Delegates

[Arceedee]

Where I work they have made us give permission for managers to have access to
our inbox. The excuse is "business need" but there is always the prospect of
managers abusing their authority. Whilst I can have personal mail diverted
by rule to another folder and out of reach they can still look at anything
else that is in the inbox. Is there any way of showing that mail has been
read by the delegate?

 

[Joe Grover]

It depends on how they're doing it. If they're just being granted access to
your Inbox then probably the only way you'd be able to tell is if you saw an
unread message suddenly get marked as read.

Keep in mind that corporate email is not private. It isn't your mailbox, it
is theirs. The recommended thing is to not use your work email for personal
use. Get a web-based mail account such as Google or Yahoo or something, and
you'll have nothing to worry about. From a legal standpoint, they're
providing the hardware and resources for the mailbox, they own it, and they
don't even really need to give a reason for doing so. It seems invasive,
but in the end it is their mailbox, not yours.

 

[Arceedee]

That's fully understood. I wasn't suggesting that we have personal email
discussions - just the odd "what time you at lunch" sort of thing, which is
allowed. But there are times when "legal" internal email is necessary, Union
matters, internal complaints. That sort of thing. We'll have to get used to
marking items as private and deselecting the appropriate button in delegation
process. Also as I said before the habit of marking such items and setting a
rule to divert to a particular folder should solve it. Thanks anyway.