Reading Response 2
A few weeks back at work there was an email out to the entire company about a guest speaker that was being hosted later in the week. This speaker was for Gay Pride week. One person found this email very offensive and responded to all people in the company expressing his anger in the fact that there was Gay Pride week and not a heterosexual week, soon after this person was fired. I think this person broke a lot of the ten habits of successful emails, and caused him his career. First he did not take time to edit and revise his email, he may not of realized that while he thought his email was funny, others would not, and he responded to everyone in the message while this was not necessary. My suggestion to him would have been if this really bothered him he should have calmed down, and then spoken to an HR representative about the issue, rather then sending an email out to the entire organization. It is interesting to see how simple emails have effected entire companies and their stock prices as well.
I have often times wondered how formal you should be an email. This book laid out some good guidelines about the formality of email. I think its often forgotten that email has public nature and that this needs to be kept in mind.
How the HR lady treats resumes is interesting. It is nice how honest she is and much of this can be used to make your resume better. But she does so much it such a short period of time. It is a great suggestion to try to put a hook out there so that recruiter has some interest and questions about you. It is interesting to see some of the peoples comments, some find this completely unfair, but you must understand that they are bombarded with so many resumes they must have a quick way to pick candidates.
Comments
Interesting
I thought your story about the Gay Pride week issue one mad had was very interesting. When employees concern themselves with things like who in the company is gay, of a differeing race, a woman, etc. they are going against what every company hires based upon. When you are interviewed, you don't even have to share your age because of discrimination rights. When an employee then partakes in behavior like this they are turning the tables and partaking in the very behavior that company policies on discrimination like to avoid. Just a thought! Thank you for bringing up such an interesting story!
Another great story
This is a very interesting story, and I especially like your solutions for this writer. There are many ways that this situation could have been better handled. Ultimately, it's probably best to keep quiet in a situation like this, but talking politely and calmly to the HR manager is a much better choice than an angry email. The company has an interesting case for firing here, because not only is this person ignoring discrimination laws, as the comment above discusses, but they are also showing that they don't have the professional behavior necessary to last in the corporate world. I wouldn't want employees who send off angry emails in a huff about anything, because they are not going to promote a positive work environment and they may one day do this to a customer or client.
Being discreet is always a good idea
Your advice about speaking discreetly to the HR representative is spot on. I also think a key issue here is that these aren't just rookie mistakes, as we can see in the case of the CEO who fired off an angry email. It's just a good idea to get in the practice of thoroughly thinking through the ramifications of your actions before making a decision. It could be that the employee wasn't acting in the heat of the moment, but rather had decided to make a stand upon principle. If so, then the result (his being fired) shouldn't be unexpected. This course may or may not help you address moral issues like this, but hopefully we can all become more aware of the rhetorical implications of our actions, so that we have a better understanding of causes and effects.
comment
Your story was interesting and I imagine reflects what happens in many companies. It seems like people that are not familiar with emails or those who do not email frequently tend to forget the importance of always being professional. I have found through working at CHAPS that many of our volunteers reply to our volunteer emails which send their message to the entire group of people. Many people have given out personal information to tons of people without realizing it. We even put a statement at the bottom of the email stating that a reply will reply to the whole group and find people still doing it. It’s a shame that people don’t just pay attention sometimes.