Woman fired for ALL CAPS in email
- September 1, 2009 10:27 AM |
- By John Bowman
By John Bowman, CBCNews.ca. An accountant in Auckland, New Zealand has been awarded $12,800 Cdn for unfair dismissal. The offense that got her fired? Writing an email using red, blue, bold and all-capital letters.
- YOUR VIEW: Do you have any email pet peeves? Share your stories
Vicki Walker wrote the email while working as a financial controller for ProCare Health. The email advised her team to submit claim forms before a certain deadline. The deadline date and time were written in bold red letters, and the following appeared in large blue text:
TO ENSURE YOUR STAFF CLAIM IS PROCESSED AND PAID, PLEASE DO FOLLOW THE BELOW CHECK LIST.
Her employer reportedly found the email "confrontational," and sacked her without warning. ProCare told the Employment Relations Authority that the email had caused "disharmony in the workplace."
The authority sided with Walker. She also plans to appeal for further compensation.
Commentary online is mixed between those who think that firing is too good for such an egregious breach of email etiquette and those who think the employer overreacted. The post on Slashdot supposes that Walker's coworkers are perhaps just a little sensitive:
"Her boss deemed the capital letters too confrontational for her co-workers to read after they woke up from naptime."
About the Authors
- Tara Kimura
is a multimedia producer for CBCNews.ca.
Categories
All News blogs
Most Commented
Most Recommended
Tech Bytes
Most Commented
Most Recommended
Recent Entries
- Universe hates Higgs boson, Chicago Cubs
- By John Bowman, CBCNews. A physicist working on the Large Hadron Collider doesn't think much of the theory that the universe is sabotaging the project to prevent the discovery of the Higgs boson. Might as well say that Nature hates... Continue reading this post
- Large Hadron Collider goes Back to the Future
- By Peter Evans, CBCNews.ca. Two respected physicists have put forward the theory that the Large Hadron Collider's stated aim of finding the Higgs boson might be so abhorrent to nature that mysterious forces are traveling back through time and sabotaging... Continue reading this post
- Multi-touch concept for desktops: 10/GUI
- By John Bowman, CBCNews.ca. I'm a fan of alternative ideas for human-computer interaction, so this video caught my attention. It shows an idea for a ten-finger touchpad interface and associated changes in the way a computer would handle multiple windows.... Continue reading this post
Comments (15)
WHAT??!!!!!!!!!!! FIRED??!!!! FOR CAPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OUTRAGEOUS!!! :)
[rule: caps = yelling]
I think there is more to it than the story covers. I wonder if the email was the straw that broke the camels back.
Methinks there was a bit more behind the firing than an all-caps email.
I have always wondered why people, when new to the Internet, use all-caps until someone gently tells them to stop yelling.... What possessed them to use bad grammar to begin with? We went through this with my mom-in-law. A whole letter LIKE THIS!!! Augh!
Bold is for yelling, Red is for there must be blood, Blue is bruising.
Her typing is violent !
So...I take it cartoonists wouldn't move too far up the ladder with this Auckland business....
ummm after they woke up from a nap? Was it a group nap? Is ProCare Health a day care???
I'll bet she has tried unsuccessfully to get her colleagues to submit their claims on time in the proper format for some time. And when they haven't in the past, and have been told the deadline was missed -"too bad", they appealed to a higher authority and were granted exemption from the policy. That likely entailed her staying overtime to cut cheques for people who have been mollycoddled by the boss and her monthly statements would have needed recalculating in order to balance. Believe me when I say "I've been in her shoes!"
I have tried to gently explain to my Mother-in-law that it is hard to read all caps but she insists on sending emails this way - and in Times Roman to make it worse. Ahhhhh.... I told her it was equivalent to yelling and she said I was overreacting. I need an email etiquette site to send to her anonymously!
I hate it when people put their entire message in the subject line.
The few people I know who write emails in all-caps tend to speak in all-caps as well.
I’m sure they were looking for a reason to get rid of her and they found something.
Agree with Linda. If you read the NZ article you'll see that this woman is helping co-workers meet deadlines to get paid, not randomly yelling.
This is absurd!
Naptime?!
Wow that is pretty unjust it seems. I understand that using a red font, bold, and all caps is forward nut really that's the point. Sometimes you need to communicate certain things and make it loud to make sure you get your point across. Ultimeatly it's for the readers benefit. On the other hand, if this particular woman was a known bully, the company had constant problems with her, it was deliberatly meant to be rude and had given her previous warnings then maybe it was just.
She must have been angry to capitalize.