Every time my friend (a manager) is out for the day, her boss goes into her office, logs onto her system and checks her email. Sometimes 3 or 4 times a day. I asked my friend about it one day and she just rolled her eyes and blew it off. I said I would never give anyone here my login info and she said she tells her friends never to send personal stuff to her work address so it’s a little annoying but it’s no big deal. If you called in sick, would you have a problem if your boss was constantly going into your office, sitting in your chair, logging onto your computer and checking your email? To be clear, there is nothing that happens around here that can’t wait one day to take care of. If there ever was, my friend's boss would get a call/email about it. There is no reason whatsoever to be checking her email every few hours when she’s not here. Invasion of privacy?
It's weird yes. My boss comes into my office to make personal calls...drives me crazy. I'll be working on something and he'll come sit in one of my leather chairs and talk on his cell phone...
It's weird. But it's the company's computer, and the company's email. You have no privacy, period. Now the login thing....my company would **** bricks if people started handing out login passwords to anybody.
that’s a pretty odd situation, and an invasion of privacy. of course there maybe a particular work/business email the boss is looking for but wouldn't the boss just call and ask for it to be forwarded?
It is odd but I guess if it is her Boss and its company email the Boss does have a right to see any email sent to a company address technically speaking but its just unusual for anyone to do that. It also could be that your boss gets emails that have time sensitive info for things to be done daily that her boss has to do on the days off so she goes in and checks the emails, but you said there is nothing that urgent to be done but maybe her boss needs to know. I mean if your boss is ok with the head boss having all her passwords it shouldnt bother you. I mean its odd of course but I wouldn't consider it unethical because it is her boss and it is company email (now if she had like personal -yahoo/gmail etc- email that her boss was checking via a cached login thats different)
It's odd and weird and uncomfortable, etc. but it is not an invasion of privacy. You have no reasonable expectation of privacy with regards to your company email or company computer.
I'm a "boss", and when I'm out I either have someone in customer service look through my emails for urgent requests or have everything copied and sent to their email addy through the out of office assistant. I rarely get anything at all personal through my work email address, as I ask all of my friends and family to send stuff to my private email only and I'll check them via my Blackberry. I don't need my place of business knowing the details of my life, etc. unless I want them too.
and from personal experience NEVER send/receive any personal email at a company address you wouldnt mind sharing it everyone
Wouldn't it be more appropriate to have IT grant her access to the mailbox from her own computer instead of having her know and use someone else's login?
You would think, but my friend once asked her why she doesn't just check her email at her own desk since she has the login info and we can log in to our mail at any desk. She said something to the effect of "well, I just like to get up and walk around. I don't want to just stay in my boring office all day." I still think it's REALLY weird. I keep telling her to change her password, but she doesn't want to get hassled. And yes, if I.T. knew someone was giving someone else their password(s), they would have a fit. We're not supposed to give our passwords to anyone else in the company.
it's weird, especially the reasoning. Still, that's life in the big city. I would think as a boss that this would lead to tension in the workplace, which is a bad thing, and question whether it was worth it for this boss to see whatever he/she is looking for at the expense of showing everyone that she is personally looking through people's workstation/email when they're gone. Invasiony? Don't know about that, but stupidification, in my opinion.
Like other people have pointed out, it's not -your- email. It's the company's. It's something that people really need to realize for CYA purposes. And it's not like there aren't good free email services out there that you can use for your personal purposes. This scenario is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to companies watching their employees. In my past roles as Network Administrator I've forwarded emails to bosses without telling the end user. There was one company I did work for that had me forward EVERY email to an account that the owner then reviewed. Bottom line: Time for a paradigm shift for people in the modern workplace. You work for the Man. It's time to realize that.
Mine came in my office last week to use my phone and ate nearly all my hummus and veggies (right in front of me on my desk) without asking.
Maybe the boss is doing it to send a message to others and keep them on their toes. Terrible management choice, but it might be intentional.
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