Accountant fired for ‘confrontational’ email – bold red all-caps text!
Emotion and meaning are strange beasts on the Internet. It’s virtually impossible to express your intent or the feelings you have when writing. Sure, the occasional smiley helps, as does caps lock in the other extreme, but apart from that the choice is limited. But one female accountant managed to express enough emotion in her emails that she got fired from her job for their “confrontational” nature.
I’m sure we’ve all received the odd email which we read while wondering how the written words in it were intended to be taken. The same happens on the Web, where arguments in forums and on Web sites kick off due to a misplaced capital letter or the lack of a smiley face at the end of a rant. If you don’t believe me then just read the comments section of GAMER.Blorge.
According to The New Zealand Herald, one lady found that expressing herself too clearly in emails can cost you dearly. Vicki Walker, an accountant from Auckland, was fired for sending emails to work colleagues which “caused disharmony in the workplace.”
The company, ProCare Health, claims her emails advising colleagues how to fill out staff claim forms were confrontational due to the use of a sentence written all in capital letters and highlighted in blue and the time and date highlighted in red. For these crimes against humanity, Walker was fired from the position she had held at the company for two years.
Walker took the firm to court for unfair dismissal and was awarded $17,500; $11,500 for harm caused by the dismissal and $6,000 for the lost wages incurred in the time between her firing and her securing another job.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any case such as this before. If Walker’s emails had been all in capital letters, or had been full of swearing or defamation against her colleagues then I may have seen why she was fired. But the odd capitalized sentence and highlighted piece of information? Surely that’s good business practice, especially if the point Walker was trying to make had been ignored in the past.
I guess the lesson in all this is to try and write emails in as gentle and pleasant style as you can manage. And if that fails and you get fired for breaking supposed email etiquette then sue instead.
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September 3rd, 2009
“If you don’t believe me then just read the comments section of GAMER.Blorge.”
I laughed so much at this.
The good thing is that reason prevailed. She won the case and was awarded as due. However, this seemed more as a case of sheer animosity against Mrs. Walker in my opinion.