Work email and you.

[ch33zw1z]

Oh, it's absolutely monitorable (a word?), but there's a huge jump in the ease in which IT can simply read your Exchange mailbox and them setting up effective packet sniffing to read what's going over your particular connection.

My employer has instituted checking browser histories as well. They no longer need to know what you're doing with your personal email...just the fact that your went there gets their panties in a bunch.

Clear your history you say? Policy dictates that clearing your last 30 days of history requires management intervention.

 

[mvbighead]

Oh, it's absolutely monitorable (a word?), but there's a huge jump in the ease in which IT can simply read your Exchange mailbox and them setting up effective packet sniffing to read what's going over your particular connection.

This.

Looking through your work email doesn't require much more than getting into the mailbox and seeing what you have in there.

Your personal? They'd have to dump your traffic from every day to try to get to something meaningful. Way too much work.

The long short of it is, if you work disallows you access to your personal email, then you simply don't use it. Use your smartphone or tablet on your breaks, or at your desk if you're allowed.

My wife's office just recently implemented a no personal email policy at work. This means I no longer chat with her throughout the day, but from time to time, she'll pick up her smart phone and we'll chat back and forth through that.

My personal view, as an admin, is that access to personal email at work isn't a huge deal so long as the person does not let it affect their work. We have individuals here that do let it affect their work, so they get further restricted based on their supervisor's requirements.

From an employee standpoint, work can be frustrating. A mental break every now and again helps. For my wife, that was and, to a lesser extent now, is chat. She'd likely do a better job at work if she wasn't completely stressed. Granted, some employers don't see it that way, and that is their call. But when it comes to work email, that is the one thing no one should use for personal use. Use it for work.

 

[unokitty]

In a legal environment, email is considered discoverable. Consequently, it wouldn't be prudent to have anything there that you wouldn't want strangers to see...

If you work for the state, or at a state university, your email may be subject to a "Freedom of Information" request.

Uno

 

[shortylickens]

Nope. Thats what smartphones are for.

 

[Fritzo]

We use Google Apps for Business. It has a feature where it can check other email accounts. Works well, puts everything in one place, and keeps things separate.

 

[OutHouse]

My employer has instituted checking browser histories as well. They no longer need to know what you're doing with your personal email...just the fact that your went there gets their panties in a bunch.

Clear your history you say? Policy dictates that clearing your last 30 days of history requires management intervention.

holy shit talk about network nazis

 

[Baked]

Why would you even use your work email for personal stuff in the 1st place. Are people really this dumb?

 

[Mixolydian]

I don't have a work email. :awe:

 

[OutHouse]

My personal view, as an admin, is that access to personal email at work isn't a huge deal so long as the person does not let it affect their work. We have individuals here that do let it affect their work,

I am an admin too and honestly that's not our business. that's between the manager and the employee. I really don't give a shit what a employee on the mfg floor or up in finance does. its not my job to monitor their work performance or non performance. if i walk by and hear them gossiping and not working who am I to say anything?

 

[Born2bwire]

No.

 

[slsmnaz]

Why would you even use your work email for personal stuff in the 1st place. Are people really this dumb?

because I'm at my work computer all day and there are some personal things that may need my attention. For example, we correspond with my son's doctor's office via email. If there is a change to his appt then it's nice to know right away instead of constantly checking the phone in my drawer

 

[Fritzo]

My employer has instituted checking browser histories as well. They no longer need to know what you're doing with your personal email...just the fact that your went there gets their panties in a bunch.

Clear your history you say? Policy dictates that clearing your last 30 days of history requires management intervention.

Easy:

I often wonder how much more efficient/inefficient things run when companies devote resources to preventing people from doing things.

 

[rh71]

no it's lotus notes so I would hate it if I did anyway.

the other thing is if people start using that email address I won't get emails over weekends.

nothing beats the ease of use & accessibility that is gmail.

 

[DrPizza]

Yes, but it's generally limited to work caused personal use. E.g., "I'm going to be here an extra hour."

 

[Exterous]

I don't really care that much. I'll clamp down on mailing lists for some of the worst offenders and we had a serial email forwarder who was rate controlled but thats about it

As for myself I'll send out emails to colleagues at other companies about lunch plans or the occasional email between my wife and myself. Anything that I actually care about keeping from prying eyes I use my personal email. I don't even have to load your mailbox to read your work email. Barracuda makes that all very easy

 

[coloumb]

Nope - I don't use it for personal email nor do I use my laptop to go to any "questionable" sites. People have been fired because IT found "questionable" content in their emails and browser history.

Use common sense - buy your own smart phone and use that for your own personal use.

 

[imagoon]

If you secure the communications between you and Gmail it becomes much more difficult, one way to do that is make Gmail use HTTPS only. Another guy here mentioned SSH'ing to his home PC.

Not really. It is pretty simple to insert ourselves in the certificate chain. The only way you would know is if you actually inspected the certificate and saw that it wasn't the google one but one generated from a CA in the company that your workstation trusts. It is a bit harder to insert in to the SSH tunnel but you can monitor the data fairly well there also.

 

[imagoon]

Easy:

I often wonder how much more efficient/inefficient things run when companies devote resources to preventing people from doing things.

I would just pull your usage from the firewall. I am kind of surprised that anyone would bother grabbing the browser history. Seems like more work to me. PS I always take the position of "I monitor what they tell me to monitor." I also rarely do anything "active" except blocking adult sites. Even though I have access I don't have the time or care to read other people's email.

 

[mmntech]

No. Though I've never seen anything saying I can't. Since I have open access to the Internet, there's no need to. Just use my Gmail account. As far as I understand it, my work doesn't care what you do online as long as you're getting your work done and not looking up questionable sites.

 

[SSSnail]

<<< I read your emails, no really.

 

[sourceninja]

You guys work at places that give you a personal life?

 

[Tsaico]

My employer has instituted checking browser histories as well. They no longer need to know what you're doing with your personal email...just the fact that your went there gets their panties in a bunch.

Clear your history you say? Policy dictates that clearing your last 30 days of history requires management intervention.

As an admin, we had a problem with this, so I just one day disabled the "clear history" button in IE. The other browser people can still kinda get away from it. But generally, I think telling the employees they are being watched for this type of activity is enough. I see way too many companies using IT solutions to try to resolve HR problems. If you have a bad employee you have a bad employee, no matter what controls you put on them, they are going to screw around.

Edit: also, i think many companies should loosen up a little on this issue. I often hear management complain of people sending jokes and things like that, while I don't support it, I can understand there is a possibility of business need for it, such as keeping a professional contact fresh. I come into contact with tons of people over the course of a day, and many of them pitch me something, and within a few days, I forget them. Except for the sales guy that sends me a joke that can be published in a newspaper.

 

[Tsaico]

Not really. It is pretty simple to insert ourselves in the certificate chain. The only way you would know is if you actually inspected the certificate and saw that it wasn't the google one but one generated from a CA in the company that your workstation trusts. It is a bit harder to insert in to the SSH tunnel but you can monitor the data fairly well there also.

This is called a "man in the middle" attack if you want to impress your admins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man-in-the-middle_attack, and I also use this to see what is going on. The main thing I look for though usually though are things like remote control software, since often an ex employee might have something, or the company just doesn't support it, or sometimes just from a licensing perspective. I see personal emails similar to personal phone calls. One or two, who really cares, but if it gets excessive, then it becomes a problem.

 

[sourceninja]

I'm a believer in performance based evaluation. I don't care how long my employee's work, or what they are doing while they are here. I care that the list of projects are done and on time.

If I have two programmers (Bill and Frank) and Bill works diligently from 8-5 and never meets his agreed upon dead lines, and Frank plays minecraft 4 hours a day but is alway a day ahead of schedule. I'll give the raise to Frank.

 

[mvbighead]

I am an admin too and honestly that's not our business. that's between the manager and the employee. I really don't give a shit what a employee on the mfg floor or up in finance does. its not my job to monitor their work performance or non performance. if i walk by and hear them gossiping and not working who am I to say anything?

Oh I agree. I am just saying that my personal view is that most of it doesn't matter when you have a good employee. If checking their personal email a few times a day gives them a little more sanity, so be it.

As an admin, I do what they ask. But from my personal view, I just figure it is what it is. If that is all a person is doing with their time at work, fire them and hire someone else. Most of the problems are with general employees that are trained to do what a monkey could do (if a monkey could talk), so a bad egg here or there is bound to happen. Just do what you can to keep the good ones.