Re: Is My Email Blocked by my Employer???

From:
Date: 09/01/02 

Date: Sun, 01 Sep 2002 14:27:33 GMT

"Sophie Borodin" <s_borodin@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:94e4806.0209010520.222fe6f2@posting.google.com...
> Hello,
>
> At my job, we clerical workers have no internet access or even floppy
> disk drives on our computers. I suppose this is to prevent workers
> from bringing in infected disks and also obviously to prevent
> slacking. We do have email, however, and I had subscribed to a couple
> of newsletters to get news updates and stuff. I also have emailed
> myself a few news articles from home to read during downtime (business
> is very slow right now). During the past few days at work, I haven't
> received any of these outside emails, and when I tried to send myself
> another one I got the "undeliverable mail" message "Server received
> Winsock error Connection refused."

That's a bad move. If business is slow, you don't want to hand the
company documentation that you have nothing to do and that they
are wasting their money by paying you to goof off.

Do something productive with your time. Clean up. Organize the
files or something. Learn some new software you can use at work.

>
> Is this the message I'd receive if my outside emails were being
> blocked by my employer? Although they certainly have the right to do
> that, I think it's a bit paranoid because I didn't get that much email
> and what I did get was certainly inocuous. I don't even receive those
> silly "joke" emails that many of my coworkers do. But then morale is

It sounds like a lot of people are wasting time with their computers.
Don't be one of them.

> rather low here and this is a factory. Workers often complain that it
> used to be a much better, "family-type" place to work before they
> expanded overseas. Management has used tactics like promising bonuses
> and then not giving them, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
>
> It's odd because no one has said anything to me about my email use,
> and my boss has expressed his satisfaction with my work.
>
> Any insight would be welcome.
>
> Thanks,
> Sophie

The IS people are probably totally independent from your boss. They
monitor and control computer usage because it is easy for them to do.
They will report to top management that a lot of people are wasting
time and that you are one of them. Your boss may eventually be told
to get rid of X number of people. At that time you will want to appear
to be more than satisfactory to your boss.

Don

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