MPR News Share your insight

Have any of your texts, voice mails or e-mails come back to haunt you?

Eric Ringham December 16, 2009, 6:00 AM Dec 16, 2009

Officials in the last White House are facing the release of e-mails they had thought were private. Tiger Woods’ text messages and voice mails were made public. Have any of your texts, voice mails or e-mails come back to haunt you?

About the blogger

Eric Ringham

eringham@mpr.org

David

It wasn’t exactly an email or text, but something I posted online eventually outed me as a gay man to my family before I was ready to tell them. In the end it turned out to be positive as it’s brought us closer together, but I was still kicking myself for being so naive about Internet privacy.

Shane

No. From a professional standpoint, i make sure not to use my professional email for personal use. Granted, there have been sometimes where i have, but i never put any information that i wouldn’t say outloud in front of other people. With all that is going on and all that has been happening since the invention of email, I just see it as too much of a risk.

Alan

Sarcasm & humor often do not translate in “written” forms of communication. I sent an e-mail, poignant, but intended to be lighthearted. The response was not cheery & required reparations and explanation of intent. Lesson, don’t assume the tone intended will translate and be understood. There’s no way to convey humor with inflections or body language. It’s best to leave it out.

Penelope

I was very careful with my professional e-mail, however I did get into trouble for honestly answering an online “anonomus” survey at work regarding a class that was required. Apparently we were only suppose to tell them how wonderful the class was, wish I had know before filling it out.

Mike

I take exception to the framing of the question–“Officials in the last White House are facing the release of e-mails they had thought were private. ”

White House documents are public documents–subject to the Freedom of Information Act dating back to 1966 and 1974 (and updated several times since then). Work product of the staff of the White House (and all federal agencies) are subject to this act. The Bush Administration was flaunting the law when it adopted policies which they used to keep secret the communications which ARE public documents and should be public knowledge.

The FOIA already addresses work document s (such as personnel issues, executive privilege, etc.) which are not considered public information–but I’m greatly surprised a news organization of any sort would suggest that much (or any) of the 22 million emails the last administration conveniently lost or erased were private enough to keep from a reporter’s scrutiny.

Privacy in communications is very different when you’re working for the people than when you’re working for the man, man.

John

I have learned never to say anything in an email you would not want to be public knowledge. You have no control over who the recipients forward it to.

Jo Marsicano

No, because I am extremely careful about what I post online, text, tweet, etc. This stuff is public and permanent – therefore I handle it with care.

Darren

“Haunt” me? Not really. I DID, however, call out the CFO of a small company for a VERY short-sighted computer policy that would have a detrimental effect on customer satisfaction. I did the old “Reply to all” during that e-mail exchange and knew exactly what I was doing when I did that.

I was told to “go home” for several days, and then was forced to sign a “Don’t do that ever again” document.

I found a different (better) job within a day – I was looking for a better job anyway.

Apparently, that e-mail exchange has made it into that company’s lore and I was greeted by pats on the back from the “worker bees” as I left the building.

I suppose something, someday, will bite me in the ass.
TheServent

It kind of depends on your sense of guilt and what was found. just the other day I wrote a poorly worded set of instructions for a fairly simple task …. and the person on the receiving end ( who knew better) followed them explicitly – then reported the results.

Combining two different axiom’s :(1) the pen is mighter than the sword & (2) live by the sword die by the sword ….. it seems like a lot of swashbucklers running around with daggers n’swords!
JM Shep

I have not, to my knowledge, had a text, voicemail or e-mail come back to haunt me. However, I have discovered that if you delete your texts, they are gone to you, but the police can get ahold of them. I once called my cell provider and asked if I would be able to retrieve some texts. They told me that only with a court-order can they release that information. That’s ridiculous! They’re my texts!
Auntie Smedley

While I’ve not been the recipient of this kind of trouble myself, I saw the result of inappropriate e-mail exchanges first hand at my place of business a few months ago. A competent female coworker who had been with company for a number of years was suddenly terminated with full dishonor. The VP of HR, VP of Operations and another male employee supervised the cleaning out of her desk, surrender of her pass card and a humiliating escorted march out the door. Turns out she had been using her business e-mail account to forward some very objectionable material to others, both inside and outside of the company. The e-mails were blatantly racist and vitriolic in nature, and one of them managed to find its way to the “in” box of a VP of one of our most important business partners, with our company’s business card fully intact.

While I’ve always been very careful with work e-mail, knowing that it ultimately belongs to the company, I’m sure this was an educational experience for many of my coworkers.
Jessica Sundheim

Nope! I am human and I can be harsh, but I save my unkind words for people who have tons of power and money and who have done much worse than bandy names about. So, if I call it like it is, why should I be haunted?