How Email Can Get You in Trouble

Email can either be helpful or cause you trouble. It makes it easy to quickly spread information to a lot of people - which is both a very good thing and a very bad thing. An email sent when you're in a not-so-good mood can at best cause you embarrassment and at worst get you fired. So here are some reasons why you should separate your work and personal email.

Company Policy:

Many companies (and especially government agencies) have strict email policies that are put in place to protect them and limit liability. The strictest policies allow email to be used only for business purposes and repeated violations could result in termination. Sending a note to your spouse, signing up for free news alerts and passing along work-related jokes could be considered a violation. People that work for the US government, for example, are not allowed to email their friends or sign up for e-zines with their work email accounts.

Many companies have a more relaxed email policy which makes it okay to email your spouse or sign up for e-zines. But most companies prohibit you from using email to relay anything remotely pornographic, offensive, hateful or political. So it's possible that sending political jokes, blonde jokes or any photos that can be interpreted as being of a sexual nature would be in violation of policy.

Reflection on your business:

Even if you work for yourself and have no email policy, it can still harm you to use your business email for personal purposes. Your email address is an extension of your business and any message that you send could potentially be forwarded to the world and make you look bad. Just imagine how you'd feel if potential clients were to see an email with politically incorrect humor attached to a message with your signature.

People make this mistake all the time. They forward blonde jokes, political commentary and even remarks that could be considered sexist to their friends. Then the friends forward it on to other people, and so forth, and before you know it, it's in the inbox of someone that you'd prefer didn't see it. Keep in mind that the funnier or more shocking the message, the more likely it'll get forwarded.

Productivity Loss:

Yes, there's the obvious loss of productivity while composing, sending and reading such messages when you should be working. However, as you sign up for lists and share your business email address with friends and family, you also start receiving a lot of unwanted mail in addition to spam.

The main cause for this is "reply to all syndrome." Instead of simply replying to the sender, they reply to everyone. Sometimes it's accidental, sometimes they're trying to show off and other times they're just too lazy to check all the names they're replying to. This is often followed up with a well-intentioned, yet hypocritical, message telling the person to not reply to all in the future. And when things really get out of control, multiple people condemn each other for replying to all, while they themselves are replying to all.

So what do you do?

Use a separate email address for your personal communication. This can be either the email address provided by your ISP or you can use one of the dozens of free web-based email services. This keeps your work email address clean, cuts down on spam and other useless email. These accounts allow you to access your email on any machine that has a internet connection and a web browser. Plus, if you change jobs, you don't have to change email accounts.

Many of us don't realize the potential harm of using our business email accounts for personal use. So if you haven't already, check out some of the free email services out there. It might spare you some stress or embarrassment in the future.