Keep your life and work separated - especially email

Never ever ever write personal stuff in an email sent from your work account.

500,000 emails from 150 Enron employees are available freely online with -get that - a search engine. Sweet. My favorite, an example for authors seeking to be concise and punchy, is ""So you were looking for a one-night stand, after all?"

When I found this database a few years ago, it was the first time that the rumor spread in all respectable office came to life before my eye: They monitor our email. While I don't think that They have any interest in literally monitor our writings - I can barely keep up with my own inbox - I sure know that They archive each and every of our messages. It may come in handy sometime. I wouldn't even be surprised if they have a certain legal obligation to do so (although it doesn't apply to some).

Writing an email at work is like writing a memo. Imagine it printed on letterhead paper, hand-delivered, then filed. That's how I see each and every email I send. It's useful in the short term because you never know who's going to be copied on a reply or a forward or when the blame game starts. It's also useful for later when your email become public. They may not look for penis jokes (hopefully this expression won't attract too much traffic here), but They may find them anyway.

So here's the story of the day: Microsoft executive are caught complaining about... Windows Vista.