I have received a very nice gift from Catherine at unrequited narcissism (thanks again, Catherine!). She passed along to me an invitation to establish a GMail account. This is the email service that Google has just started. If you'd care to email me there, the address is "randomjd at gmail dot com". I'm curious to see how the thing works. The premise is that Google will provide you with 1000 MB of space in return for which you agree to accept that their computers will scan your incoming email and, based on word recognition, place advertisements for you to read along the margin when you open that email. Privacy advocates are, as expected, in quite a snit. I have no problem with it since I consider email to be the electronic equivalent of a postcard anyway. By which I mean, everyone can read your email just like everyone can read the back of the postcard. Your employer probably does or at least can do it. So, if you don't want your email coming back to haunt you, treat it like a postcard and put nothing that could embarrass you on it.
And as one my clients can't seem to learn, don't send drunken emails to your former employer telling them, in detail, what you perceive their sexual inadequacies to be. Friends don't let friends write drunk.
Posted by Random Penseur at June 16, 2004 08:23 AM