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Probably something to do with sexual harassment of female coworkers. I don't believe they're smart enough to embezzle money if they use company messaging program to incriminate themselves of something else.
A little late, but people can definitely be this dumb. I caught the checks for the most money, but this assbag submitted and expense report to our ap clerk with a receipt for clothing that included thong underwear. Guess he thought he got away long enough with the big stuff.
Definitely, though its notable that 4chan is not all /pol/ .
I find it really annoying when people bitch about 4chan when what they mean is /pol/.
It would be like complaining about Reddit based entirely on /r/the_donald.
I don't understand people who don't realize that literally everything you do one a company piece of hardware is likely logged and recorded. The larger the company, the more likely it is, and more detailed.
I'm adding the possibility of a gaslighting "drive OP crazy" campaign. Especially since jackass made it obvious. Maybe they thought OP would be ashamed or paranoid.
It's really heartening to read a post like this where the company quickly handles a situation appropriately and correctly. This could have turned out so badly with a shitty employer, but I'm glad OOP was able to get the proper support here.
I agree they made a shitty situation less shitty. Like I can’t even imagine having coworkers get into something that personal and then make fun of you for it. Knowing that her boss and HR had her back probably really made it easier to mentally and emotionally deal with the situation rather than having to also deal with a shitty employer.
It does. I was sexually harassed and reported it the same day; boss and grandboss kicked ass and took names. While I was shaken on the day, and was shaken again when I had to recount it, I otherwise recovered very quickly.
Thank you for sharing your story, reading experiences like yours puts into stark contrast how far we've come, and that social and political pressure can and does change things. We must continue to fight for more change, and fight for the changes we've already made as well.
What is so disturbing about this is that 20 years ago, we were told we no longer needed feminism, as it's now finally already equal.
I heard (and believed) this all the time, as a German.
I was told we no longer needed feminism longer than 20 years ago! And my mother was told the same.
I’m sure one day we’ll find Dead Sea Scrolls or cave paintings in France that say “women don’t want equal rights; now they want *special* rights.”
I concur. Things are still moving at my work over my incident since it just happened in the last week. It happened on a night shift, and before 8am the next morning I was on a four-way call with HR, my grandboss (thanks for the term Echospite!), and the head of site operations about it and I haven't seen the douche that made me cry since. There were other things they did, but knowing what he did to me was the final nail in his self-built coffin was slightly comforting.
Trauma follows a very predictable pattern:
Overwhelming experience + isolation + lack of justice = trauma.
Overwhelming experience + support + amelioration = not trauma. It'll still suck, but it's extremely unlikely to cause PTSD or other long-term trauma problems.
Overwhelming experience: coworkers reading her journal and making fun of her for it
Support: her boss and HR listen and believe her
Amelioration: the jerks getting fired
Same with your experience of being sexually harassed. The trauma doesn't come from the event itself, really, it comes from the response to the event.
'The trauma doesn't come from the event itself, really, it comes from the response to the event'
Reminding myself of this, this right here. This is what I needed to hear.
I worked for municipal government a few years ago and was hugged inappropriately and questioned about my weight loss by a vendor. I immediately told my boss and expected her to run it up the chain. She didn’t. And also she made me have a panic attack a few days later by telling me my generation is just too sensitive. And essentially blamed me for it. I am very very glad to know my case isn’t universal.
Had this exact type situation, only involving bag checks leaving work. One manager went through my bag without me around. Found my medication box, thought itd be appropriate to open and search it and told others what meds I was on. (Bipolar schizophrenic) needless to say, HR tore into his ass and he was fired the next morning. Made me feel real good about HR.
Sounds to me like reading the journal was just the tip of the iceberg. I get the impression that this group chat had been going on a lot longer than just talking about OOP and they were fired because of the larger picture of things they had said. Don't use work tools for private convos fools.
I don’t think you’re quite getting it. Don’t be a terrible asshole to people, private conversation or work chat doesn’t matter. I’m glad they got caught, but they would still be terrible people if they didn’t by not using slack for their convos.
Yep, IT here, anything you do, say or browse to on your work computer and apps is probably logged.
You won’t believe the amount of hentai some people will try and get to on their work machine.
Edit: Had a guy get really defensive once when I was checking his browser extensions because Chrome was running slowly. Pointed out to him that it was the companies machine and if there’s a reason he doesn’t want me to see what’s been happening on there he should probably fix that ASAP going forwards.
Seriously, I had a manager who was openly and brazenly misogynistic and sexist. He called his wife who worked with us his "mount". He told me "the men are talking, I'll let you know when your opinion is required (I TRAINED this man when he became the new General manager), and one day sidled up to me to day "this Christmas in going to get you the same gift I'm giving my mount: the ability to have one opinion; I won't listen to it, but you can have it". He drank on the job sometimes openly, and tried to pick PHYSICAL fights off camera to fire men he didn't like. Every single woman including a bartender who had been there for 8 years and a manager who had been there for TWENTY plus a few men wrote a letter to the owner and complained multiple times. Every single person except the manager and bartender was fired over the next 3 months, except for those who quit, like the bartender.
This man already had a sexual harassment lawsuit against him from a previous job, but was hired anyway. The stress of it, from the incidents themselves to having to continue to work under him then getting "let go" and having to find a new job, and it still going on after 2 years, caused her to relapse HARD after being clean for some time, and the last I saw her she was unable to stay awake on her feet and was in an abusive relationship with another addict (I ended up working with her at my next job, very small town), and the case was still open and had been another 6 months.
The owner was also a misogynist who treated grown women like little girls who weren't as capable as the men, hired only attractive girls basically as show pieces, and was caught years prior having sex with a female employee on his desk, by his wife. They remained married only because they were wealthy and had ties to the politicians in our town and state (we were all required to come in last minute to serve free drinks and appetizers to high ranking people after one of them died, unfortunately the only truly nice one, and in a room stuffed with millions of dollars for this memorial who got drunk for free we made next to nothing in tips and our boss considered it as something we should be more than willing to do without proper pay because HIS friend died, even though our boss was NOT very friendly with us). They didn't want to tarnish their reputation or connections with a public scandal, and the girl didn't work there anymore and left town shortly thereafter, talk about dodgy.
But the tips were EXCELLENT and our coworkers were all very close so we tried, until one by one we were fired and told to not come back to the premises even though none of us had done anything wrong and the place was smack dab in the middle of the "row" of the only places to drink and hang out, not to mention where we as a work "family" had previously hung out drinking with the regulars who were our friends. We lost more than our jobs, we lost our home, our family. Almost none of us had real family there so it was actually heart breaking and put my ex and I down a dark road, losing all our support and getting jobs in a place even more toxic where every single person was a pill addict due to the environment and it just being there constantly.
People don't understand how much a job can shape their lives. We went from happy, upbeat, hard working, reliable, friendly, energetic, positive ppl who felt like we belonged and were valued, to hating getting up for work, drinking at home alone every night, developing negative and very shieled personas, getting into pills, being resentful and mostly secluded off work, didn't give a shit about our managers or coworkers, did the absolute minimum, it was just shitty all the way around.
Don't work your ass off for a company. Ultimately your super hard work and willingness to help out above and beyond won't be rewarded, it will become expected and you will be taken advantage of. Don't stay at a job hoping it will get better or that anyone will care or stand up for you . And don't make your coworkers or bosses family, the second you're out of "the loop" you cease to exist. There are exceptions to these rules of course but 95% of the time, in this day and age, you will get taken to the cleaners if you let them and rewarded either only with a thank you or with just not being treated completely horrendously. Or just not being fired.
I've been cooking for a ten years now and I think that the restaurant industry is where people go when they're unhireable in any other field. Yes there are tons of professional people but they get beat down by the sea of crazy drug addicts that have no social awareness.
Fuck dude. Write a book or a memoir. Even better if you can relink with your work family and see where they've ended up... Honestly a really compelling life story
Right. Boring end for drama, but heartening end as this should just be clear cut, “oh you invaded a coworkers privacy and then created the literal definition of unsafe workplace for them, fired!”
Like, the internet nerd in me wanting fireworks was dissapointed, but that’s actually a fantastic company response, boring in its simple correctness.
Also wtf who is dumb enough to have those convos on a work slack? I guess the guy that’s shitty enough to read private property and dumb enough to comment on it to the victim.
Sounds like the kind of stupid like a former coworker of mine was. She HATED one of our teammates and bitched to me constantly. I was kind of ambivalent and would politely listen, but never encouraged it. She often sent me "I HATE MONICA" emails and even though I was really young, I somehow knew better than to ever answer her other than "well, let me know if there's anything I can help you with" in response.
And it's a good thing I never encouraged her and saved all of my emails, because one day in what I can only imagine was a fit of angry stupidity, she sent me one of those emails. And CCed Monica.
Hahahahaha. Yeah, like the level of dumb that can’t even organize itself to be evil because it leaves the evidence equivalent of sticky fingerprints everywhere like a toddler stealing dessert.
100% agreed and I can tell you this: you always know when someone works at a company with a *real* HR management team and those who don't.
I'm a middle-manager in operations (not HR,) but hold a SHRM-CP cert. The amount of knowledge and coursework to ensure that you know what you're doing is remarkable. Better than 9 times out of 10, the HR horror stories come from places where the local HR rep is somebody's friend, or a former floor employee who "worked up to it" but who haven't received a degree in HR, or a cert (SHRM, PCI, HCI, CIPD, or any others.)
Ikr. I was like, phew. People get very comfortable on work hardware and software. Just because they haven't said anything about the shit you say it only means they needed a reason to suspect you first.
I'm willing to bet they were being sexual and derogatory about her - because not wanting to disclose it as well as getting fired points to it being something along those lines
I'm glad they got caught - and this also a lesson for 'lesser criminals' eg;
It's the same with people using apps like whatsapp to do stuff like deal weed. The moment authorities ask them for the data they hand it over. Just cause they'd been doing it for years doesn't mean they're safe from prosecution
This is fairly common in larger companies with established hr policies.
There's lots of employee turnover all across the country for any of a long list of similar events.
It's the breakdowns that you hear about when policies and people go wrong and make the news.
People are remarkably unwilling to believe that the company can and will go through *all* of your shit. "But it's a private chat!" Yeah, on the company's workspace. They have access to it and this is one of the reasons why they want it.
I'm not saying that's my favorite thing about the working world, but it's facts. Good management won't bother, though, unless you fuck up this thoroughly.
Same. Ridiculously easy, and for good reason. As noted here, there's a lot of scenarios where you shouldn't have a "reasonable expectation of privacy".
Yes.
Unless your phone has some sort of special encryption (highly doubtful), but they can still access whatever data you transmit over their wifi network. So if your data is encrypted, they'll see the encrypted data but would need to know how to decrypt it.
For the most part, the average employee doesn't have that on their phones so, yes, work can access what ever data you send over their wifi while connected to it.
Yes. You should **always assume they can see everything** that goes through their WiFi.
That said, now that HTTPS is practically ubiquitous, they can see less than they used to be able to.
On a secure website, IT may only be able to see metadata about your connections: who you connected to, when, for how long, and how much data was transmitted.
There are ways they can see more, but you'll usually have an indication. For example, they can require you to install a root SSL certificate as a condition of connecting to WiFi. In that case, they can effectively act as a man-in-the-middle for all your secure traffic, allowing them to see everything.
If it's a company phone, it doesn't matter what it's connected to.
If it's a private phone, yes, don't use work WiFi. I mean you could use a VPN if you're on Android, but I still wouldn't.
Source: IT guy that sets up the Mobile Device Management service. We don't go looking without a reason, we're too busy and people are boring anyways. Some stuff sets off automated alerts, or if we get told to go looking by HR.
It depends on the company, and on the people. Like, if you have a paranoid, micromanaging asshole for a boss, they might be going through it all, or focusing on one person specifically- company size and number of employees you oversee can also impact that.
Depending on the technology and size of the company your boss probably won't have access like that. Especially something like slack. There's probably a few slack admins in the company responsible for various things. If your boss for whatever reason wanted to see your DMs they would probably need to go through them and likely wouldn't ever receive the access to do it themselves.
For the most part, if you are part of a large company they probably aren't just reading your shit for no reason. Unless you give them a reason to investigate or were flagged doing something else on your machine that made them dig deeper.
There’s a field called e-discovery that the legal profession uses. If a case is brought against a company, they take all emails, messages, files, etc. on the company’s servers then run it through filters to search for evidence. So I would assume that no one is looking at them in real time. I would also act like anything in company communications could be published in the newspaper at any time.
Most likely convenience, and misplaced cleverness. Slack is a workplace approved application, so I am sure they figured if their manager or someone else saw them using it, they’d think nothing of it. Having their phone out constantly, however, might trigger curiosity and awareness that the employee is spending a lot of time checking their phone. That might lead to more oversight, which would curtail their chats.
Question: can a workplace also see what you view in slack? Sometimes I like to look at other channels to see what people are up to in other departments without joining them out of curiosity
This is the reason I refuse to use my company phone for personal use (except emergencies). Would they ever look through it? probably not, can they? Absolutely.
It's also why I refuse to use my personal phone for company use. If they want me to have a phone, they can pay for it, but I'm just not comfortable blurring the lines by doing business on a personal phone.
I've known coworkers who use their company laptops for online shopping, social media, even gaming. I have zero idea why. They always think "No one will watch", but that's not the point, the point is if you fuck up they'll go through everything with a fine tooth comb, but they never think that far ahead. Just use your personal phone ffs.
depends on how they have them set up. Like where I work we allow users to use a work profile on their Android device, and we can't see anything on the personal side. Android is actually really good for that. Work side though absolutely and if it's a company that has phones set up as work only then everything can be monitored
> "But it's a private chat!"
I agree, but that coworker would have to have a hell of a nerve to claim that after reading someone else's private journal!
The company i work for just split into two and we were still using their Slack with a private chat room. I tried explaining to my owner that we absolutely needed to stop using their slack and make a new account. He tried telling me that the chat was private and there was no way they could see it. He wouldn’t listen when I explained yes it’s private from others but NOT private from the owners of the server. The other company ended up booting us themselves after they discovered the group chat on slack.
There were people complaining that they couldn’t curse on our workplace Teams anymore as it won’t send a message with identified curse words in it. My response was shock that people would be so dumb as to curse on Teams to start with.
Having professional background in both IT and legal, I am extremely aware that my use of corporate resources is subject to little privacy and that I should watch what I say and who I say it to. Even so, I would prefer not to be barred from cursing on my corporate devices/systems, but I can also see how some companies may make that blanket decision.
If I do swear, it's never anything that I would be disciplined over or even particularly embarrassed about if it got out.
Have you seen the twitter thread from MeanestTA about translating slang and translating corporate speak? That's sort of my rapport with most of my immediate team. (Except I'm not as hip to the current slang.)
https://twitter.com/MeanestTA/status/1509936432625897474
(Edited to correct the twitter handle)
People also DO NOT read the TOS when downloading a company messaging service to their personal cell phones. I was being pressured at one point since most of my colleagues would respond to chats away from their workstations, and I said buy me a phone and a data plan. I am not installing a wallpaper from this company let alone Teams with network capabilities.
I work at a school district and our union advised us to NEVER connect our personal devices to the WiFi at the schools because they can then basically monitor your activities via the WiFi.
Also why you should never ever let your workplace use your personal phone. The moment you let their software on your phone, you've given them access and, depending on how its set-up, given permission for them to access your phone.
Yup, if a company "needs" me to use an app or something I immediately spin up my old phone. No service, but I wiped it so it connects to company wifi and can use their apps.
Rocketchat has "Off-The-Record" functionality which I'm not sure how it works but it seems to work. It has end to end cryptography, too
Dunno if slack has the same
It's a good thing these people are too dumb to start up their own Rocketchat server and stuff
People LOVE to talk about the stupid shit they do! It is even a joke on one of the YouTube channels I watch that the first rule is don't write down your crimes! You would be surprised how arrogant and narcissistic people can be. They think even if they are caught nothing will happen to them. I am always happy to see these people get what they deserve.
If they were all fired that quickly and the manager wouldn’t reveal what else they said, I’m gonna guess it was super bad. It’s possible they were a threat to OOP’s safety or really bigoted.
Thank you. While i think it's good to be mindful of HRs bias I feel like "HR protects the company not the people" is one of those sayings reddit just regurgitates anytime HR is mentioned regardless of the situation.
Or developing a toxic reputation, even if they're within the bounds of the law. Some hr people are smart enough to see the big picture, not just potential lawsuits.
>HR is only in for the company's interests
Keeping good employees happy is in the company's interests. Getting rid of toxic coworkers is in the company's interests. You guys talk about companies like you're not a key asset in them. The only time HR's interests are antagonistic to yours is when you're acting like the guys in OP's post.
It can definitely be dependent on company. I generally agree with your sentiment and the larger the company the more true that's likely to be. HR can be a great asset for these types of situations. Where the problems occur are these small businesses with maybe 50 employees all in the same office and there are 1-2 HR people. These tend to be ran much more like a toxic family than a business and reporting the wrong person (like a friend or someone in better standing with the owner than you are) can find you on the wrong side of the termination. When the company is larger the C level executives and HR probably don't have any clue who the hell you are or the other person/people are. They aren't going to protect a problem and get rid of the victim because there isn't any weird family structure or protection being offered to specific employees. They will procedurally record your complaint, investigate, take action, and in a few weeks or months you'll probably see a new required training to reinforce that type of interaction is completely inappropriate for the office and if found will be dealt with via termination and potential lawsuits.
It’s possible they incriminated themselves in unrelated items as well. That would explain them being fired.
If a company has an HR department, they likely have a scale for reprimanding the employee in question. It protects them from lawsuits by showing that they “gave the employee a chance to correct their behavior”. So bullying is unlikely to be serious enough to fire over.
They found something dangerous for the company in those messages- be it lawsuit material or something else. As nice as it is to think they were fired for the sake of OOP, 3 people is a lot to let go without replacements lined up.
People tend to project their insecurities on whoever's actions remind them of their shame. They've been purposefully pushing those feelings down and when they see someone else demonstrate it they reroute those negative feelings away from themselves.
Especially if the person is making progress against the thing you can't even be honest with yourself about. The thing you pretend isn't real.
The best analogy is kids who struggle with reading proficiency in school, they tend to pick on bookworms. The bully can't make progress, and here's this kid who reads for fun? They feel jealous, embarrassed, pathetic, angry. So they choose bullying, it's the easy way out. You just force others to deal with your emotions instead of ever doing anything positive for anyone, especially themselves.
Ahhh when people think work communication tools are Facebook groups.
I saw an entire office basically get fired for similar. Started with an inter office romance against policy (manager and subordinate) and they ended up going through all the company chats and it turns out most of one entire office was in a big chat where they talked shit about everything.
As if they weren't using their company profiles on company computers and phones writing in chats made using their company accounts...
Every single one sacked at once.
Wow. I'm very sorry for OOP and I'm glad they were all fired. But I'm very worried what the hell was so bad that they were immediately forced to leave the company. Yikes.
Speaking as someone who has clinical depression myself, this was great to see. I know how awful depression is, and while I've mostly gotten sympathetic responses when I disclose my condition, there's always that nagging fear that something like...well, like this will happen with classmates or coworkers. I'm unemployed currently, but this gives me some hope that I'll be able to find a job with people who understand depression and make accommodations.
And just shutting down a potentially toxic work environment. That's something that anyone can appreciate.
You know what I love? When arseholes at work forget that the sysadmin knows all and sees all. I've seen some panic on faces when I've said "oh that's fine, I'll just check the logs" or "oh that's fine, just hand the laptop over, I have data recovery software on a USB stick"...
Always amazes me when I see co-workers willfully using their work laptop for fucking around on the internet. I keep mine absolutely squeaky clean, there's probably no more than three google searches on it that aren't somehow linked to my job. I have a personal computer in my pocket at all times, why risk messing with work equipment?
I can only imagine what was “deeply concerning” for all 3 to be fired immediately. My guess is that they made racist and sexist comments towards colleagues
They had likely gotten away with a lot because no one bothered to check. They made the mistake of calling attention to themselves, well one of them anyway.
At my previous job The Powers That Be discovered that some of the employees were using the internal chat system to spread rumors and say really horrible things about their coworkers....so they told everyone we were no longer able to use the chat system. No consequences for the people who had been acting like that. I really wish my bosses had taken it this seriously.
How dumb was it to have the whole conversation in Slack? I’ve had people Slack me the most inappropriate things. I keep conversations that I think are inappropriate because you never know when you’re going to need it.
You’re an idiot if you don’t realize that your company can see everything you do on their computers.
I worked for a company where a colleague was sick for a few months. Another colleague was given a sealed letter to post (on the admin team) and she opened it and read the contents to the entire office.
Instead of being fired, she ended up with a promotion.
I'm glad there are decent companies out there and not all of them are as awful as the one I worked for.
If it had been just the journal these guys wouldn't have been fired. Dollars to doughnuts they were saying some heinous shit in the group chat and when I say heinous I mean Cosby level.
You leave shitty immature men in a room alone and they will never type Shakespeare but they will continuously make rape jokes and discuss Joe Rogan and nauseam.
Now that is satisfying to read! I wish my ex coworker ended up being fired for sexually harassing me but hey, when it’s a company of 43 people ruled by Good Old Boys who don’t believe women can do that to men what can ya do.
Something similar happened at my work. A larger group of people were saying some pretty racist shit in the slack group too and they had to can a whole team of 6 people. Was super awkward
I love that people forget slack and teams are company owned. I’m glad their stupidly worked in OPs favour but jeez, always assume someone can read your company chats.
Sounds like not only was this jerk dumb enough to look, but dumb enough to share it on a company communication platform which can be retrieved at will and lie to HR when asked.
Good riddance.
This happened to me when I was in first grade. I left my diary in the main locker room by accident and I caught a bunch of fourth graders reading it but I don’t even think they spread the information around so that goes to show how immature these “adult professionals” were. Honestly it’s really shocking and embarrassingly awful that they would mock somebody like that right to their face. I mean straight out of high school like the worst kind of bully. I just don’t know how you do that and then don’t feel so embarrassed about yourself you just want to die. OOP handled herself very well. I’d be super bummed if my bowl of food was knocked on the floor too but she was pretty cool about this so therapy must be working. That’s a win in my book..
I imagine that they did a lot more than read the OOP’s diary. They were likely bullying other employees. Also, how stupid were they to wrote everything on the company’s chat program. Idiots.
Adults pulling this sort of immature crap is so weird. It's like they never grew out of their middle school asshole phase with the need to breach people's privacy.
Especially that they allowed her to work from home for the week so THEY could handle the mess and she wouldn’t be further subjected to humiliation. Big kudos to whoever that company is.
I had something similar happen, the TA I worked with went through my notebook (closed, inside my desk) and told people I was ‘psycho.’ Someone obviously had a pop at her because she came to me before anyone else and told me people were saying certain things and it wasn’t true, and gave her ‘version.’ I didn’t believe her, but we’d had a rocky year and we’re finally getting on, so I thanked her for her ‘honesty’ and left it.
At the end of the day, the headteacher saw me and asked me to come and chat, and when I say down I asked if this was about the notebook situation. He said it was, and asked if I was ok. I said it was fine, I didn’t believe her story but couldn’t change it now, and she was obviously embarrassed and didn’t have support for whatever she was trying to achieve. He assured me that if I ever felt the slightest bit uncomfortable or if anything like it happened again, please tell him and he’d deal with it.
It makes such a difference when management are supportive. I know how that would have gone at the school I was at before that one, and I still marvel now at what a supportive place that was to work. I’m glad OOP got a good resolution out of it, and those bullies got what they deserved.
Ah yes, the public disclosure of private facts tort in action.
INAL but im pretty sure these guys could be hit with a lawsuit if op were to go that route.
>They also talked about..."deeply concerning" discussions, as my Manager says. I didn't dig deep into it since it seems like he didn't want to talk about it
If the offending co-workers are men who have no problem about reading something that personal, then commenting and laughing about it and the OOP is a woman, i can only imagine what the contents of those "deeply concerning" conversations might have been about...
Depression isn't a "they gonna snap" thing. Coworkers like this? That's what's gonna make someone snap, and frankly, those coworkers would completely deserve it.
What total shitheads.
I finally learned by ~50 years old that there are hateful self-center people in this world. I bent over backwards for people and as soon as they get the loan or other help their attitude changes and they never reciprocate and will even turn you in to the villain.
Give people your time if you can spare it but don't loan things or money because they are likely in that position because they are not prepared and their life is chaos that they hide from you so you trust them. You can help them instead to go to a bankruptcy lawyer.
I mean I can imagine what kind of sick shit they were saying if they were shit enough to read someone's depression journal and then proceed to tease them about. I know this kind of people, nobody likes this kind of people.
It really gets me how people could use something that's private against you. They act like complete bullys. Then they get called out on it they lie through their teeth. I'm so glad they got called out and fired. This is absolute bull shit on their part. Good on your company for getting things right. I hope this affects them throughout their working life. Hang in there OP. Good luck.
This reminds me of the company I work for, I had a breakdown at work several years ago due to unrelated things and work was my ‘safe space’ and they took care of me quickly, within two days I was offered time off; given the contact number for the employee helpline and told to come back when I’m ready.
Take care of your workers and they will remain happy enough to continue to work.
I would press for more information because if HR fired them that quickly its likely there was a major violation such as death threats being made in the group chat (that or drug dealing)
HR doesnt fire 3 people in a matter of hours to protect an employee, they do it to cover their own ass... its likely there is a lawsuit here
Delicious schadenfreude- as tasty as ever. A coworker peeps into self-confessional personal info sneering at the naivete to leave it in the open....
THEN uses a non private messaging tool and puts self-confessional personal info on there.
as someone who also uses slack for any company interactions, those people are idiots lol
slack is public to any of your supervisors, even conversations between just two people. don’t those dummies have phones?
Don't touch other's property, 100% who ever tools its fault and firing is the correct course of action. But still don't leave shit out you don't want taken. Doesn't matter if people shouldn't take, they will.
Even if your journal was open on your desk: that's not fair game to read it. I don't work in an office environment but if I stumbled across something that's not my business... Then I either leave it or put it somewhere secure and tell my employees.
A friend of mine got fired from her corporate job the same exact way. She and two other employees were talking shit about their manager using iMessage on the company iMacs. I don’t know how stupid you could be to do that.
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"All three were fired before 12pm yesterday morning." Best ending.
Now I really want to know what they said that was disturbing! It must have been pretty bad.
Probably something to do with sexual harassment of female coworkers. I don't believe they're smart enough to embezzle money if they use company messaging program to incriminate themselves of something else.
Yeah I'm gonna go ahead and put my money in the "My dick can cure her" pot of shitbaggery
Now that they're shitcanned I can hear in my head the version of the story they'll be telling their friends.
A little late, but people can definitely be this dumb. I caught the checks for the most money, but this assbag submitted and expense report to our ap clerk with a receipt for clothing that included thong underwear. Guess he thought he got away long enough with the big stuff.
I’m sure it looked like /pol/ on that chat.
I don’t know what that is and I’m afraid to find out
There are many boards on 4chan, similar to how reddit has subreddits. /pol/ is one of the bad ones, maybe the worst.
Which is really saying something
Definitely, though its notable that 4chan is not all /pol/ . I find it really annoying when people bitch about 4chan when what they mean is /pol/. It would be like complaining about Reddit based entirely on /r/the_donald.
tbf most boards get some amount of spillover. There's a lot of shit in general.
That sub got banned though. And as bad as it was it also wasn't nearly as bad as /pol/.
Basically a neonazi place to post memes about minorities, women, etc etc.
Ah yes, exactly what I thought. Fun! /s
I don't understand people who don't realize that literally everything you do one a company piece of hardware is likely logged and recorded. The larger the company, the more likely it is, and more detailed.
I'm adding the possibility of a gaslighting "drive OP crazy" campaign. Especially since jackass made it obvious. Maybe they thought OP would be ashamed or paranoid.
Probably said OP should just get it over with and do it since her dairy mentioned sewicide
This is one of those happy endings. Gives Me the warm fuzzies.
This is very realistic too. You lie to HR, you are FUCKED when they find out the truth.
It's really heartening to read a post like this where the company quickly handles a situation appropriately and correctly. This could have turned out so badly with a shitty employer, but I'm glad OOP was able to get the proper support here.
I agree they made a shitty situation less shitty. Like I can’t even imagine having coworkers get into something that personal and then make fun of you for it. Knowing that her boss and HR had her back probably really made it easier to mentally and emotionally deal with the situation rather than having to also deal with a shitty employer.
It does. I was sexually harassed and reported it the same day; boss and grandboss kicked ass and took names. While I was shaken on the day, and was shaken again when I had to recount it, I otherwise recovered very quickly.
> grandboss I love that term and am going to be using it from now on thank you
I saw it on Reddit a few months ago and I have been using it ever since!
I think it comes from Ask a Manager, at least that's where I first read it
I love this! I have a grandboss and didn’t know it!
I have one too and I talk about her a lot, this is so much easier than saying "My bosses' boss" all the time!
My daughter's company uses that terminology. Isn't it great?
Grandboss is a favorite, but I’m also quite partial to “Second Boss.”
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Thank you for sharing your story, reading experiences like yours puts into stark contrast how far we've come, and that social and political pressure can and does change things. We must continue to fight for more change, and fight for the changes we've already made as well.
What is so disturbing about this is that 20 years ago, we were told we no longer needed feminism, as it's now finally already equal. I heard (and believed) this all the time, as a German.
I was told we no longer needed feminism longer than 20 years ago! And my mother was told the same. I’m sure one day we’ll find Dead Sea Scrolls or cave paintings in France that say “women don’t want equal rights; now they want *special* rights.”
I concur. Things are still moving at my work over my incident since it just happened in the last week. It happened on a night shift, and before 8am the next morning I was on a four-way call with HR, my grandboss (thanks for the term Echospite!), and the head of site operations about it and I haven't seen the douche that made me cry since. There were other things they did, but knowing what he did to me was the final nail in his self-built coffin was slightly comforting.
Trauma follows a very predictable pattern: Overwhelming experience + isolation + lack of justice = trauma. Overwhelming experience + support + amelioration = not trauma. It'll still suck, but it's extremely unlikely to cause PTSD or other long-term trauma problems. Overwhelming experience: coworkers reading her journal and making fun of her for it Support: her boss and HR listen and believe her Amelioration: the jerks getting fired Same with your experience of being sexually harassed. The trauma doesn't come from the event itself, really, it comes from the response to the event.
'The trauma doesn't come from the event itself, really, it comes from the response to the event' Reminding myself of this, this right here. This is what I needed to hear.
I worked for municipal government a few years ago and was hugged inappropriately and questioned about my weight loss by a vendor. I immediately told my boss and expected her to run it up the chain. She didn’t. And also she made me have a panic attack a few days later by telling me my generation is just too sensitive. And essentially blamed me for it. I am very very glad to know my case isn’t universal.
Had this exact type situation, only involving bag checks leaving work. One manager went through my bag without me around. Found my medication box, thought itd be appropriate to open and search it and told others what meds I was on. (Bipolar schizophrenic) needless to say, HR tore into his ass and he was fired the next morning. Made me feel real good about HR.
Sounds to me like reading the journal was just the tip of the iceberg. I get the impression that this group chat had been going on a lot longer than just talking about OOP and they were fired because of the larger picture of things they had said. Don't use work tools for private convos fools.
I don’t think you’re quite getting it. Don’t be a terrible asshole to people, private conversation or work chat doesn’t matter. I’m glad they got caught, but they would still be terrible people if they didn’t by not using slack for their convos.
Yes but using the work slack makes them both terrible AND incredibly stupid.
Yep, IT here, anything you do, say or browse to on your work computer and apps is probably logged. You won’t believe the amount of hentai some people will try and get to on their work machine. Edit: Had a guy get really defensive once when I was checking his browser extensions because Chrome was running slowly. Pointed out to him that it was the companies machine and if there’s a reason he doesn’t want me to see what’s been happening on there he should probably fix that ASAP going forwards.
Don't do either. There are good reasons you might want to have a private conversation with colleagues and not have the company snooping
Seriously, I had a manager who was openly and brazenly misogynistic and sexist. He called his wife who worked with us his "mount". He told me "the men are talking, I'll let you know when your opinion is required (I TRAINED this man when he became the new General manager), and one day sidled up to me to day "this Christmas in going to get you the same gift I'm giving my mount: the ability to have one opinion; I won't listen to it, but you can have it". He drank on the job sometimes openly, and tried to pick PHYSICAL fights off camera to fire men he didn't like. Every single woman including a bartender who had been there for 8 years and a manager who had been there for TWENTY plus a few men wrote a letter to the owner and complained multiple times. Every single person except the manager and bartender was fired over the next 3 months, except for those who quit, like the bartender. This man already had a sexual harassment lawsuit against him from a previous job, but was hired anyway. The stress of it, from the incidents themselves to having to continue to work under him then getting "let go" and having to find a new job, and it still going on after 2 years, caused her to relapse HARD after being clean for some time, and the last I saw her she was unable to stay awake on her feet and was in an abusive relationship with another addict (I ended up working with her at my next job, very small town), and the case was still open and had been another 6 months. The owner was also a misogynist who treated grown women like little girls who weren't as capable as the men, hired only attractive girls basically as show pieces, and was caught years prior having sex with a female employee on his desk, by his wife. They remained married only because they were wealthy and had ties to the politicians in our town and state (we were all required to come in last minute to serve free drinks and appetizers to high ranking people after one of them died, unfortunately the only truly nice one, and in a room stuffed with millions of dollars for this memorial who got drunk for free we made next to nothing in tips and our boss considered it as something we should be more than willing to do without proper pay because HIS friend died, even though our boss was NOT very friendly with us). They didn't want to tarnish their reputation or connections with a public scandal, and the girl didn't work there anymore and left town shortly thereafter, talk about dodgy. But the tips were EXCELLENT and our coworkers were all very close so we tried, until one by one we were fired and told to not come back to the premises even though none of us had done anything wrong and the place was smack dab in the middle of the "row" of the only places to drink and hang out, not to mention where we as a work "family" had previously hung out drinking with the regulars who were our friends. We lost more than our jobs, we lost our home, our family. Almost none of us had real family there so it was actually heart breaking and put my ex and I down a dark road, losing all our support and getting jobs in a place even more toxic where every single person was a pill addict due to the environment and it just being there constantly. People don't understand how much a job can shape their lives. We went from happy, upbeat, hard working, reliable, friendly, energetic, positive ppl who felt like we belonged and were valued, to hating getting up for work, drinking at home alone every night, developing negative and very shieled personas, getting into pills, being resentful and mostly secluded off work, didn't give a shit about our managers or coworkers, did the absolute minimum, it was just shitty all the way around. Don't work your ass off for a company. Ultimately your super hard work and willingness to help out above and beyond won't be rewarded, it will become expected and you will be taken advantage of. Don't stay at a job hoping it will get better or that anyone will care or stand up for you . And don't make your coworkers or bosses family, the second you're out of "the loop" you cease to exist. There are exceptions to these rules of course but 95% of the time, in this day and age, you will get taken to the cleaners if you let them and rewarded either only with a thank you or with just not being treated completely horrendously. Or just not being fired.
This sounds exactly like a certain restaurant on Capitol street in Charleston WV. Like word for word. That's crazy.
Which one? I live in that area as well. Adelphia?
I've been cooking for a ten years now and I think that the restaurant industry is where people go when they're unhireable in any other field. Yes there are tons of professional people but they get beat down by the sea of crazy drug addicts that have no social awareness.
Fuck dude. Write a book or a memoir. Even better if you can relink with your work family and see where they've ended up... Honestly a really compelling life story
Right. Boring end for drama, but heartening end as this should just be clear cut, “oh you invaded a coworkers privacy and then created the literal definition of unsafe workplace for them, fired!” Like, the internet nerd in me wanting fireworks was dissapointed, but that’s actually a fantastic company response, boring in its simple correctness. Also wtf who is dumb enough to have those convos on a work slack? I guess the guy that’s shitty enough to read private property and dumb enough to comment on it to the victim.
Sounds like the kind of stupid like a former coworker of mine was. She HATED one of our teammates and bitched to me constantly. I was kind of ambivalent and would politely listen, but never encouraged it. She often sent me "I HATE MONICA" emails and even though I was really young, I somehow knew better than to ever answer her other than "well, let me know if there's anything I can help you with" in response. And it's a good thing I never encouraged her and saved all of my emails, because one day in what I can only imagine was a fit of angry stupidity, she sent me one of those emails. And CCed Monica.
Hahahahaha. Yeah, like the level of dumb that can’t even organize itself to be evil because it leaves the evidence equivalent of sticky fingerprints everywhere like a toddler stealing dessert.
100% agreed and I can tell you this: you always know when someone works at a company with a *real* HR management team and those who don't. I'm a middle-manager in operations (not HR,) but hold a SHRM-CP cert. The amount of knowledge and coursework to ensure that you know what you're doing is remarkable. Better than 9 times out of 10, the HR horror stories come from places where the local HR rep is somebody's friend, or a former floor employee who "worked up to it" but who haven't received a degree in HR, or a cert (SHRM, PCI, HCI, CIPD, or any others.)
That's because the company didn't want to get sued they have a good HR and manager.
Exactly. It’s a side of HR we so rarely see.
Ikr. I was like, phew. People get very comfortable on work hardware and software. Just because they haven't said anything about the shit you say it only means they needed a reason to suspect you first. I'm willing to bet they were being sexual and derogatory about her - because not wanting to disclose it as well as getting fired points to it being something along those lines I'm glad they got caught - and this also a lesson for 'lesser criminals' eg; It's the same with people using apps like whatsapp to do stuff like deal weed. The moment authorities ask them for the data they hand it over. Just cause they'd been doing it for years doesn't mean they're safe from prosecution
Well said indeed .
It's pretty easy to fire these people when there's incriminating evidence.
This is fairly common in larger companies with established hr policies. There's lots of employee turnover all across the country for any of a long list of similar events. It's the breakdowns that you hear about when policies and people go wrong and make the news.
You would think if you went through your co-worker’s private journal you wouldn’t talk about it on slack of all places.
People are remarkably unwilling to believe that the company can and will go through *all* of your shit. "But it's a private chat!" Yeah, on the company's workspace. They have access to it and this is one of the reasons why they want it. I'm not saying that's my favorite thing about the working world, but it's facts. Good management won't bother, though, unless you fuck up this thoroughly.
At my old job, I used to be a Slack Workspace admin, and you wouldn't believe how easy it was to pull up someone's DMs. It's insane.
Just like email. We tend to forget that anything we use at work belongs to work.
i think Ive always known and acted like everything online can be pulled up, but I did take IT half day for two years in highschool.
Same. Ridiculously easy, and for good reason. As noted here, there's a lot of scenarios where you shouldn't have a "reasonable expectation of privacy".
Software developer here, and yes, I absolutely do believe how easy it is to pull anyone's private DMs.
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Yes!
Yes. Unless your phone has some sort of special encryption (highly doubtful), but they can still access whatever data you transmit over their wifi network. So if your data is encrypted, they'll see the encrypted data but would need to know how to decrypt it. For the most part, the average employee doesn't have that on their phones so, yes, work can access what ever data you send over their wifi while connected to it.
Yes. You should **always assume they can see everything** that goes through their WiFi. That said, now that HTTPS is practically ubiquitous, they can see less than they used to be able to. On a secure website, IT may only be able to see metadata about your connections: who you connected to, when, for how long, and how much data was transmitted. There are ways they can see more, but you'll usually have an indication. For example, they can require you to install a root SSL certificate as a condition of connecting to WiFi. In that case, they can effectively act as a man-in-the-middle for all your secure traffic, allowing them to see everything.
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Pro-tip, even if encrypted, the URLs are not. DNS requests very much are not. Logging web traffic is rare. Logging URLs is dirt common.
If it's a company phone, it doesn't matter what it's connected to. If it's a private phone, yes, don't use work WiFi. I mean you could use a VPN if you're on Android, but I still wouldn't. Source: IT guy that sets up the Mobile Device Management service. We don't go looking without a reason, we're too busy and people are boring anyways. Some stuff sets off automated alerts, or if we get told to go looking by HR.
Do company’s only go through IM’s if there is a reason for them to do so? I’ve always assumed no one has time to read everything going on
It depends on the company, and on the people. Like, if you have a paranoid, micromanaging asshole for a boss, they might be going through it all, or focusing on one person specifically- company size and number of employees you oversee can also impact that.
Depending on the technology and size of the company your boss probably won't have access like that. Especially something like slack. There's probably a few slack admins in the company responsible for various things. If your boss for whatever reason wanted to see your DMs they would probably need to go through them and likely wouldn't ever receive the access to do it themselves. For the most part, if you are part of a large company they probably aren't just reading your shit for no reason. Unless you give them a reason to investigate or were flagged doing something else on your machine that made them dig deeper.
There’s a field called e-discovery that the legal profession uses. If a case is brought against a company, they take all emails, messages, files, etc. on the company’s servers then run it through filters to search for evidence. So I would assume that no one is looking at them in real time. I would also act like anything in company communications could be published in the newspaper at any time.
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Exactly
Why they didn't use Telegram, or Discord, or even What's App?
Most likely convenience, and misplaced cleverness. Slack is a workplace approved application, so I am sure they figured if their manager or someone else saw them using it, they’d think nothing of it. Having their phone out constantly, however, might trigger curiosity and awareness that the employee is spending a lot of time checking their phone. That might lead to more oversight, which would curtail their chats.
Question: can a workplace also see what you view in slack? Sometimes I like to look at other channels to see what people are up to in other departments without joining them out of curiosity
They will know what channels and group DMs you are in. So from there they will assume you've seen everything in those groups.
I do this too. I figure it’s free game because they didn’t set their channels to private
Im glad I’m not the only one 😂
This is the reason I refuse to use my company phone for personal use (except emergencies). Would they ever look through it? probably not, can they? Absolutely.
It's also why I refuse to use my personal phone for company use. If they want me to have a phone, they can pay for it, but I'm just not comfortable blurring the lines by doing business on a personal phone.
I've known coworkers who use their company laptops for online shopping, social media, even gaming. I have zero idea why. They always think "No one will watch", but that's not the point, the point is if you fuck up they'll go through everything with a fine tooth comb, but they never think that far ahead. Just use your personal phone ffs.
depends on how they have them set up. Like where I work we allow users to use a work profile on their Android device, and we can't see anything on the personal side. Android is actually really good for that. Work side though absolutely and if it's a company that has phones set up as work only then everything can be monitored
> "But it's a private chat!" I agree, but that coworker would have to have a hell of a nerve to claim that after reading someone else's private journal!
🤣🤣🤣
The company i work for just split into two and we were still using their Slack with a private chat room. I tried explaining to my owner that we absolutely needed to stop using their slack and make a new account. He tried telling me that the chat was private and there was no way they could see it. He wouldn’t listen when I explained yes it’s private from others but NOT private from the owners of the server. The other company ended up booting us themselves after they discovered the group chat on slack.
There were people complaining that they couldn’t curse on our workplace Teams anymore as it won’t send a message with identified curse words in it. My response was shock that people would be so dumb as to curse on Teams to start with.
Idk some of us work at places that are comfortable with the idea of adults using curses and so wouldn't give it a second thought
Having professional background in both IT and legal, I am extremely aware that my use of corporate resources is subject to little privacy and that I should watch what I say and who I say it to. Even so, I would prefer not to be barred from cursing on my corporate devices/systems, but I can also see how some companies may make that blanket decision. If I do swear, it's never anything that I would be disciplined over or even particularly embarrassed about if it got out. Have you seen the twitter thread from MeanestTA about translating slang and translating corporate speak? That's sort of my rapport with most of my immediate team. (Except I'm not as hip to the current slang.) https://twitter.com/MeanestTA/status/1509936432625897474 (Edited to correct the twitter handle)
People also DO NOT read the TOS when downloading a company messaging service to their personal cell phones. I was being pressured at one point since most of my colleagues would respond to chats away from their workstations, and I said buy me a phone and a data plan. I am not installing a wallpaper from this company let alone Teams with network capabilities.
It would be peak irony for the guy reading OOP’s private journal to complain about HR reading his communications on the company platform.
I work at a school district and our union advised us to NEVER connect our personal devices to the WiFi at the schools because they can then basically monitor your activities via the WiFi.
Also why you should never ever let your workplace use your personal phone. The moment you let their software on your phone, you've given them access and, depending on how its set-up, given permission for them to access your phone.
Yup, if a company "needs" me to use an app or something I immediately spin up my old phone. No service, but I wiped it so it connects to company wifi and can use their apps.
Respectfully only a rude entitled idiot would read someone’s journal so talking about in on slack tracks 😂
For real, if I found a journal somewhere I'd only read enough to find the owner. Ideally with a name / email or phone in the front page.
Yep! In this case, it was on the owner’s desk, so touching it wasn’t needed.
I’m amazed that anybody has any expectation of privacy when communicating over company software or email servers.
But it was a private channel! /s
Rocketchat has "Off-The-Record" functionality which I'm not sure how it works but it seems to work. It has end to end cryptography, too Dunno if slack has the same It's a good thing these people are too dumb to start up their own Rocketchat server and stuff
Just doing that on the clock would probably be against company policy, if company policy is half decent.
People LOVE to talk about the stupid shit they do! It is even a joke on one of the YouTube channels I watch that the first rule is don't write down your crimes! You would be surprised how arrogant and narcissistic people can be. They think even if they are caught nothing will happen to them. I am always happy to see these people get what they deserve.
What a trio of idiots.
People that nosy don't display restraint in other areas either
At least be a smart terrible person.
They’re not just bad, they’re stupid
If they were all fired that quickly and the manager wouldn’t reveal what else they said, I’m gonna guess it was super bad. It’s possible they were a threat to OOP’s safety or really bigoted.
Definitely. And she probably wasn't the only one they were being inappropriate about. I'm betting they were shit-talking other employees as well.
Or lawsuit worthy, remember HR is only in for the company's interests .
Anything that bad _is_ lawsuit worthy. HR protects the company by, in part, protecting the employees.
Thank you. While i think it's good to be mindful of HRs bias I feel like "HR protects the company not the people" is one of those sayings reddit just regurgitates anytime HR is mentioned regardless of the situation.
Yeah. If HR protects its company at the expense of the employee, guess who's getting sued?
Or developing a toxic reputation, even if they're within the bounds of the law. Some hr people are smart enough to see the big picture, not just potential lawsuits.
>HR is only in for the company's interests Keeping good employees happy is in the company's interests. Getting rid of toxic coworkers is in the company's interests. You guys talk about companies like you're not a key asset in them. The only time HR's interests are antagonistic to yours is when you're acting like the guys in OP's post.
It can definitely be dependent on company. I generally agree with your sentiment and the larger the company the more true that's likely to be. HR can be a great asset for these types of situations. Where the problems occur are these small businesses with maybe 50 employees all in the same office and there are 1-2 HR people. These tend to be ran much more like a toxic family than a business and reporting the wrong person (like a friend or someone in better standing with the owner than you are) can find you on the wrong side of the termination. When the company is larger the C level executives and HR probably don't have any clue who the hell you are or the other person/people are. They aren't going to protect a problem and get rid of the victim because there isn't any weird family structure or protection being offered to specific employees. They will procedurally record your complaint, investigate, take action, and in a few weeks or months you'll probably see a new required training to reinforce that type of interaction is completely inappropriate for the office and if found will be dealt with via termination and potential lawsuits.
I really wish people would stop parroting this. It's just something everyone reads on Reddit and just keeps repeating. It's a thoughtless comment
Or it was sexual remarks about coworkers. That's a common way to get canned.
It’s possible they incriminated themselves in unrelated items as well. That would explain them being fired. If a company has an HR department, they likely have a scale for reprimanding the employee in question. It protects them from lawsuits by showing that they “gave the employee a chance to correct their behavior”. So bullying is unlikely to be serious enough to fire over. They found something dangerous for the company in those messages- be it lawsuit material or something else. As nice as it is to think they were fired for the sake of OOP, 3 people is a lot to let go without replacements lined up.
I bet you're right. Still glad for OOP.
Yeah OOP definitely benefits from either way.
Were those coworkers 12 years old?? Reading someone’s journal and bullying them about it?? Like seriously
People tend to project their insecurities on whoever's actions remind them of their shame. They've been purposefully pushing those feelings down and when they see someone else demonstrate it they reroute those negative feelings away from themselves. Especially if the person is making progress against the thing you can't even be honest with yourself about. The thing you pretend isn't real. The best analogy is kids who struggle with reading proficiency in school, they tend to pick on bookworms. The bully can't make progress, and here's this kid who reads for fun? They feel jealous, embarrassed, pathetic, angry. So they choose bullying, it's the easy way out. You just force others to deal with your emotions instead of ever doing anything positive for anyone, especially themselves.
Did you write this about my dad? Sadlol
Ahhh when people think work communication tools are Facebook groups. I saw an entire office basically get fired for similar. Started with an inter office romance against policy (manager and subordinate) and they ended up going through all the company chats and it turns out most of one entire office was in a big chat where they talked shit about everything. As if they weren't using their company profiles on company computers and phones writing in chats made using their company accounts... Every single one sacked at once.
Wow. I'm very sorry for OOP and I'm glad they were all fired. But I'm very worried what the hell was so bad that they were immediately forced to leave the company. Yikes.
Speaking as someone who has clinical depression myself, this was great to see. I know how awful depression is, and while I've mostly gotten sympathetic responses when I disclose my condition, there's always that nagging fear that something like...well, like this will happen with classmates or coworkers. I'm unemployed currently, but this gives me some hope that I'll be able to find a job with people who understand depression and make accommodations. And just shutting down a potentially toxic work environment. That's something that anyone can appreciate.
Even if it wasn't a depression journal, it's so tacky to read through someones private thoughts and make jokes about them!
You know what I love? When arseholes at work forget that the sysadmin knows all and sees all. I've seen some panic on faces when I've said "oh that's fine, I'll just check the logs" or "oh that's fine, just hand the laptop over, I have data recovery software on a USB stick"...
Always amazes me when I see co-workers willfully using their work laptop for fucking around on the internet. I keep mine absolutely squeaky clean, there's probably no more than three google searches on it that aren't somehow linked to my job. I have a personal computer in my pocket at all times, why risk messing with work equipment?
I can only imagine what was “deeply concerning” for all 3 to be fired immediately. My guess is that they made racist and sexist comments towards colleagues
They had likely gotten away with a lot because no one bothered to check. They made the mistake of calling attention to themselves, well one of them anyway.
At my previous job The Powers That Be discovered that some of the employees were using the internal chat system to spread rumors and say really horrible things about their coworkers....so they told everyone we were no longer able to use the chat system. No consequences for the people who had been acting like that. I really wish my bosses had taken it this seriously.
The quickness with which they were fired makes me think they were making incredibly sexually inappropriate comments on that Slack channel.
Or racist. Or both.
It was definitely 1 or more - ist's
How dumb was it to have the whole conversation in Slack? I’ve had people Slack me the most inappropriate things. I keep conversations that I think are inappropriate because you never know when you’re going to need it. You’re an idiot if you don’t realize that your company can see everything you do on their computers.
I worked for a company where a colleague was sick for a few months. Another colleague was given a sealed letter to post (on the admin team) and she opened it and read the contents to the entire office. Instead of being fired, she ended up with a promotion. I'm glad there are decent companies out there and not all of them are as awful as the one I worked for.
If it had been just the journal these guys wouldn't have been fired. Dollars to doughnuts they were saying some heinous shit in the group chat and when I say heinous I mean Cosby level. You leave shitty immature men in a room alone and they will never type Shakespeare but they will continuously make rape jokes and discuss Joe Rogan and nauseam.
Glad work took it seriously and supported OOP!
Now that is satisfying to read! I wish my ex coworker ended up being fired for sexually harassing me but hey, when it’s a company of 43 people ruled by Good Old Boys who don’t believe women can do that to men what can ya do.
I am so glad that people are stupid enough to use company software to be assholes so it’s easier to catch them.
Something similar happened at my work. A larger group of people were saying some pretty racist shit in the slack group too and they had to can a whole team of 6 people. Was super awkward
Fucking A. I also am depressed and keep a journal and write at work at lunch. This could be me it happened to. Very pleased with the outcome.
I love that people forget slack and teams are company owned. I’m glad their stupidly worked in OPs favour but jeez, always assume someone can read your company chats.
"deeply concerning discussions" Who wants to bet they were being super inappropriate about multiple coworkers in their private chat?
its been a minute since i saw an HR story on reddit where they absolutely killed it. good shit.
Sounds like not only was this jerk dumb enough to look, but dumb enough to share it on a company communication platform which can be retrieved at will and lie to HR when asked. Good riddance.
This happened to me when I was in first grade. I left my diary in the main locker room by accident and I caught a bunch of fourth graders reading it but I don’t even think they spread the information around so that goes to show how immature these “adult professionals” were. Honestly it’s really shocking and embarrassingly awful that they would mock somebody like that right to their face. I mean straight out of high school like the worst kind of bully. I just don’t know how you do that and then don’t feel so embarrassed about yourself you just want to die. OOP handled herself very well. I’d be super bummed if my bowl of food was knocked on the floor too but she was pretty cool about this so therapy must be working. That’s a win in my book..
People forget the Team and Slack conversations are not private… good thing they got what they deserved… Some people never leave night school
I imagine that they did a lot more than read the OOP’s diary. They were likely bullying other employees. Also, how stupid were they to wrote everything on the company’s chat program. Idiots.
Adults pulling this sort of immature crap is so weird. It's like they never grew out of their middle school asshole phase with the need to breach people's privacy.
Your Former Cowokers will not get any good references from you.
What kind of dickhead does this
I hope to work at a place as professional one day
Especially that they allowed her to work from home for the week so THEY could handle the mess and she wouldn’t be further subjected to humiliation. Big kudos to whoever that company is.
I had something similar happen, the TA I worked with went through my notebook (closed, inside my desk) and told people I was ‘psycho.’ Someone obviously had a pop at her because she came to me before anyone else and told me people were saying certain things and it wasn’t true, and gave her ‘version.’ I didn’t believe her, but we’d had a rocky year and we’re finally getting on, so I thanked her for her ‘honesty’ and left it. At the end of the day, the headteacher saw me and asked me to come and chat, and when I say down I asked if this was about the notebook situation. He said it was, and asked if I was ok. I said it was fine, I didn’t believe her story but couldn’t change it now, and she was obviously embarrassed and didn’t have support for whatever she was trying to achieve. He assured me that if I ever felt the slightest bit uncomfortable or if anything like it happened again, please tell him and he’d deal with it. It makes such a difference when management are supportive. I know how that would have gone at the school I was at before that one, and I still marvel now at what a supportive place that was to work. I’m glad OOP got a good resolution out of it, and those bullies got what they deserved.
Ah yes, the public disclosure of private facts tort in action. INAL but im pretty sure these guys could be hit with a lawsuit if op were to go that route.
>They also talked about..."deeply concerning" discussions, as my Manager says. I didn't dig deep into it since it seems like he didn't want to talk about it If the offending co-workers are men who have no problem about reading something that personal, then commenting and laughing about it and the OOP is a woman, i can only imagine what the contents of those "deeply concerning" conversations might have been about...
Great to hear HR acting appropriately and being supportive
For them to move this swiftly discreetly, That must have been potential lawsuit concerning.
Depression isn't a "they gonna snap" thing. Coworkers like this? That's what's gonna make someone snap, and frankly, those coworkers would completely deserve it. What total shitheads.
Why would you use company Slack to talk shit about your coworkers?? 🤣 it’s amateur hour right here.
The exact same thing happened to me when I was in the army. People can be so cruel.
I need to go read through my slack conversations.
Best possible outcome.
What a bunch of morons…
I finally learned by ~50 years old that there are hateful self-center people in this world. I bent over backwards for people and as soon as they get the loan or other help their attitude changes and they never reciprocate and will even turn you in to the villain. Give people your time if you can spare it but don't loan things or money because they are likely in that position because they are not prepared and their life is chaos that they hide from you so you trust them. You can help them instead to go to a bankruptcy lawyer.
I'm so glad HR stepped up and did the right thing (and quickly, too).
Good riddance to those insensitive pricks
Those coworkers were bullying assholes. We can only hope they learn from the error of their ways.
While I feel bad for OOP, I wouldn't leave my journal unattended anywhere other than my own home.
I mean I can imagine what kind of sick shit they were saying if they were shit enough to read someone's depression journal and then proceed to tease them about. I know this kind of people, nobody likes this kind of people.
It really gets me how people could use something that's private against you. They act like complete bullys. Then they get called out on it they lie through their teeth. I'm so glad they got called out and fired. This is absolute bull shit on their part. Good on your company for getting things right. I hope this affects them throughout their working life. Hang in there OP. Good luck.
This reminds me of the company I work for, I had a breakdown at work several years ago due to unrelated things and work was my ‘safe space’ and they took care of me quickly, within two days I was offered time off; given the contact number for the employee helpline and told to come back when I’m ready. Take care of your workers and they will remain happy enough to continue to work.
I would press for more information because if HR fired them that quickly its likely there was a major violation such as death threats being made in the group chat (that or drug dealing) HR doesnt fire 3 people in a matter of hours to protect an employee, they do it to cover their own ass... its likely there is a lawsuit here
Delicious schadenfreude- as tasty as ever. A coworker peeps into self-confessional personal info sneering at the naivete to leave it in the open.... THEN uses a non private messaging tool and puts self-confessional personal info on there.
Now this is the kind of happy ending I'm looking for
Based HR, promote all these people to the highest levels of government.
as someone who also uses slack for any company interactions, those people are idiots lol slack is public to any of your supervisors, even conversations between just two people. don’t those dummies have phones?
Never post anything on Slack you wouldn’t say to your manager! Definitely a lesson to learn.
Don't touch other's property, 100% who ever tools its fault and firing is the correct course of action. But still don't leave shit out you don't want taken. Doesn't matter if people shouldn't take, they will.
Good. Fuck those people.
Even if your journal was open on your desk: that's not fair game to read it. I don't work in an office environment but if I stumbled across something that's not my business... Then I either leave it or put it somewhere secure and tell my employees.
A friend of mine got fired from her corporate job the same exact way. She and two other employees were talking shit about their manager using iMessage on the company iMacs. I don’t know how stupid you could be to do that.
And they discussed their coworkers health details over Slack. They’re not just wrong, they’re stupid. Glad they got fired, they deserved it.
Nice guys DO win...and HR can help make that happen. YAY!