Legal Commentary

Over at the very colorful Dealbreaker, (warning: salty commentary)  an internal Citi PowerPoint presentation (the document resurfaced at Clusterstock) found its way into the public arena. The topic: email etiquette.  Or at least I originally thought from looking at the summary slide before I saw the rest of the presentation.

I am guessing from my own experience that I was expected by my employer to use email by 1994.  Here we are, 15-16 years into the common introduction of email to the workplace and school-place.  (To give this some depressing context, many of our first years will have been 6 years old in 1994  To them, the internet is like color television is to me.)  But this post isn't about me sitting in a proverbial rocking chair, sipping Country Time lemonade, marveling at times gone by.  It's about making fun of Citi. Mostly. Also, taking note of the fact that an institution like Citi felt the need to send out a formal reminder of certain "Do's and Don'ts" of email etiquette in the workplace, 15 years after the technology's arrival.  I'll dump the less interesting "Do's," and focus on a few Citi "Don'ts."

Here are some of Citi's "Don'ts" of Internal email Etiquette:

1. Don't intimidate or threaten colleagues (To paraphrase Dealbreaker, maybe an employee should do that in person, rather than over email. Get up and go to someone's office to intimidate them.  If they are in Europe and you are in Tokyo, pick up the phone and threaten them, that way there's no paper trail, but the person will remain intimidated.)  

2. Don't use inappropriate language. (That one should be easy. Especially for the bankers who are notoriously fastidious with language.)

3. Don't offer gratuitous or negative commentary. (I guess you don't want to hurt people's feelings by saying things like, "Those asset-backed securities you keep stockpiling are worthless.  I think you're nuts." Why encourage such negativity?)

4. Don't use sarcasm. (Citi may be global, but it is based in New York, mostly in Queens these days. If sarcasm had a corporate headquarters, yes, it would be in that location.  Citi is fighting local cultural custom, which is horribly boneheaded, but I'm not sure I could email that gratuitous and negative commentary to an HR person pursuant to #3 above.)

5. Don't reach conclusions without knowing the facts. (Like #1, I think this advice travels beyond the email realm. Is it good advice?  "I think your mortgage bets are great.  Actually, I don't. They are damn awful. You have terrible judgment. I may not know all the facts, I do know some, but I have reached this conclusion partially in my gut.  Now, I'm going to go to your desk and hit you." ( I tried to violate every rule in one shot.))

OK, I am having a little fun with an HR-driven presentation that probably emanated from some real problems.  Although the slide show may have turned into a joke at Citi and on the internet, bad behavior can easily slip from the traditional form to the electronic form and present different problems.  The real problems here, if they exist, relate to genuine internal cultural problems, like intimidation.  I think email is not the point.

I still think the best guidelines are simple.  Simple guidelines are more likely to be followed. I tell students not to email (or post) something that they wouldn't want me or the dean to see.  My own rule is to only use my work email for work. I separate the emails I send to my friends and family.  I wouldn't want some of those to be public, and that mitigates some of the risk.

Am I piling on Citi too hard?  Check out the presentation I linked to above for complete context. (My most recent attempt to download the entire Citi PowerPoint presentation about this problem was unsuccessful.) It focuses more on the obvious liabilities involved with writing naughty things down in a permanent, searchable format.  I would hope and expect that a discussion of underlying ethics was conducted to accompany this risk mitigation effort.