Re: What You Say in Work E-Mails

A lawyer at the Small Business Administration received and sent more than 100 e-mails through his government computer in support of the Green Party in California. A federal board has ordered his firing.

A former chief of staff at the General Services Administration traded e-mails with lobbyist Jack Abramoff . Prosecutors used the e-mails to link the two, and a federal jury convicted the ex-government official of lying and obstructing justice.

A recent audit by the inspector general for tax administration found e-mail at the Internal Revenue Service that violated agency policy. The audit turned up a large percentage of chain letters, jokes and pictures that, while harmless, increased the risk of computer virus infections, the report said. Other e-mails contained hate speech and sexual content or facilitated commercial activities, such as outside employment.

Inappropriate workplace use of e-mail is not new. But as e-mail increasingly substitutes for face-to-face conversation, it seems that more employees send messages that get them into trouble.

"When people are on the Internet or using e-mail, there is almost an unconscious dimension they have entered," said Scott Bloch , the head of the federal Office of Special Counsel.

As a general rule, each federal agency sets out guidelines for the use of government resources, including office computers. The guidelines take into account that employees occasionally need to use their government phones and computers to check up on their children after school or deal with a personal matter during normal business hours. But the idea is to steer clear of computer activities that can interfere with agency operations or can slow down a system, such as downloading large picture files.

E-mail "is the quintessential sword that cuts both ways," said Carl Fillichio , a vice president at the nonprofit Council for Excellence in Government and a former Labor Department official.

"What is great about technology and e-mail is that you can use it to create buzz," Fillichio said. "What is dangerous about e-mail is that it can create a buzz. How many times have you had an e-mail forwarded to you with, 'Hey, get a load of this.' "

As the inspector general report on IRS employees noted, offensive and inappropriate e-mail can damage employee relationships, lead to disciplinary action and prompt lawsuits.

Improper e-mail, of course, is also a problem in the private sector. A recently released survey by the American Management Association found that 26 percent of private-sector employers have fired workers for e-mail misuse and that an additional 2 percent have fired workers for inappropriate chats via instant messaging, or IM. Nearly 2 percent have fired workers for posting offensive blog content, even when the Internet posting originated on home computers.

In the federal sector, Bloch's office has brought cases against public employees who have been accused of violating the Hatch Act, a law that restricts certain partisan activities by government workers. In some of the cases, e-mail served as evidence of electioneering or advocating for a candidate.

"It's pretty well understood that you can't come to work [in a federal office] wearing a button for a candidate," Bloch said. "Why is it any different to send an e-mail to several employees?"

E-mail also may not be an effective substitute for "water cooler" confabs or formal meetings. A study last year in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that emotion and tone do not always convey in e-mail. What a sender thinks is funny, for instance, may not come across that way to recipients because it is not accompanied by body language or vocal clues.

"One's e-mail message may be more ambiguous than one realizes," the study found.

Brad Phillips , founder of Phillips Media Relations, recommends that employees have co-workers look at e-mails before hitting the send button.

"In a large organization like the government, if you are reliant on e-mail because it is the medium of choice, before you fire off that e-mail to hundreds of people, have a couple of people in the office take time to parse it and to look for anything that can be taken out of context . . . to make sure there is nothing in the e-mail that could be read negatively," he said. "Ask them to try to take it out of context, and if they can't, then it is ready to be sent out."

E-mail Stephen Barr atbarrs@washpost.com.