Hi - I like a good train wreck. Anyone have any email horror stories they'd like to share? Co-workers getting fired and all that? So we can learn from them, of course ...

Ha! OK, here's one ... A few years back, we were planning an office toga party, and my friend was writing up the invitation. He parodied the famous "Animal House" "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?" speech. Instead of Niedermayer and Dean Wormer being the targets, it was the heads of our department. Then he accidentally sent it to the entire office, rather than just the intended guest list. He spent the rest of the day trying to get secretaries to get that email off of the system before the bosses found out. A few did anyway. Some thought it was funny, but others (who never saw "Animal House" and have no sense of humor) thought my friend had gone off his rocker. One reacted by responding, "The Germans didn't bomb Pearl Harbor!"

I’ve seen first-hand how important it is to stay professional if you use Instant Messenger at work. My boss has macular degeneration, which means he doesn’t see very well. He also can be a jerk and likes to scream at people on the phone, and that has led his staff to hold him in low regard, calling him “Blindy.” One day we could all hear him screaming at someone on the phone and my friend meant to Instant Message me and ask, “What’s wrong with Blindy today?” But instead of hitting my name when she sent it, she sent it to our boss. It was a fatal mistake. He called her into his office and told her to get her stuff and get out. She was fired on the spot. It’s far too easy to make a terrible mistake on IM, and that’s why I would never degrade someone in that medium.

Ouch!

I have a friend who opened an e-mail from his new father-in-law, at work, thinking nothing of it. It was naked women; he was mortified. Luckily, he followed procedure and contacted his manager right away to let him know. The manager ended up being contacted by tech support, letting him know what his employee had opened. If he had not called his manager immediately after viewing, he would have been fired.