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Subject:Re: An ugly job incident (long) From:Melissa Alton <altonm -at- US -dot- IBM -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 20 Oct 1998 12:30:17 -0400
I know whenever I've left a job I've always cleaned out my desk and my hard
drive of any files that weren't relevant (ie any personal files that I may have
worked on during lunch or breaks).
A new person wouldn't know what is important and what isn't important, so they
wouldnt know what to throw away.
Whenever I start a new job I dont throw away anything that the old person
left...who knows when you might need it.
I think you were a little sneaky, but as long as you didnt throw away any
company information I think you should be fine.
Here's a question...does your company make a back up tape every night? If not,
they should.
TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU on 10/20/98 12:12:01 AM
Please respond to smiller -at- PORTAL -dot- COM
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cc:
Subject: Re: An ugly job incident (long)
Among the bizarre things that Barry K said were:
----------------------------------------------------------
> > Do you think I was wrong to throw away notes and old edited documents?
> >
> YES! Old notes and documents are the property of your employer. You
> created
> the notes on company time, doing company business. If you wanted a copy
> for
> yourself - well that is debatable. But deleting old documents from the
> server, and throwing away old documents, friend, you don't have a leg to
> stand on.
>
> If I ever checked references and the reference said: They were a great
> technical writer, but they deleted documents from the server just before
> they were laid off."
>
> Woo Nellie!, you can guess the outcome...
---------------------------------------------------------
Whenever I leave a job, I always make an extra effort to do the courteous
and correct thing which is to get rid of all my old files, notes, draft
reviews and so forth that are useless and should be thrown out. I consider
it rude to leave all that crap to the next person who gets my office space,
or whoever has to maintain source files. You're being punished for doing the
right thing.
