To feel a bit sick about these emails?

[EthelMermen]

I work in a small team. There are just 3 of us, Team Leader and 2 admin assistants.

The Team Leader is a nice bloke, supportive and understanding but can get a bit stressed or hyper depending on how the job is going. He has your back though, as long as you get your work done.

The other admin has been out sick for over a month. She will be back in January. I have had to chase a few bits of paperwork that had been sent to her email so the IT manager has given me access to her emails so I can trawl through them and make sure any action needed can be sorted.

I’ve read a few personal emails to her friend.

She clearly despises me. She has referred to me as a cow, patronising, condescending and a bitch. She has referred to the team leader as being like a child on a sugar high and irritating as hell.

These were in private emails that shouldn’t really have been on the system, my name was the subject title. She has also been researching and applying for new jobs.

I thought she liked me, clearly not. I thought she liked the Team leader too.

I am a lot older than her and she thinks I treat her as if she is a child. I must give that impression but I thought I treated her like another professional colleague. Her expertise is in a different area to mine and I would always defer to her in that but she occasionally impacts on my section and doesn’t always follow procedures so I have to put it right. It’s this that I think she considers me to be patronising

I will have to reconsider the way I Interact with her. I don’t want to annoy anyone or not have a productive and gentle atmosphere in the office.

I feel upset though. A bit like I’ve been punched in the gut. She was really horrible about me.

How should I handle this?

I know that feeling OP and it is quite sickening. I once found that two colleagues (I managed them but worked very closely alongside them, in fact in a shared space) were exchanging really nasty emails about me, even while I was right there in the office. Had to check for work purposes when one was out, and man, was I sorry I had. I could not resist reading. No matter how awful it was, I had to read them. I felt ill for days. The things they wrote were so disparaging of pretty much every aspect of my personality and my life - except my work, nothing bad to say there, interestingly enough - that I closed up from that moment on. I started looking for a new job soon after; there is no way I could have stayed with that knowledge.

I hope this woman moves on or indeed does not return. for you in the meantime.

Always use work email like someone is reading it. Everyone has a smartphone now and can email personally from that.

Even when you send ‘personal emails’, you write them as if someone is reading them.

I’d have a quiet word with your team leader and ask what you can do to rectify the situation as you want to make it work. Apologise for reading it but it had your name in and you thought it was to do with the work.

This is why people need to read IT policies. Silly woman.

Have a good cry and rise above it- you’re a nicer person.

Our systems have recently been upgraded, every Skype conversation can be read and I can give control of someone's email account if it is deemed necessary, ie someone being on sick....the last time I had to do it I prayed there was nothing like you've uncovered as I had to give access to the person's line manager and it was widely known their relationship was not great.

Gosh I wouldn't confront her or stir by telling the team leader.
You know where you stand & to play things hyper professionally from now on.
Unless OP trawled thru the sent folder these emails were probably left as open threads (never deleted). Her own mistake for not handling things more discreetly.

I manage people and if one of my team found something like this, I would want to know.

I think there is a data privacy issue here op. You were not authorised to read these emails you were given access for a different reason. Of you had concerns you should have reported it.

In my company we permit private emails from a company email address. We would have to put uou under disciplinary for breaching her privacy and deliberately clicking on and reading mail you clearly knew wasn't business related.

As such I'd keep my mouth shut if I was you as I think she would have a case against you and your company absolutely would.

How could OP know they weren't also business related; what if the other-admin had been talking about how she would defraud the company & make it look like OP's fault or make sure OP didn't find out? She can't tell for sure from the subject line that wasn't possible.

Treat it as if she were writing in a diary. We sometimes give our friends the personal truth rather than the literal truth to shortcut to a useful response.

How could OP know they weren't also business related

Because she said her name was the title of the email.

Bottom line is she was given access to check for business needs. She was not given access to read any personal emails. If she has concerns she could have escalated it to a supervisor, as the supervisory chain will have the right to read, possibly. It depends on the company policy.

Electronic mail is no different to private mail received at a company address, the op had no right and was not given authority to read anything she fancied.

I strongly suggest she keeps her gob shut, because she would be the one in trouble here for breaching her colleagues right to privacy.

OP wasn't the one that asks for access to emails, her line manager was. I think she needs to tell the line manager- discretely and without detail-that the emails contained lots of personal details and that they were derogatory. A meeting is required with OP, co-worker and line manager.

This is gross misconduct. She can’t speak about you like that on work emails. It’s a sackable offence in most companies.

Get that bitch sacked

@Bluntness100 I’m afraid that’s not correct, anything that’s on works equipment (laptops, email servers) are company property and the company has the right to access it. We’ve had police, managers, IT security looking at peoples private emails as a result of something dodgy, or for work reasons. Some very serious incidents resulting in prosecution, others slander, sometimes simply run of the mill because someone is off etc. If her manager has asked her to look for work reasons and she’s seen something by accident, and let’s face it she can assume she needs to look at all emails as her manager has asked, then she’s nothing to worry about (other than her two faced colleague).

The only time she needs to worry is if she’s hacked into her colleagues email or used her password.

Not necessarily whoknew, some ETs have ruled that employers accessing clearly personal emails have been found to have acted unfairly, while some have disagreed.

Again, it all depends on the companys policy regarding use of email for personal use and monitoring activities.

I’ve just checked the company staff handbook and emails causing ‘ reputational damage, harm or upset’ will not be tolerated. Also there is mention of bullying.

I was directed to trawl through her emails by the head of department and the IT department loaded them onto my Outlook account, so they are on my pc.

She works from a laptop and had taken it home with her last month, without the lead, so even if she had been well enough to read them, she possibly couldn’t if her laptop had died.

I’m not going to say anything. I’ll just be careful around her.

Thanks everyone. I’ve learned a bit of a hard lesson.