PFT: "Misadventures in e-mail" [merged]

[drpatriot]

Re: PFT: "Misadventures in e-mail"

I don't think there should be a punishment. It was an accident and the guys didn't do anything illegal. I'm sure they are plenty embarrassed as it is and it would probably be best for people to just forget about it.

He should get suspended. However, he shouldn't lose his job.

 

[Gopats!!!]

I don't see what the big deal is really. It is embarrassing, and he should apologize, but I don't think anything should happen to him (other than warning him that it shouldn't happen again).

All we are talking about is a video clip of XXX action. It was an accident, and people that didn't want it should just delete it. It's not as if this guy is continually sending porn to people who don't want to see it.

 

[Pats726]

Re: PFT: "Misadventures in e-mail"

I don't think there should be a punishment. It was an accident and the guys didn't do anything illegal. I'm sure they are plenty embarrassed as it is and it would probably be best for people to just forget about it.

As PFT said "In announcing the new Personal Conduct Policy last month, the NFL pointed out that non-players would be held to an even higher standard than those who wear the uniform: "The standard of socially responsible conduct for NFL employees will be higher. Club and league employees will be held to a higher standard than players. Conduct that undermines or puts at risk the integrity and reputation of the NFL will be subject to discipline, even if not criminal in nature." (Emphasis added.)
So illegal or not, they STILL could be punished severely...
".... the case provides an excellent opportunity for the league to educate its employees as to what does (and what does not) amount to a violation of the revised conduct policy. If action is taken, then the conduct was over the line. If no action is taken, then this isn't the kind of stuff that falls within the scope of the murky standard of overall personal behavior. " Again, I agree..it will help draw a line as to what is allowed what is not and where the Commish will come down ON something like this. I feel that the next months will provide a guideline as to what is in bounds/what out..and the possible reprocussions. http://www.profootballtalk.com/rumormill.htm

 

[g-fresh]

Re: PFT: "Misadventures in e-mail"

Whoever did it should be fired. Not because it so terrible to be emailing porn but because you have to be a complete idiot to do that at your job.

 

[Gopats!!!]

How far will the commish go if he gets into this? Will he go after NFL employees that get speeding tickets?

Part of me thinks he might do something just to prove a point, but part of me thinks he has too much common sense to make a mountain out of a mole hill.

 

[patchick]

How far will the commish go if he gets into this? Will he go after NFL employees that get speeding tickets?

Part of me thinks he might do something just to prove a point, but part of me thinks he has too much common sense to make a mountain out of a mole hill.

I don't see this internal mishap as "conduct that undermines or puts at risk the integrity and reputation of the NFL." It's not a personal conduct issue, IMO. What it is, cut-and-dried, is a sexual harassment issue. Nowadays a company cannot look the other way if a male employee sends a hardcore porn video to dozens of female employees. Lawsuit city. The poor sap is in trouble.

The lesson: DON'T USE YOUR CORPORATE EMAIL FOR THAT! Who the heck doesn't know that by now???

 

[Gunnails]

Is sending porographic E-Mail Illegal, because my junk mail is full of it.

 

[Mike the Brit]

Re: PFT: "Misadventures in e-mail"

I would have gotten fired if I had done that at my job.

Yes, but not all of us work in a convent ...

 

[zippo59]

Is sending porographic E-Mail Illegal, because my junk mail is full of it.

Actually it probably could be deemed secual harassment, with all the PC laws nowadays.

 

[Gopats!!!]

I don't see this internal mishap as "conduct that undermines or puts at risk the integrity and reputation of the NFL." It's not a personal conduct issue, IMO. What it is, cut-and-dried, is a sexual harassment issue. Nowadays a company cannot look the other way if a male employee sends a hardcore porn video to dozens of female employees. Lawsuit city. The poor sap is in trouble.

The lesson: DON'T USE YOUR CORPORATE EMAIL FOR THAT! Who the heck doesn't know that by now???

You are right about the greatest threat being someone who wants to sue.

All it takes is someone to say that they were so emotionally distraught they can't work anymore! There are plenty of lawyers that would try getting the NFL to support her for the rest of her life!

Hopefully (for him) the NFL doesn't have those types of people working for them!

 

[patchick]

You are right about the greatest threat being someone who wants to sue.

All it takes is someone to say that they were so emotionally distraught they can't work anymore! There are plenty of lawyers that would try getting the NFL to support her for the rest of her life!

The bar is actually set much lower than that. The EEOC definition of workplace sexual harassment broadly covers conduct of a sexual nature that "creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment." Directly to your point, "Unlawful sexual harassment may occur without economic injury." It's a civil rights violation, not an emotional disability claim.

Do I want to see the guy fired? Nah. At this point you have to feel sorry for him given the public humiliation factor. But can his employer just laugh it off? No way, or THEY will be the ones on the legal hot seat if another incident occurs. They have to show a proper response; hopefully a middle ground can be found that doesn't involve canning anybody.

 

[Pats726]

The bar is actually set much lower than that. The EEOC definition of workplace sexual harassment broadly covers conduct of a sexual nature that "creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive work environment." Directly to your point, "Unlawful sexual harassment may occur without economic injury." It's a civil rights violation, not an emotional disability claim.

Do I want to see the guy fired? Nah. At this point you have to feel sorry for him given the public humiliation factor. But can his employer just laugh it off? No way, or THEY will be the ones on the legal hot seat if another incident occurs. They have to show a proper response; hopefully a middle ground can be found that doesn't involve canning anybody.

It's very interesting to see what will happen...as PFT pointed out if this was a ticket seller..or some other lower everyday position he would be GONE!!

 

[Gopats!!!]

I know the bar is set lower than that - I'm just saying if someone was trying to cash in, this is a huge gift!

Hopefully the NFL just talks to him, makes him take some stupid class and calls it good.

I have had to deal with situations where I had to discipline people to protect them from harsher punishment in situations similiar to this. Sometimes they did do something wrong and I had to give them a reasonable punishment (In part to prevent an UNreasonable punishment). Sometimes they didn't do anything wrong, and I just had to give them a slap on the hand to say "See- it's taken care of." Otherwise, they would have been in a lot more trouble.

Either way, it sucks to be him!!!

 

[gomezcat]

Re: PFT: "Misadventures in e-mail"

If PFT ever wants to gain recognition as legit journalism
... don't they gotta publish the email ?

I couldn't agree more. I spend so much time of this board so that I can understand all social and cultural aspects of the United States. Viewing this email would help to enlarge, ooops, enhance, my appreciation of the, erm, assets....

Miss Gcat, in her typically stubborn way, disagrees. Women.

 

[mtbykr]

I just heard on WEEI that the famous email was sent by someone in the squealers organization

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

Re: PFT: "Misadventures in e-mail"

There was a software engineer that I worked with early in my career that was debugging some code late one evening and put out a bunch of nasty statements if certain areas of error handling code were hit. She forgot to take them out and we shipped with these statements that were designed to put up a message box in the event of certain errors. It didn't take long before many of our customers found these colorful statements and she was promptly fired. I learned a valuable lesson that day. NEVER, NEVER, put anything into source code that you would be embarrased by. Don't even do it if you think you're the only one who will ever see it.

I did that. WAY back in the minicomputer days I was alone working on boot code off hours and put a massive F Y printout into the system upon successfull boot. Unfortunately my boss chose that very morning to come in extra early, booted up the mini, looked at the printout (IBM typewriter paper, not CRTs back then), looked at me and shook his head. I removed the 'comments'.

But the funniest story happened in the early days on the Patriots Mailing List. One married member (still posts there) accidently forwarded an email to the list describing his 'massage' experiences in graphic detail and commenting on each girl's services. Hilarity ensued. After much apology, the cretin did the exact same thing (different message, SAME topic) again a month or so later. Freakin' classic. If you're readin this ******, yes, it was cretinous.

And a sad tale regarding the Pats Mailing List. A most excellent poster who did great analysis and breakdowns abruptly quit the list after he accidently emailed a love note to his boyfriend to the list. Nobody cared, but obviously he did.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

Re: PFT: "Misadventures in e-mail"

Oh, and a PS.
When I worked at DEC someone in manufacturing somehow put a huge text file of Italian jokes onto a system disk that got shipped to a customer. Unfortunately, for some inexplicable reason that customer did not enjoy Italian jokes. The tech was fired.

 

[pats1]

I just heard on WEEI that the famous email was sent by someone in the squealers organization

Read the above posts.

 

[gomezcat]

Re: PFT: "Misadventures in e-mail"

I did that. WAY back in the minicomputer days I was alone working on boot code off hours and put a massive F Y printout into the system upon successfull boot. Unfortunately my boss chose that very morning to come in extra early, booted up the mini, looked at the printout (IBM typewriter paper, not CRTs back then), looked at me and shook his head. I removed the 'comments'.

But the funniest story happened in the early days on the Patriots Mailing List. One married member (still posts there) accidently forwarded an email to the list describing his 'massage' experiences in graphic detail and commenting on each girl's services. Hilarity ensued. After much apology, the cretin did the exact same thing (different message, SAME topic) again a month or so later. Freakin' classic. If you're readin this ******, yes, it was cretinous.

And a sad tale regarding the Pats Mailing List. A most excellent poster who did great analysis and breakdowns abruptly quit the list after he accidently emailed a love note to his boyfriend to the list. Nobody cared, but obviously he did.

Just reading those stories makes me cringe.