Not only logged, but potentially subpoenable in lawsuits. Any reasonably large company usually ends up with the occasional lawsuit from some mentally ill querulant who feels wronged for whatever reason, and in one of those cases, at a past employer, we ended up blowing off steam by joking about the letters from their ‘lawyer’ (i.e. almost certainly themselves). We were fed up after having to gather vast amounts of data, which they demanded just to make things difficult for us.
And then, as I should have foreseen, they demanded all communications within the company relating to their lawsuit. I’m not a lawyer, but, for whatever reason, our lawyers considered it to be within their rights; I’m sure it wouldn’t have applied to privileged legal discussions, but we were just code monkeys so I suppose our chat logs were fair game. I’m never doing that again. I don’t think their lawsuit went anywhere, but it was mortifying all the same, especially considering our brand was quite a friendly and liberal one.
I agree with everything you said, but I don’t think it’s fair to blame “mentally ill” people. Not attacking you or anything but I think it was a poor choice of words in this case, and way too broad a brush to even apply :)
I’m not totally sure what you mean there? I’m not saying that all mentally ill people are prone to that, I’m just saying the inverse: that most people who are prone to that are mentally ill. It’s certainly a very very small subset of mentally ill people, if that’s what you mean.
And then, as I should have foreseen, they demanded all communications within the company relating to their lawsuit. I’m not a lawyer, but, for whatever reason, our lawyers considered it to be within their rights; I’m sure it wouldn’t have applied to privileged legal discussions, but we were just code monkeys so I suppose our chat logs were fair game. I’m never doing that again. I don’t think their lawsuit went anywhere, but it was mortifying all the same, especially considering our brand was quite a friendly and liberal one.
reply