Reason #562 for not forwarding chain letters at work for any reason

NAACP: SunTrust Mortgage worker fired over e-mail

The NAACP says a 14-year employee was fired from SunTrust Mortgage Inc. in Richmond after she was accused of sending a chain e-mail she received at work that ultimately was forwarded to the NAACP.

The fired African-American employee said she found the e-mail offensive.

The e-mail contains pictures of 40 bumper stickers such as, "Clinton ruined a dress, Obama ruined a nation," "So I guess we're even on that slavery thing eh?" and, "Diversity -- It killed 13 at Fort Hood."

SunTrust issued a statement yesterday saying: "We do not endorse or condone the views expressed in the e-mail cited by the NAACP, and had already taken appropriate action to respond to the circulation of the e-mail."

A spokesman would not comment on whether others were reprimanded, citing personnel issues.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People released a copy of what it said was the e-mail sent by a SunTrust official to 13 office employees and one outside recipient under the subject line "FW: Bumper Stickers that Make Sense."

The woman who was fired says she'd always gotten good performance reviews but was fired over a chain-letter she forwarded outside of the workplace because she was offended by the content and wanted another opinion. She had originally been sent it, along with other recipients, by someone within the company. Several recipients, including her, were black, and also found it offensive. She was brought in and told her boss did not trust her anymore and because she e-mailed the letter, was terminated.

Regardless of the other question here (who sent the original? Were they fired? Is SunTrust racist? etc.), this is a perfect reason why you shouldn't forward chain letters at work. Now, if I received a racist one, I would show our IT people, and they could go from there. I have received religious ones and requested the sender delete me from her uplifting little religious pep talks. We're not supposed to use our e-mail sending around stuff we find amusing or uplifting anyway. Work e-mail is, well, for work. But even so, as one commenter, going by the handle someone_else put it, succinctly:

The larger lesson here is that you all should think carefully about what you are sending before using work emails for personal use.

Some of us don’t care about the content, we just don’t want to receive your unfunny jokes, your insipid inspirational prayers, your idiotic political chain emails or anything else. This is work, not a social gathering.

But when you use a work email for your own personal amusement, you need to take responsibility for it if someone gets offended. If you have a problem with that, don’t send the email in the first place.

Hope Ms Russ gets a fair trip through the appeal process, because something does seem wrong about the whole thing, but of course we only got bits of the story. Otherwise, enough said.