Advice Needed - What would you do in this situation?

[JM]

1) You have a co-worker who is onsite with a customer.

2) You send your coworker an email about your customer's project. The email contains a polite reply that the customer's latest request has not been discussed in the past.

3) Shortly thereafter, your co-worker gets up to call you, leaving her laptop open with the email about the customer visible. The laptop is not plainly viewable, in other words, the customer must walk behind a desk to view anything displayed.

4) Co-worker calls back to inform you that the customer read the email, and berated the co-worker about the issue. The customer admits to reading the email.

My first inclination is to call the customer's boss and have her ass fired. If the email were retrieved and visible on one of the customer's machines, I could almost understand, but it was on my co-worker's laptop.

Suggestions? Comments?

Later,
JM

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Why would the customer's boss fire her for looking out for him?

If there was proprietary info on your co-worker's lap top and he left it where she could read it, then he is responsible...doesn't matter that she went around the desk...live and learn.

[JM]

3. True...

...And I already told the co-worker to put the laptop screen down when she walks away...

I am fortunate it was a straightforward message with nothing nasty in it.

Later,
JM

[soleft]

4. I learned my lesson about this - wasn't work related but

I left an email on my computer screen which was not concerning but briefly mentioned pending separation from my son's father. My son saw it. It was news to him. :(

[Systematic Chaos]

2. Personally, I'd tell the customer where to stick it

Whoever it was, they had NO BUSINESS snooping into the co-workers private business.

Why would you want to possibly destroy this co-workers life in this kind of economy when the most she could be considered guilty of is a minor indiscretion? This client was acting totally out of line. He could have kept his petty whining to himself. Your conversation with your co-worker did NOT involve this customer, even if it was concerning him.

[RPM]

5. Protocol

Two ways to go about it, both involve security protocol for
the laptop:

1) Have a password protected screensaver come up after a short
time - this mitigates the chance that an unwanted person will
read whatever is onscreen.  Advantage: Easy monitoring (you
can do a random check ont he person's settings.  Disadvantage:
Couple minutes of lag before it kicks in

2) Require employees to put the computer into standby mode
when walking away from the desk.  Ad: No lag before protection
Dis-ad: People forget / dont follow directions.  

Of course with a policy like this in place, regardless of
enforcement, you will have punitive recourse against the
offender: "Why were you not following policy.... you're
fired"

Preventive benefits will accure, of course, only with
stringent inspection and enforcement. 

In dealing with the employee in this case, check your company
protocol about privacy or disclosure of information to 3rd
parties to see if you might have a reason to punish.

Good luck

RPM

[TXlib]

11. Welcome, RPM

[cally]

6. Wow, I'm surprises

customer fessed up to reading the email. I would call the customer directly and complain. However, I do think the co-worker should have taken precautions against this. If something sensitive was in that email, she should have made sure it wasn't available to the customer. We work on lots of legal cases and we usually do not send sensitive emails for this reason.

[SOteric]

7. Not-so-much

If you call the customer's boss to ask for her dismissal, it would appear to me from the perspective of an observer, that your ire was inspired by a need to cover up a fumble on the part of your firm.

However untrue that might be.

If you're going to make any complaint, you need to acknowledge 3 things:

• The request was undiscussed - and you've no real certainty that there weren't assurances in place that it had been discussed,
  
  
• Your co-worker may not have indicated a level of privacy about the communication in any way. Courts of law do not usually consider e-mail private.
  
  
• And finally, your co-worker is at least -as responsible- as the snarling customer for the breach of his privacy. Even if it's true that the customer needed to go to a length to see the screen, he left the screen untended with a confidential business communication up on the screen.
  
  Show him how the minimise button works. Encourage him to use it.
  

[JM]

8. The issue of the request...

...is really not significant. We have been going back and forth with the client over what was in the original proposal relative to all the other nonsense they keep dreaming up. We have been requiring signoff on items, and this was never discussed in the original spec.

That issue aside, I would really love to just request the client find someone else to act as lead on their side. This contact is a royal pain in the ass. THe email issue is just icing on the cake.

Later,
JM

[TreasonousBastard]

15. So, it seems that...

this is a tempest in a teapot. There was no privileged or sensitive information in that email, just an acknowledgement that something wasn't in the orignal proposal.

Which they should have known anyway.

And which the cow-orker would have used as a bargaining tool if the other party didn't know.

The whole thing is an embarassment, but shouldn't be the end of the world.

You should be able to spin it to your advantage.

[zizzer]

9. Your co-worker is 100% responsable

What the other person did is irrelovant. An employee of your company left sensitive data available for the world to see. You're lucky you didn't loose the laptop entirely.

[RPM]

12. Agreed...

... the employee left sensitive company information available for others to see. Analogous to leaving documents on the desk at the end of the day, or otherwise failing to protect company materials.

However you slice it, an unfortunate situation for all parties

RPM

[jmm]

13. I agree.

It was your co-worker's responsibility to keep an eye on sensitive material.

[VOX]

16. Gotta go with this one. Co-worker dropped the ball...

"Protect the data" is the watch-phrase. This was the wellspring of the problem. If your co-worker concealed the confidential data, nothing would have happened happen. But he didn't -- and it did.

[OpenMinded]

10. Zizzer is right (well, left maybe, but certainly correct).

It all depends on whetner or not you want to keep the customer. Remember - the customer is always right, even when the customer is wrong. That's why we get paid. If it were reversed, and you came to me about one of my employees, I'd roll you out of my office on your @$$. I may roll my employee later, but I can assure you YOU'LL never know about it.

[zizzer]

14. Yeeesh...

I'm right for once in my life and it has to be about something yucky.

I know it's harsh but your co-worker screwed up. No matter what that other person did.

Sucks. I hope you can keep the customer and I hope you and your co-worker learned a lesson. I just hope it's not an expensive one.