It's like I didn't leave my last employer 3

[jfudo]

My old boss is telling his clients that I'm on a leave of absence, when in fact I'm starting my own company. He is aware that I'm not coming back. On top of that, my email account is still active and he has been receiving those emails for the last two months.

I've been trying to see if this is ethical for him to be doing, but I haven't had any luck. I really would prefer him to stop. He is worried that I'm marketing to his clients, which I haven't even though I have every right to do it.

Maybe this is like double jeopardy, since I've already been convicted of the crime, maybe I should actually commit it. Sorry for the rant.

Any suggestions?

 

[jmw]

Smart = expensive
Expensive = company lawyers. Teams of them on retainer at all times and very eager to accrue some billable hours.
Nice idea but I stand by my earlier comment that any such success would be very quickly nipped in the bud.
It isn't in anyone's interests that employees should "own" their company email address nor have any legal rights over it.
On the other hand, it is quite possible that the email address constitutes a quasi-legal identity which is the employee entitled to use it and thus its continued use by a company could, in circumstances as suggested by RARSWC, could be argued to be actionable by the employee.

I'd guess we could have a pretty good stab at drawing up a "code of practice" for engineers.

It seems that a fair and logical interpretation should be that the company owns all email addresses that include the companies domain name but that is is for the use of the eponymous employee and represents him as a legal entity during his employment.

Thus:
[ul][li]joe.bloggs@major company.com is the quasi-legal identity of Joe Bloggs while he works for Major Company and Major Company owns the email provided for the official use by Joe Bloggs on company business but not to be used for any other business nor for private use.[/li]
[li]joe.bloggs@ MSN.com has no status in any way for Major Company and possibly not for any one specific Joe Bloggs[/li]
[li] info@major company.com etc. is the exclusive property of Major Company no matter which employess may use that email and whether on legitimate company business or not, it does not constitute any "rights" for the employee using it and nor may he use it in any way upon termination, not even to advise he is leaving nor even if it is the only email address that he has use off during his employment.[/li][/ul]

When Joe Bloggs leaves, he may email all currently active recipients, that is, recipients related to active projects, to advise he is leaving. This should be a recognised standard message unless otherwise agreed with the Major Company. He may not configure any auto responders nor otherwise take any other steps.

Major Company may leave the email account open for the express purpose of receiving incoming emails to which they may respond from another email address such as info@MajorCompany.com to advise that this email account is no longer active. Again standard message.

Joe Bloggs may not download his email address book except with the express consent of Major Company to any or all address, and ditto any correspondence. Joe Bloggs may not divert any mail from Joe.Bloggs at Major Company.com to any other non-authorised email account nor may he legally accessthis account once he has left the company.

Once the employee leaves the company, the company no longer has any right to issue emails using the employees name account address, nor create any new alternative name account addresses that use any variation of the employees name, but it may continue to receive emails expressly for the purpose of advising the sender of the changed status of the employee and that such emails might need to be responded to from a new email address.

It would seem that an semi-standard response ought not to evoke any "reading between the lines" and should fulfil the legitimate objectives of the employee and company.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[HgTX]

Only slightly related...last week I was sick on and off. One morning, after being up all night, I emailed my boss from my home email account to say I'd be in late and why (since the boss signs the time sheet where sick leave is distinguished from other leave).

Instead of composing an email to others in the office saying "Hg won't be in till XYZ", he forwarded my email but edited it to say something else (taking out some confidential information, but also changing my anticipated return time/day). He left the "forwarded from hg@home.com" on top and my name at the bottom, and edited the part in between, so it looked like his words were mine. When I showed up that afternoon, everyone was confused because they'd seen an email FROM ME that said I wasn't coming in till the next day.

I tried explaining to him how inappropriate this was but all he could see was that what I had sent him (when I was mailing in sick at 6 AM) wasn't very well written or understandable.

Unbelievable. Actually, sadly, quite believable.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[kontiki99]

I'd think the issue would be the fact that someone else is in a position to represent themselves as you. This could exploit or damage your professional reputation.

I think this is an excellent argument for sending your clients a brief notice when you leave a firm.

 

[TXiceman]

When i was laid off by a company, I sent a mass email to my entire customer base (which happend to also be in my technical society data base as I was an officer) just informing them that I was no longer with the company and I would contact them later.

Later I sent an email to the primary account contacts with my home contact information which they already had.

Once I found a job, I sent an email to the technical society menbers with my new job contact information.

Before I sent out the new job contact info, I was contacted by a large number of the people requesting the info. So it pays to be acive in a technical society in your field.

Ken

Ken
KE5DFR

 

[RVSWA]

You will not regret limiting your comments about your past employer to his positive attributes. If asked why you left, develop an honest but basic answer like "I wanted to try other things". If it is true you can even express you appreciation for everything he had done for you. DO NOT touch his property/email, it isn't worth testing the legality. When we left we found that our past employer was calling his clients and asking if we had called them and bad mouthed him. He suggested he had reports of such activity. One client had the gumption to call us and ask us if this were true and we expressed our disappointment and explained that my business partner and I had discussed at length the preservation of his reputation. He's now a full time client. Not many asked why we started our own company, but those that do I respond to with " We were like Teenagers, we thought we had all the answers and had to leave the nest to figure out how little we knew. Accountants are expensive, servers are expensive, training employees is expensive... Throughout the years we maintained that reason and I believe that it has been a good decision. Remember when two people have an ugly fight, all anyone really remembers is that you two were fighting. It reflects poorly on the profession.