― GET EQUIPPED WITH BUBBLE LEAD (ex machina), Thursday, 29 December 2005 03:50 (twenty years ago)

my boss is the editor, so if someone isn't checking her e-mail every five minutes we're missing pitches/copy/vital information about ads/demands for cash/invitations to lunch/etc.

similarly, as the production editor, all the TV listings changes come to my e-mail address. first thing i do when i go on holiday is hand over my password to whoever's covering.

it's my work e-mail, FFS. i don't really give a toss who reads it.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 29 December 2005 09:31 (twenty years ago)

If someone's out and they haven't given permission for someone else to check their email, then our IT won't give anyone access, as apparently that would be illegal in the uk.

― Vicky (Vicky), Thursday, 29 December 2005 09:49 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, we'd need their password before we could look at it. There's no need really, anything important comes to at least five people in the same team.

― Rumpie (lil drummer girl parumpumpumpu), Thursday, 29 December 2005 10:22 (twenty years ago)

[ring]
IT: "hello, IT"
me: "hello it's simon at the magazine. i need to get into my colleague's e-mail urgently."
IT: "can i have a request in writing, signed by your line manager, their line manager and the lord god almighty?"
me: "no. we're on deadline."
IT: "ok, it's [standard password that almost everyone was issued with and nobody changed]."
me: "top, ta."

it's work e-mail, for fuck's sake. the way i see it, my account is owned - and probably read - by the company. it's the least private thing i can think of.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 29 December 2005 10:36 (twenty years ago)

I agree completely, especially when working for an organisation that is subject to FOI and emails are classed as FOI requests which need to be turned around in 20 working days....

But it's often a work culture that emails and other records don't belong to the business but belong to the individual

― Vicky (Vicky), Thursday, 29 December 2005 10:46 (twenty years ago)

I guess it all depends on the company you work for...

― Rumpie (lil drummer girl parumpumpumpu), Thursday, 29 December 2005 10:49 (twenty years ago)

It depends entirely on the company and their corporate culture.

If someone's planning to be away for any length of time here, then their email will get read. Peons will be asked to hand their password over to their supervisor whilst they're on holiday. For management and board members, I'll be asked to give either myself or the office secretary access to their email, so if anything important comes in we can deal with it.

― Forest Pines (ForestPines), Thursday, 29 December 2005 12:00 (twenty years ago)

sometimes when you email to someone pretty senior and you get an automatic out-of-office reply, this reply includes some kind of warning that someone else might be reading these emails (big pharmas do, apparently)

― olenska (olenska), Thursday, 29 December 2005 13:44 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, but the warning coming AFTER you've sent your rude holiday snaps and a moaning email about how shite your job isn't much use (NB I've never actually done this).

My emails get read at work when I'm not there. Doesn't bother me as no-one knows my work email. My previous employer was much better, and my mum and a couple of friends had my email address, and I don't think anyone else would even *think* to look at my email - it was difficult enough to get them to check their own!

― ailsa (ailsa), Thursday, 29 December 2005 13:52 (twenty years ago)

its pretty normal to do this at my office.. we all know each other's passwords and things. also, i would never read what i thought was a personal email on my co-workers email, and i know they wouldnt do it to me, either. so, its allright w/ me.

― POOP BITCH (Mandee), Thursday, 29 December 2005 13:56 (twenty years ago)

well, yes, that's the point. if i need to look at my boss's e-mail and there are two new messages, one from a.hack@misery.com saying "HERE IS THE COPY" and another from her.husband@home.com saying "ABOUT TONIGHT", i'm only going to look at one of them.

[insert lame joke about which it is here]

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 29 December 2005 14:02 (twenty years ago)

we've all got access to each others email in our team, it's no big deal i have nothing to hide and was a good thing today after coming back from 9 days leave to find that someone had kindly dealt with most of it and i didn't have to wade through hundreds of emails.

― Ste (Fuzzy), Thursday, 29 December 2005 14:03 (twenty years ago)

When I've deputised in the past I've been given access to my team leader's email. It saves time. Deputies usually get added to distribution list anyway.

― Stone Monkey (Stone Monkey), Thursday, 29 December 2005 15:05 (twenty years ago)

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