5 ms·

Like the 29 year-old marketing girl is a sexual deviant and nympho maniac, but still loves her husband of 9 years and their 7 year-old son. The CEO is a 44 year

Like the 29 year-old marketing girl is a sexual deviant and nympho maniac, but still loves her husband of 9 years and their 7 year-old son. The CEO is a 44 year-old man child suffering a mid-life crisis and his wife got pregnant again because she was afraid he would divorce her for someone younger like his friends have done. Secretly he fears his wife will discover the reason he hired the marketing girl was because she reminded him of a younger version of her. And my 31 year-old coworker is a bigger geek than I ever could imagine and absolutely clueless all this and more is going on around him. Did you actually secretly go through their computers and dig up all this very private information about them? Seriously? Because if you did, then you're not quite normal yourself. We live in a matrix, not the Wachowski ripoff matrix, but the one that hides the real world with fake smiles and shallow conversations It's possible to have Real Friends, though, with whom you can have heartfelt conversations about anything.

angstrom 17y ago
Nah, it was at startup and I just diverted emails to a collector gmail account that separated the spam from the useful stuff. It would label each one and then another coworker and I would star the interesting ones. Did this for about 6 months until I decided the stuff going on behind the scenes meant the company was screwed and we both moved on. The one I told was a former coworker from another company who shared an equal distrust. Real Friends yes. I do not consider people I work with close friends, nor should you. Friends and work don't mix. Acquaintances perhaps... But that was the most extensive I've ever gone. I wouldn't have messed with their personal lives. Those decisions are their own business.
- shiranaihito 17y ago
  It would label each one and then another coworker and I would star the interesting ones. Did this for about 6 months until I decided the stuff going on behind the scenes meant the company was screwed and we both moved on. Well, it still sounds like you were eavesdropping on e-mail conversations. Was that the case? Real Friends yes. I do not consider people I work with close friends, nor should you. True, colleagues aren't often close friends, I'm aware of that. They can become rather close though, if you just happen to be compatible to that extent. True story! Happened to me once. Friends and work don't mix. Work and being "like friends" can mix though. I've experienced a working environment where all the people in the same room talked to each other just like they'd talk to their personal friends. Before I heard the first casual fucks thrown around, I didn't know what I had stumbled upon. There'd be dialogue along the lines of: -"Hey the build is fucked up! Who wants to confess?" -"What does it say?" -"<error message>" -"OK, I want to confess. I'll fix it now" (Someone looking at someone else's code) "What.. The.. *FUCK* is going on here?!" Then the (potential) culprit would explain what was going on, and we'd always reach an agreement of what should be going on, all the while talking in a casual and friendly way. -"Fucking Java Server Faces is a piece of shit" (It was causing us problems all the time) All in all, it was quite awesome, in fact. I hope I'll be able to work in an environment like that again some day. Everyone was sensible and intelligent too! As for Real Friends, I can talk about absolutely anything with my best friend, and about almost anything with a few others. I wouldn't have messed with their personal lives. Their personal lives are just that - personal. They're not a source of entertainment for you.
  - angstrom 17y ago
    Their personal lives are just that - personal. They're not a source of entertainment for you. I agree with everything up until that. It was work email, the personal stuff was just a side effect. I was more curious in the actual status of the company since the CEO was sidestepping questions. The personal stuff should never have been there to begin with. Besides, knowing someone screwed on the conference table after work hours is useful knowledge when you sometimes eat lunch in the conference room. If the antics happen to be entertaining that's just icing on an otherwise disappointing waste of time and money.
    - shiranaihito 17y ago
      Well, my understanding of all this is that: 1) You were actually eavesdropping on e-mail conversations. 2) The people being eavesdropped on used their company-provided e-mail accounts. 3) You found out lots of really personal stuff about the people. 4) Your "defense" here is that they shouldn't have been talking about personal stuff on their company-provided e-mail accounts. Correct? Now, assuming that I've got it right, let's go through these again: 1) This is bad, mmkay? 2) This is likely to happen at, you know, workplaces. 3) Again, people's personal matters are personal. 4) This is a bit more complicated: I'm sure you agree that by default, whenever you send an e-mail, you don't expect it to be read by anyone else besides the intended recipient(s). That's just the way people perceive e-mail - that they're sending "letters" to others. But basically now you're saying that because these people were sending e-mails from a company account, they should expect them to be read by people other than the recipients, and therefore should avoid talking about anything personal? It's true that some shitty companies do read their employees' e-mails, so this argument has some merit, but not all of them do. I wouldn't want to work at a company that I'd expect to be reading my e-mail all the time. At the workplace in question, do you think people had any reason to suspect their mails were being read by others? Were they the kind of people who would even be aware of the possibility? You said you were just trying to find out how fucked the company was, but did you really think there was nothing wrong with your approach? Besides, knowing someone screwed on the conference table after work hours is useful knowledge when you sometimes eat lunch in the conference room. Cute, but I'm sure the table is cleaned daily.

angstrom 17y ago

Nah, it was at startup and I just diverted emails to a collector gmail account that separated the spam from the useful stuff. It would label each one and then another coworker and I would star the interesting ones. Did this for about 6 months until I decided the stuff going on behind the scenes meant the company was screwed and we both moved on. The one I told was a former coworker from another company who shared an equal distrust. Real Friends yes. I do not consider people I work with close friends, nor should you. Friends and work don't mix. Acquaintances perhaps... But that was the most extensive I've ever gone. I wouldn't have messed with their personal lives. Those decisions are their own business.

shiranaihito 17y ago
It would label each one and then another coworker and I would star the interesting ones. Did this for about 6 months until I decided the stuff going on behind the scenes meant the company was screwed and we both moved on. Well, it still sounds like you were eavesdropping on e-mail conversations. Was that the case? Real Friends yes. I do not consider people I work with close friends, nor should you. True, colleagues aren't often close friends, I'm aware of that. They can become rather close though, if you just happen to be compatible to that extent. True story! Happened to me once. Friends and work don't mix. Work and being "like friends" can mix though. I've experienced a working environment where all the people in the same room talked to each other just like they'd talk to their personal friends. Before I heard the first casual fucks thrown around, I didn't know what I had stumbled upon. There'd be dialogue along the lines of: -"Hey the build is fucked up! Who wants to confess?" -"What does it say?" -"<error message>" -"OK, I want to confess. I'll fix it now" (Someone looking at someone else's code) "What.. The.. *FUCK* is going on here?!" Then the (potential) culprit would explain what was going on, and we'd always reach an agreement of what should be going on, all the while talking in a casual and friendly way. -"Fucking Java Server Faces is a piece of shit" (It was causing us problems all the time) All in all, it was quite awesome, in fact. I hope I'll be able to work in an environment like that again some day. Everyone was sensible and intelligent too! As for Real Friends, I can talk about absolutely anything with my best friend, and about almost anything with a few others. I wouldn't have messed with their personal lives. Their personal lives are just that - personal. They're not a source of entertainment for you.
- angstrom 17y ago
  Their personal lives are just that - personal. They're not a source of entertainment for you. I agree with everything up until that. It was work email, the personal stuff was just a side effect. I was more curious in the actual status of the company since the CEO was sidestepping questions. The personal stuff should never have been there to begin with. Besides, knowing someone screwed on the conference table after work hours is useful knowledge when you sometimes eat lunch in the conference room. If the antics happen to be entertaining that's just icing on an otherwise disappointing waste of time and money.
  - shiranaihito 17y ago
    Well, my understanding of all this is that: 1) You were actually eavesdropping on e-mail conversations. 2) The people being eavesdropped on used their company-provided e-mail accounts. 3) You found out lots of really personal stuff about the people. 4) Your "defense" here is that they shouldn't have been talking about personal stuff on their company-provided e-mail accounts. Correct? Now, assuming that I've got it right, let's go through these again: 1) This is bad, mmkay? 2) This is likely to happen at, you know, workplaces. 3) Again, people's personal matters are personal. 4) This is a bit more complicated: I'm sure you agree that by default, whenever you send an e-mail, you don't expect it to be read by anyone else besides the intended recipient(s). That's just the way people perceive e-mail - that they're sending "letters" to others. But basically now you're saying that because these people were sending e-mails from a company account, they should expect them to be read by people other than the recipients, and therefore should avoid talking about anything personal? It's true that some shitty companies do read their employees' e-mails, so this argument has some merit, but not all of them do. I wouldn't want to work at a company that I'd expect to be reading my e-mail all the time. At the workplace in question, do you think people had any reason to suspect their mails were being read by others? Were they the kind of people who would even be aware of the possibility? You said you were just trying to find out how fucked the company was, but did you really think there was nothing wrong with your approach? Besides, knowing someone screwed on the conference table after work hours is useful knowledge when you sometimes eat lunch in the conference room. Cute, but I'm sure the table is cleaned daily.