Comments on: We Indians Abuse Work Email

By: Popular Weekly Links: Feb.10 - Feb.16 | DesiPundit

Popular Weekly Links: Feb.10 - Feb.16 | DesiPundit — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 16:30:08 +0000

[...] seem never to tire of email forwards but sending such emails from our corporate email accounts may not be the best way to go. Arzan considers this abuse of your email privileges not to mention, [...]

By: umber desi

umber desi — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 21:13:12 +0000

Arzan,

Most of the companies you mentioned in your post are banks, I think using work email may be a financial services contraint rather than an Indian peculiarity. I work for a bank in New York and SEC and NYSE forbids access to any form of communication that cannot be traced hence we don’t have access to web mail in our offices. I use my work email address for personal reasons and I guess that may be the reason your friends use their work IDs to send forwards. That being said, for all the email communication policies in place, no one is actively monitoring communication unless there is a specific complaint when all the communication can be retrieved.

By: IdeaSmith

IdeaSmith — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:05:54 +0000

I maintain multiple personal email addresses, one just for the forwards, yahoogroups..that sort of thing. And I hate it when people keep sending forwards to my official email address, despite my asking them not to. To ensure this I generally don’t give my office address to most people.

That said, a few friends have my address if they need to get in touch urgently. Yahoo, Gmail and most of these providers are blocked in most offices so one’s official email box is all one accesses all day.

It can be argued that at work you are supposed to WORK and not indulge in personal activity. However, the reality is also that most companies, MNCs inclusive choose to ignore the concept of ‘work-life balance’ and happily let their employees slog through 12-hour days every day. From my little experience I find this is a very India phenomenon. So companies eat into an employee’s personal space, time and life and employees as a norm try and fit their normal needs into their life …which is almost entirely office time.

Do I sound overly pessimistic? I work for a MNC (and have worked in another previously). I’m in what’s considered the most professional city in this country. And all my friends, colleagues and family members face this….and yes, most of them use their official email addresses.

Sorry for the post-length-comment but your question made me think.

By: vijay

vijay — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 05:54:45 +0000

i agree with Arzan… add Australia; Mauritius; Sing; Bahrain; and UAE to the list. besides this i think the technical reasons behind this can be associated with
1. indian employees dont have access to personal email services in office
2. we spend long hours in office leaving us very little time to go home and actually forward mails from personal ids.

By: Nav

Nav — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:59:56 +0000

Interesting post. Agree that corporate email has to be used with caution but cannot agree that non-Indians or people who work outside India do not do that. Many people do..

By: JC

JC — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 08:31:10 +0000

so now we are ruing the fact that we do not have culture of litigation like in the US…ironically in US people are getting tired of frivolous litigation

By: a visitor

a visitor — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 05:23:18 +0000

Firstly, I think political correctness is over-rated. If you can’t laugh at yourself (and at others), go out there, get a life, open your mind a little. Secondly, if I see something funny, I will use the medium most conveniently available to send it. At office, that is most likely to be office email. (Incidentally, personal email, gmail, hotmail etc. is blocked at work.) So let’s not get uptight about this office/personal email stuff. That’s why official emails have disclaimers I’m guessing (I have no knowledge of the legal issues involved.)

By: Abuse of corporate email and abusive email at Blogbharti

Abuse of corporate email and abusive email at Blogbharti — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 05:11:41 +0000

[...] Arzan notices a ‘disturbing trend’ emerging in India: he’s convinced forwarded chain emails constitute abuse of corporate mail. He also thinks the MNCs which allow employees to abuse corporate email in this fashion can be sued for hurting the feelings of some sections: The email contents are generally [...]

By: Arthi

Arthi — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:49:27 +0000

My humble opinion – I am not very sure if your questions is about why they use their corporate email ids for the purpose or if you are ruminating on whether we as a people [indians i.e ] are less politically correct.. or both.. but I would guess that there might be a few diff ressons for the above…. one being that we as a nation are not so terrified of litigation as in the US? Would u be so conscious if you were not exposed to the US corporate culture?
I also think its a cultural difference.. where the separation between work life and Social life is not as deep as it is here..
Another factor that might be playing here is the average age of the work force in these companies..? I think it would be much lower than in the US. though I have no stats to back that theory up..!
Thoughts?

By: Suchi

Suchi — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 09:46:13 +0000

Quite common here in Melbourne as well to forward jokes and links from your office email, even within the company. I see it as being not very different from the watercooler conversations or the lunchroom gossip.

Also, nefore passing judgement, I’d ask if the company has a fair-use policy that allows employees to use Internet and email for personal reasons, so long as it is within reasonable limits. Two of the companies I worked in had such a policy.

As for the stereotypes propagated through these emails, that is a different issue altogether.

By: Obiwan

Obiwan — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 05:32:44 +0000

the demarcation between personal and office is hardly existing among many indians. So this is not unexpected. Sadly, they don’t realize that not only do they hurt others’ sentiments with such politically incorrect stuff, they also risk litigations against the employer.
i also find people selling railway tickets (purchased in their name). this is clearly illegal. but i see solicitations for such illegal transactions all the time on corporate network – using corporate email address and groups.

By: JC

JC — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 04:39:37 +0000

I for one don’t see any point in picking offense over such mails just because they are sent from corporate ids. What a waste of time it would be to spend time litigating. Just delete the mail kahani katham.

If on the other hand you feel that such content in itself is offensive and should be regulated then its a different story, you would have to regulate thoughts…the shiv sainiks or other radical groups may help you beat some sense into such perpetrators.

By: arZan

arZan — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 23:34:57 +0000

Abhilash bhai….I will add you on my list and forward them to you the next time around.

Subs….yes you do have a point. All the forwards I get are from Indian friends. I do have a lot of international friends in other countries…mexico…turkey….UK…austria…but they never forward emails from their workplace.

One reason I might suspect is that Indians working in MNC’s do not have access to yahoo, gmail, hotmail etc at work (which is the case in the US) and therefore use work email and dont think much about it.

By: subs

subs — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 22:57:41 +0000

Why is this “indians” abusing their emails? you are presumably indian and most of your freinds are…as well…so what makes you think this is not a general phenomenon of many people of different nationalities?
Maybe you get forwards only form Indians but not me..

By: Abusing Corporate Email | DesiPundit

Abusing Corporate Email | DesiPundit — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 21:15:02 +0000

[...] Arzan is frustrated that few Indians working in MNCs haven’t yet gotten over the email forwarding craze and wonders if this constitutes abuse of their corporate email IDs. [...]