Infobahn: Is operating a Gmail account THAT hard?

it is for 85% of the work force. The morons at my work are shocked when I ask them why they are sending all of their kids school stuff to their work email or why they have so much other crap like a thousand Groupon deals a day piping in our our email servers. It just amazes me how dumb your average person is these days and how they don't understand how corporate society works and how they should behave. People have their credit card information and statements being routed to work servers. It's just astounding the level of stupidity.

Meh. Pretty dumb thing to fire a person over. Was she doing her job or not? So what if she was using the district's computers to exchange sexy e-mails with her love. When she would go meet him for a quickie during her lunch break, on her way she would walk across district floors and through a district parking lot. When she would think about him in her office, she would do so while breathing district air.

I don't get businesses that expect their employees to stop being human beings. If she was spending an inordinate amount of time conducting her affair while at work, fine, fire her. But she sent 40 emails to her lover over a 30-day span. Ooh, not even two emails per day. Only a dozen or so were sexual. Big. Farking. Deal.

mesmer242: I feel sort of bad for her actually. Her husband obviously doesn't want to be around her, and now she's alone and unemployed. Bummer.

She made her bed, and now she can farking sleep in it. No sympathy whatsoever for stupid biatches like her.

Free clue: if you work for the government, and have a government-provided email address, anything you do with that address can be monitored, and is subject to public scrutiny, dumbass.

Why are allegedly intelligent people so farking stupid about email? I once helped a lawyer flush a stuck email from their outbox that was obviously a love letter to a non-spouse. Thank you so much for confirming the suspicions thrown up by the subject and address fields, Preview Pane. "I miss you so much my widdle snoogiewoogie."

This was someone who was part of drafting the company's email archiving and preservation policies. The one where every incoming and outgoing email was saved indefinitely.

Why on earth would anyone use their company email system to conduct an affair knowing every single one of those emails is being saved for as long as the company exists?

Andulamb: Meh. Pretty dumb thing to fire a person over. Was she doing her job or not? So what if she was using the district's computers to exchange sexy e-mails with her love. When she would go meet him for a quickie during her lunch break, on her way she would walk across district floors and through a district parking lot. When she would think about him in her office, she would do so while breathing district air.

I don't get businesses that expect their employees to stop being human beings. If she was spending an inordinate amount of time conducting her affair while at work, fine, fire her. But she sent 40 emails to her lover over a 30-day span. Ooh, not even two emails per day. Only a dozen or so were sexual. Big. Farking. Deal.

It shows that the person has mindbogglingly poor judgement. A school administrator should assume that their email is essentially part of the public record. There's very little expectation of email privacy in a position like superintendent. There's no excuse for using the school's email system to send and receive emails that should clearly be private. There are plenty of free email systems that will get the job done. And many of them can be used just fine from a smartphone so there's also no reason to be using the school's equipment.

If this is an example of how she handles what is likely the most sensitive information of her personal life, how careless is she going to be with sensitive work information?

Dr.Zom: That picture just screams "Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to plead ignorance on this thing, because if I had known that sort of thing was frowned upon..."

It shouldn't be frowned upon. It was two consenting adults. The fact that the school's email system was 'abused' is of such small importance to the rest, that it shouldn't matter.

It never ceases to amaze me that, despite continual warnings to the contrary from IT and computer security experts, how many otherwise intelligent folk continue to use their name as their e-mail address??

StoPPeRmobile: maq0r: relcec: maybe she was a probationary employee and the board felt this move was the most effective way to quarantine the contagion that is her promiscuity.

And how is her alleged "promiscuity" affecting her new job? And really? Promiscuity? aren't ya exaggerating a little bit?

Well, it prompted her to forget her obligation to follow corporate guidelines and waste resources. This could be considered theft.

Yeah that's why I said "her NEW job"

is that a guy with a wig on?

Malt Liquor: From http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/tag/nancy-sebring/

"The Omaha board will have to work out the details of a contract with Sebring, who currently earns $206,178, a figure that excludes a $34,019 annuity contribution and a $6,000 annual car allowance."

FTFA: "In one of the emails, Sebring said the salary from her new job in Omaha would allow her to divorce her husband."

So making nearly a quarter million a year wasn't enough?

Gawd they pay these morons too much.

And how much money was she planning to squeeze out of him for alimony? How broke is her new man that she had weighed staying married and getting divorced, and staying married gave her more money to play with?

As for nobody's business but her own, proof of an affair means she can't squeeze as much money out of her husband in court, right?

/who is her husband fking in Colorado since he stays there?

Buffet: It never ceases to amaze me that, despite continual warnings to the contrary from IT and computer security experts, how many otherwise intelligent folk continue to use their name as their e-mail address??

Maybe it's because IT departments force it. If you're in a professional setting, you use your real name, you don't use pseudonyms... and that's how *IT departments* set it up, right?

But for private shiat, sure, use as many pseudonyms as you want, not your work accounts. And don't use work accounts to sign onto free accounts.

Coming on a Bicycle: Dr.Zom: That picture just screams "Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to plead ignorance on this thing, because if I had known that sort of thing was frowned upon..."

It shouldn't be frowned upon. It was two consenting adults. The fact that the school's email system was 'abused' is of such small importance to the rest, that it shouldn't matter.

The problem is that your place of employment is not paying you to do private shiat on the servers they pay for. Just as you can get in trouble for surfing porn, or shopping online, while you're using your professional work account *someone else is paying for*......... you can get in trouble for using that same professional work account to send private letters. I thought it was looked upon as using company time inappropriately.

Also, doesn't it also have the same standing as using company letterhead? Like in the olden days when people actually sent snail mail to each other, you weren't allowed to use company letterhead to send private correspondence. Your email address is your company letterhead, and should be treated the same way.

This is not a matter of two consenting adults, this is a matter of inappropriate use of company 'property' and inappropriate use of company time, particularly if it's found she was sending those letters while she was at work.

Shiat may work differently among IT dudes and dudettes who give each other leeway on that shiat, but for non-IT jobs...... IT dudes and dudettes do not give non-IT people the same leeway.

TheGhostofFarkPast: Infobahn: Is operating a Gmail account THAT hard?

it is for 85% of the work force. The morons at my work are shocked when I ask them why they are sending all of their kids school stuff to their work email or why they have so much other crap like a thousand Groupon deals a day piping in our our email servers. It just amazes me how dumb your average person is these days and how they don't understand how corporate society works and how they should behave. People have their credit card information and statements being routed to work servers. It's just astounding the level of stupidity.

They have it routed there because they 'live' at their jobs? They're there all day, it's like picking up the phone and making calls using the company phone for private business (which is something else folks weren't supposed to do because companies kept records of that shiat, but folks did it anyway because they were at their jobs all day, cell phones weren't widespread, and payphones cost money you can touch).

If IT departments don't want folks using company emails, IT departments need to educate folks that it's okay to use private email services, it's safe to do so, and that they can use thoe private email services during company time. If the company doesn't want folks using private email services during company time, but then tells folks they can't send any private correspondence at all during working hours, they're asking for folks to break the rules. They're not giving folks options.

Instead of calling folks dumb or stupid, just give them options. Give folks an option for not using company emails for private business, and they will take it. Do companies do that, or do companies want it both ways?

ExperianScaresCthulhu: Coming on a Bicycle: Dr.Zom: That picture just screams "Was that wrong? Should I not have done that? I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to plead ignorance on this thing, because if I had known that sort of thing was frowned upon..."

It shouldn't be frowned upon. It was two consenting adults. The fact that the school's email system was 'abused' is of such small importance to the rest, that it shouldn't matter.

The problem is that your place of employment is not paying you to do private shiat on the servers they pay for. Just as you can get in trouble for surfing porn, or shopping online, while you're using your professional work account *someone else is paying for*......... you can get in trouble for using that same professional work account to send private letters. I thought it was looked upon as using company time inappropriately.

Also, doesn't it also have the same standing as using company letterhead? Like in the olden days when people actually sent snail mail to each other, you weren't allowed to use company letterhead to send private correspondence. Your email address is your company letterhead, and should be treated the same way.

This is not a matter of two consenting adults, this is a matter of inappropriate use of company 'property' and inappropriate use of company time, particularly if it's found she was sending those letters while she was at work.

Shiat may work differently among IT dudes and dudettes who give each other leeway on that shiat, but for non-IT jobs...... IT dudes and dudettes do not give non-IT people the same leeway.

Somehow I very much doubt that anybody was ever fired for doing a little grocery shopping online on a work computer during an idle five minutes. Somehow I feel the whole affair has much more to do with an 'aw yuck sex'-double standard, especially since it was a woman.

But yeah, you know what, I can't prove anything - so you're probably right: damn her for stealing what probably totals up to a precious three seconds of 20Mbps corporate bandwidth. Never mind that her wages are presumably such that the tires on her car being slightly under-pressured on her Monday commute to work probably cost the company more money - the biatch stole, and this serves her right!

Oh, it was in her previous line of work? Eh...

No, it can't be a double standard. No way!

Coming on a Bicycle: Somehow I very much doubt that anybody was ever fired for doing a little grocery shopping online on a work computer during an idle five minutes. Somehow I feel the whole affair has much more to do with an 'aw yuck sex'-double standard, especially since it was a woman.

But yeah, you know what, I can't prove anything - so you're probably right: damn her for stealing what probably totals up to a precious three ...

If you don't want to give your company an easy reason for firing you, you don't do private shiat using your company email. Besides, those 'idle five minutes' add up............. and, like TheGhostofFarkPast was kinda referencing above, it adds up *over everyone*.

I don't agree at all that there was a double standard because women shouldn't have sex. The biatch shouldn't have been using company email to write dirty letters to the dude dicking her. Bottom line. Nobody at the company wants to see it, she's in a high enough profile position where her emails really do represent the school and care should be taken that any emails she sends out under school email address should, you know, represent the school. If that shiat becomes public, then the school is dragged in............ instead of it just being yahoo or gmail or whomever. How do schools deal with subpoenas for emails? And how much does that cost if they can't just say 'pound sand?' How much does it cost to say 'pound sand' if they can?

In other words, jtown's whole post, above.

-----------------------------
Andulamb: But she sent 40 emails to her lover over a 30-day span. Ooh, not even two emails per day. Only a dozen or so were sexual. Big. Farking. Deal.

She's a female, not a dude. A dude can probably whip out a sex letter in two seconds. Because he's a dude, and dudes don't care in the same ways females care. Females actually think about that kind of shiat. Kind of like the difference between a dude taking a picture of his junk (what's the most he's going to do, stroke it to give it some heft?) versus a chick (who's going to spend time arranging shiat, color shiat, angles, clothing, accessories, makeup, positions, whatnot).

If she was writing 40 emails over a 30 day span, how much time did this female spend on writing each letter?

maq0r: I mean, yeah, you can fire her for violating the internet policy in Iowa.... but she didn't break that rule in Nebraska, then why resign/get fired there?

labman: s long as she wasn't having the affair with a student, who really gives a shiat. She can still be an effective teacher and leader.

Not really.

When being interviewed for a new job you'd generally have to say why you're leaving your old job, and your new job offer would be subject to satisfactory references from your old job. In essence here, the game changed entirely between her being offered the new job and actually starting that new job.

New employer had offered her the job based on her previously professional behaviour, clean disciplinary record, and that she was leaving her previous job to take up this one.

Before she actually started the new job it turned out that her previous behaviour was unprofessional and that she had been forced to resign early to avoid disciplinary procedures against her.

Whilst I agree it seems harsh to deprive someone of their livelihood in this case, it would be unfair to compel the new employer to take on somebody whose background was materially different from what they believed when they offered the job. Bear in mind that this woman had the opportunity to inform her new employers of the real reason for leaving her previous job, in which case they could have reviewed their decision and chosen to either give her a second chance or withdraw the offer. By concealing the facts the woman sought to avoid any punishment for her behaviour, and bearing in mind that she is in a supervisory role that's really poor judgement.

Malt Liquor: From http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/dmr/index.php/tag/nancy-sebring/

"The Omaha board will have to work out the details of a contract with Sebring, who currently earns $206,178, a figure that excludes a $34,019 annuity contribution and a $6,000 annual car allowance."

FTFA: "In one of the emails, Sebring said the salary from her new job in Omaha would allow her to divorce her husband."

So making nearly a quarter million a year wasn't enough?

Gawd they pay these morons too much.

Oh, it gets better. A LOT of big city school systems are so politicized that superintendents don't last too long because they annoy one or more local power brokers, so the supers demand - and get - 'pay or play' contracts, where they get paid for a certain number of years even if they get shiatcanned or resign after only a short period of time. For instance, at one point in the early 90s Cleveland was paying three superintendents, two of whom hadn't lasted a year.

And no, criminal charges do not necessarily void said contracts,

Catsaregreen: Hmmm, it appears it took the Des Moines Register and the Omaha World-Herald to break the story through open-records request.

Yep, newspapers are dead; they serve no purpose.

More like they created the story.
She was the superintendent for 6+ years. The Register had to troll through 6 years of emails to find 40 salacious items. 'Some' of which were sent during school hours.

Spirit Hammer: More like they created the story.
She was the superintendent for 6+ years. The Register had to troll through 6 years of emails to find 40 salacious items. 'Some' of which were sent during school hours.

Wow... that fails so hard it's difficult to know where to begin.

"Some 40 emails were sent between March 26 and May 8, and more than a quarter were sexually explicit, the Register reported. Some of the emails were sent during the work day and others on nights and weekends." So it's not over 6+ years, it's less than two months, during which time there were 40 non-business of which a quarter were sexually explicit.

"it was revealed she was rushed out of her last job in Iowa because she had exchanged sexually explicit emails with a lover using the district's computer system."

I.e. she was misusing the district's computer system and was forced to resign early (to avoid facing disciplinary action) but both she and the school board president tried to bury this information by claiming that she had "stepped down to attend to family matters before moving to Omaha."

IMHO the paper did not "create the story" or get this woman fired by obtaining the emails, it reported on a legitimate issue, i.e. that a senior employee of the local school system had resigned early to avoid disciplinary action for something she had been caught doing, and that she had colluded with the school board to deceive the public and the employee's next employer.

/I still feel quite sorry for her

Just another case of how people get too comfy in their jobs, do stupid shiat like this (even if it is completely harmless).

Hey lady, you might want to invest in...

I hear you can send these things call "texts", or in your case, "sexts". Can even send cooter shots.

Ed Finnerty: It's a shame free email accounts are impossible to come by.

For some stupid reason my last employer blocked external e mail applications such as Gmail and Yahoomail. not sure what they wanted to accomplish doing that. Can't say they wanted to keep the plebes working because they allowed Facebook, WTF?

The dumbass tag is for the school board, right? Otherwise there is nothing to see here and definitely no reason for an article with a giant school yearbook picture of her. Even males who are caught red-handed molesting females students are usually given a 30 pixel-grainy mugshot that would make it hard to recognize them in real life.

How is this a fireable offense? Outside "using work email for personal use" this certainly doesn't need the additional salaciousness of "conducting an extramarital affair with her work email".

How this world shames women for enjoying sex and daring to pursue their own happiness. I wonder if teachers still have "morals" clauses in their contracts like they did back in Laura Ingalls Wilder's day.

mesmer242: I feel sort of bad for her actually. Her husband obviously doesn't want to be around her, and now she's alone and unemployed. Bummer.

came to say this.

I guess all I can say to her is welcome to the world of Zero Tolerance! Hope you enjoy it as much as the students do.

labman: As long as she wasn't having the affair with a student, who really gives a shiat. She can still be an effective teacher and leader.

Yeah... in New York they wouldn't care and in San Francisco they'd probably give her a medal.

KidKorporate: mesmer242: I feel sort of bad for her actually. Her husband obviously doesn't want to be around her, and now she's alone and unemployed. Bummer.

She made her bed, and now she can farking sleep in it. No sympathy whatsoever for stupid biatches like her.

Well, I'm glad we've found the only person on fark who has never misused their employer's computers. I am sure that if we went through your fark history that not a single post was ever made while you were at work and you have never sent a personal email using your work address.

/She was stupid, yes, but a pretty common kind of stupid.
//Affairs are terrible, yes, but since she and her husband are separated, it's a pretty understandable kind of terrible.
///So you know, slashies.

semiotix: relcec: how did the school board find out she was using the school computers to communicate beg her lover to shove his big cock in her tight pussy during school hours?

It might be obvious to all the Farkers who are l33t haxx0rs, but I'd like to know this myself.

Sure, I know the IT guy could be reading all my e-mails, or closely perusing my browser history, or reading every last file on my hard drive, etc. And I know that at most workplaces, doing something like suddenly downloading 10TB of copyrighted North Korean goat porn from a P2P site will probably set off enough alarm bells that the IT guy will notice even if he's not trying to be nosy.

But, realistically, how much semi- or completely unauthorized snooping goes on? I don't mean at places where it's super-important that they know every packet going in and out because of national security or industrial espionage concerns--just your average boring workplace.

I ask not because I'm worried about getting caught doing something wrong (everyone at work already knows about me and the goat porn) but because I know that if I were the IT guy, I'd do nothing but snoop.

None. Unless your IT guy is a) a little weasel (which are easy to spot) or b) pissed off at you (which is really hard to spot)

Don't be an ass, learn to read the instructions, plan ahead when you need their help, and buy em a beer if you run across them in a bar and you'll be golden. Fail at any of that (and really, the beer is optional) and you'd better follow _all_ the rules.

I have seen some IT guys do subtle things that lets someone's schnnanigans get exposed years after the event that pissed them off. OCD never forgets.

In general, most of that snooping takes tons of times that most IT guys won't invest in it unless there's a reason. Results may vary if the management bought some fancy software that takes the work out of it.

Hermione_Granger: How is this a fireable offense?

mesmer242: She was stupid, yes, but a pretty common kind of stupid.

Do_wacka_Do: I guess all I can say to her is welcome to the world of Zero Tolerance! Hope you enjoy it as much as the students do.

It's not difficult people.

a) She wasn't fired. She resigned before she took up the post.
b) She could have easily stayed in her previous job and gone through the disciplinary process rather than resigning early and trying to avoid it and bury the news
c) She could easily have informed her new employers of her real reason for resigning early and put forward a case for them to keep her on.

She didn't do any of those things. She attempted to cover up something she'd done wrong, and when that was found out she resigned.

She did something relatively minor and (I presume) would have faced minor (albeit embarrassing) disciplinary punishment, but instead dishonestly tried to escape from the consequences of her actions.

I DO feel sorry for her, but she's only got herself to blame.

And I'll say it again for the people at the back - SHE WAS NOT FIRED, she resigned.

Pert: Hermione_Granger: How is this a fireable offense?

mesmer242: She was stupid, yes, but a pretty common kind of stupid.

Do_wacka_Do: I guess all I can say to her is welcome to the world of Zero Tolerance! Hope you enjoy it as much as the students do.

It's not difficult people.

a) She wasn't fired. She resigned before she took up the post.
b) She could have easily stayed in her previous job and gone through the disciplinary process rather than resigning early and trying to avoid it and bury the news
c) She could easily have informed her new employers of her real reason for resigning early and put forward a case for them to keep her on.

She didn't do any of those things. She attempted to cover up something she'd done wrong, and when that was found out she resigned.

She did something relatively minor and (I presume) would have faced minor (albeit embarrassing) disciplinary punishment, but instead dishonestly tried to escape from the consequences of her actions.

I DO feel sorry for her, but she's only got herself to blame.

And I'll say it again for the people at the back - SHE WAS NOT FIRED, she resigned.

Unless those school system are different from elsewhere, "resigned" is code for "we don't want to deal with paying unemployment, so resign or we won't give you a reference." I know this because a family member who was a teacher was asked to resign (not for wrongdoing, but for budget reasons) and he was flat out told that if he didn't resign he wouldn't get a reference.

So, no, I'm pretty sure she was fired from both jobs. School districts don't want explanations; they just want to look good in the eyes of the public.

mesmer242: Unless those school system are different from elsewhere, "resigned" is code for "we don't want to deal with paying unemployment, so resign or we won't give you a reference." I know this because a family member who was a teacher was asked to resign (not for wrongdoing, but for budget reasons) and he was flat out told that if he didn't resign he wouldn't get a reference.

So, no, I'm pretty sure she was fired from both jobs. School districts don't want explanations; they just want to look good in the eyes of the public.

Looks like you have really shiatty employee protection laws over in the US (but happily your unions ensure that many of the most farkwitted and incompetent individuals remain well paid for doing a terrible job*).... In the UK the employment tribunals would be ALL OVER an employer who threatened to withhold references or who forced an employee to resign to avoid paying redundancy.

She had already resigned from the first job, she just ended up leaving earlier. I can't think of any sensible reason for doing this other than avoiding disciplinary action.

Regarding her new job, even if she was asked to resign this was, essentially, giving her the option to resign and avoid controversy or take up the job and fight her corner.

/* worked with a "sound engineer" who was deaf and almost blind - couldn't hear that all the mics on stage were feeding back and couldn't see which presenter was at the podium speaking so didn't know which channel to make live

Pert: mesmer242: Unless those school system are different from elsewhere, "resigned" is code for "we don't want to deal with paying unemployment, so resign or we won't give you a reference." I know this because a family member who was a teacher was asked to resign (not for wrongdoing, but for budget reasons) and he was flat out told that if he didn't resign he wouldn't get a reference.

So, no, I'm pretty sure she was fired from both jobs. School districts don't want explanations; they just want to look good in the eyes of the public.

Looks like you have really shiatty employee protection laws over in the US

It varies by state, but generally speaking.... Um, yes?

It is strongly hinted at in the article that she was forced out of both positions, although what their leverage was in doing so is unknown. If I were to hazard a guess, the first district said "resign or we'll tell your new job" and the second job said "resign or no reference for you" OR "resign and we'll pay you a stipend long enough for you to find a poorly paid job somewhere desperate."

Either way, it's pretty harsh treatment for the mistake but that's the way most school districts are these days. The places with strong unions just end up paying teachers to sit in empty rooms instead. The districts just can't handle the liability of anyone being less than perfect.

mesmer242: the second job said "resign or no reference for you" OR "resign and we'll pay you a stipend long enough for you to find a poorly paid job somewhere desperate.

She didn't even START the second job - she resigned before she even got there.

You might be right re the first job though.

ExperianScaresCthulhu: TheGhostofFarkPast: Infobahn: Is operating a Gmail account THAT hard?

it is for 85% of the work force. The morons at my work are shocked when I ask them why they are sending all of their kids school stuff to their work email or why they have so much other crap like a thousand Groupon deals a day piping in our our email servers. It just amazes me how dumb your average person is these days and how they don't understand how corporate society works and how they should behave. People have their credit card information and statements being routed to work servers. It's just astounding the level of stupidity.

They have it routed there because they 'live' at their jobs? They're there all day, it's like picking up the phone and making calls using the company phone for private business (which is something else folks weren't supposed to do because companies kept records of that shiat, but folks did it anyway because they were at their jobs all day, cell phones weren't widespread, and payphones cost money you can touch).

If IT departments don't want folks using company emails, IT departments need to educate folks that it's okay to use private email services, it's safe to do so, and that they can use thoe private email services during company time. If the company doesn't want folks using private email services during company time, but then tells folks they can't send any private correspondence at all during working hours, they're asking for folks to break the rules. They're not giving folks options.

Instead of calling folks dumb or stupid, just give them options. Give folks an option for not using company emails for private business, and they will take it. Do companies do that, or do companies want it both ways?

Really? Your excuse is they have no other option so they have to use company resources to conduct private business? That's beyond ridiculous and I hope you become a business owner so you can understand what Im talking about. Even if we were going with your train of thought people have unfettered email access to anything virtually nothing is blocked at our company. Facebook YouTube etc etc is all wide open. They have no excuse to route personal info through our servers.

I can't believe some of the comments I'm reading here. Never mind that the school district, like about 99% of the businesses (private and public) in the country, probably has a boilerplate policy against using work email accounts and computer resources for private business. Never mind that she's basically an unelected public official, with resulting expectations on her conduct. Never mind that she basically just signed over all the marital property (possibly including a nice chunk of her future income, if she has any) to her estranged husband. I swear, divorce lawyers must get a blue-steel boner when they read comments like these.

For what she's making, it would be trivially easy and cheap to get a smartphone and set up a Gmail account used strictly for communicating with her farkbuddy. If she's not smart enough to figure out how to make that work while keeping any evidence of the affair from her husband, even if the phone was lost or stolen, then she's not smart enough to be running a school district in a place the size of either Des Moines or Omaha.