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Bad Manners and Brimstone
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#Post#: 10711--------------------------------------------------
Personal And Confidential
By: Jentile4 Date: August 6, 2018, 6:52 am
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We received a letter from a customer marked personal and
confidential. It was addressed to a specific employee. Is is
okay for the employee to give the letter to her boss to let him
respond to the situation.
Jen
#Post#: 10713--------------------------------------------------
Re: Personal And Confidential
By: Tea Drinker Date: August 6, 2018, 7:23 am
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[quote author=Jentile4 link=topic=587.msg10711#msg10711
date=1533556349]
We received a letter from a customer marked personal and
confidential. It was addressed to a specific employee. Is is
okay for the employee to give the letter to her boss to let him
respond to the situation.
Jen
[/quote]
Unless she has some specific obligation to keep his business
confidential, yes. And those obligations are pretty limited--it
would be things like an already-existing attorney-client
relationship where she was the attorney. (If she was an
attorney, she'd know the rules on lawyer-client confidentiality
better than we do, so I assume that doesn't apply here.)
"Personal and Confidential" means the mail room, or her boss,
shouldn't open it, the letter should go to her to decide what to
do with, including throwing it away (if what's hiding in there
is an attempt to sell her a vacation time-share or demand that
sign over her share of her great-aunt's estate). It doesn't mean
that anyone in the world can demand that you handle things for
them without discussing it with other peoole. That would be an
unreasonable imposition even if the thing in question is
something she's technically qualified for: her work assignments
should be determined by her and/or her employer, not by Joe
Schmoe, whether he's doing it because he thinks he can pull a
fast one on her that her boss will see through or because he's
somehow decided that she's the only really competent chocolate
teapot painter in Metropolis.
If she's uncomfortable with that, a brief letter saying "I can't
handle this for you. If you need assistance, contact boss/the
accounting department directly. Any further correspondence will
be given to that department. Sincerely, Employee" might be
appropriate. Or "Employee has informed me that you need our
department's assistance. Please feel free to contact Jane Doe at
212-555-1212 or inquiries@example.com for help with this matter.
Sincerely, Her Boss"
Standard "I am not a lawyer" disclaimer goes here.
#Post#: 10721--------------------------------------------------
Re: Personal And Confidential
By: lowspark Date: August 6, 2018, 9:13 am
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If the letter is going to be passed on to anyone other than the
person it was addressed to, permission from the writer should be
obtained before proceeding.
So just contact the letter writer and explain your reasons for
wanting to get your supervisor involved and ask if it's ok.
#Post#: 10724--------------------------------------------------
Re: Personal And Confidential
By: TootsNYC Date: August 6, 2018, 9:48 am
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However, once the letter get to the person it was addressed to,
that person is free to show it to anyone she wants, frankly.
She should exercise good judgment. And if she is going to show
it to someone, it would be best for her to give a heads-up to
the sender, especially if there might be some bad fallout.
But this was sent to her at work--IS it personal? If my aunt
wrote me at work (if that were the only address she had), it
would be personal.
I suppose a customer might write a personal letter ("when we
spoke about my account, you mentioned your cough. I wanted to
share that I was surprised to discover that the most common
symptom of asthma is a lingering cough. Just in case you hadn't
thought to explore than angle. I wish you well").
But "Your company is awful" or even "you did a great job!" is
not really personal.
I think the recipient is bound by her own common sense and a
requirement to not surprise someone.
#Post#: 10725--------------------------------------------------
Re: Personal And Confidential
By: Pattycake Date: August 6, 2018, 9:49 am
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I agree with Tea Drinker. If it's from a customer to an
employee, unless the employee is empowered to directly deal with
the situation (and it doesn't sound like they are if they are
wanting to pass it to the boss), then they are using their best
judgement to pass it on to the boss to get the customer's
situation taken care of. If it is work-related, it's not
"Personal and Confidential" anyway.
(If it's not work related, then the employee wouldn't be wanting
to pass it to the boss, and probably wouldn't have been sent to
the business address unless the sender didn't know the
recipient's address.)
#Post#: 10730--------------------------------------------------
Re: Personal And Confidential
By: Hanna Date: August 6, 2018, 9:59 am
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This is really weird! Nothing sent to me at work from a person
with whom I’m dealing in the course of my job is “personal”.
All correspondence over email for instance, is the property of
my employer.
Can you tell us the nature of the communication? Or what kind of
job the receiver performs? If it’s medical or mental health
related I might feel differently.
#Post#: 10748--------------------------------------------------
Re: Personal And Confidential
By: Aleko Date: August 6, 2018, 10:45 am
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I think it does depend on the nature of the organisation and
what it does. For example, I worked on a scheme for inducting
overseas-trained doctors into British NHS practice and
refresher-training British trained GPs who had been out of NHS
practice for some while. Mostly applications and all
correspondence came straight to me as the coordinator; but
occasionally candidates for the scheme who had something
particularly sensitive in their background or their personal
circumstances would send information marked Personal And
Confidential to the regional scheme lead. If the scheme lead
felt she needed to seek advice from the national lead, or refer
the whole thing to him, certainly she would tell that doctor so
and obtain their consent before doing that.
#Post#: 10749--------------------------------------------------
Re: Personal And Confidential
By: Hmmm Date: August 6, 2018, 10:57 am
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I agree that it depends on the what type of company this is, the
role of the employee, and the contents of the letter.
If it really is work related and a request being made of the
employee, then a reply of "I can not take care of this matter
and need to engage my manager" would seem appropriate.
#Post#: 10756--------------------------------------------------
Re: Personal And Confidential
By: DaDancingPsych Date: August 6, 2018, 11:35 am
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I agree that it depends on a lot of factors. But in general, I
would probably default to a response of "I would need
supervisor's assistance to assist with your request; would you
be comfortable with me sharing your letter with him/her?"
#Post#: 10757--------------------------------------------------
Re: Personal And Confidential
By: Kiwipinball Date: August 6, 2018, 11:55 am
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I agree with others. IMO marking something personal and
confidential does not impose any extra burdens on the recipient.
It's not a bad idea to run it past the sender first unless it's
100% clear that information would be automatically shared,
assuming this is business correspondence that perhaps includes
some personal information.
However, if someone sent me something marked personal and
confidential and it turned out to be filled with graphic
descriptions of what the writer wanted to do to me, I wouldn't
feel at all bad turning it over to my boss or HR and letting
them deal with the harasser. I wouldn't want anything to do with
that person. Hopefully it's nothing that extreme and is more
like another poster described. A heads up isn't a bad idea in
that case.
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