personal email at work

So can you email friends and family from your work email, given that you spend most of your waking hours at work?

Its not against policy or looked down upon or the likes?

What about communicating with friends / contacts in other investment banks via email?

39 Comments
 

i wouldn't recommend it if you're going to send messages that are offensive/of a personal nature. (i.e. swearing, anything sexual, anything racist, etc.)

it WILL be circulated and posted on the internet, effectively ruining your reputation (AND EXIT OPS OMG!!).

 

Ghosht, sure, I could do that... but I couldn't say, "Hi, Mom. I hate this place and want to kill my associate." So what would the point of communicating with my family be if I can't tell them the truth?

StreetLuck, I had a personal Blackberry all through college as my cell phone. $80 a month. It IS a bitch to carry two, but remember that I'm a girl and have a handbag.

 

dont you guys have smartphones? my q has all my gmail forwarded to it. Is it common to drop the smartphone once you get you blackberry? two pdas would be pretty weak.

 

I would keep all personal email off of your blackberry. People are just asking to get f'ed.

Also, when you communicate w/ headhunters DO NOT do it from your work email address. you should get a cell phone that does personal email and do it from there. IT IS ABSOLUTELY WORTH THE $200-400 b/c it will give you much better access (more timely access) to headhunters than having to email them every day at 5am or having your firm know what you're looking at doing or how much you're interviewing until you have accepted a job and can make it public.

 
AnthonyD1982Get an Iphone or a person BB.
This - also, unless your personal phone is REALLY basic, I'd bet your carrier has a Java/similar app available for email - my old phone (from 2006) on Sprint was a "feature phone" but could still run the Sprint Mobile Email app - just a thought.
 

Yeah, I used to have a very simple/basic phone, but I could still check my e-mail on it. If your phone really doesn't allow you to check e-mail though, then maybe you could buy an IPOD touch or something else that lets you access wifi without having to lug around a laptop all day (you should be able to get a used one for fairly cheap), although you'd still have to make a few starbucks runs throughout the day, which may or may not be possible...

 

Thanks for your help! Does anyone have experience with running their work email and personal email on the work blackberries they are given?

 

I would try and keep work and personal as separate as possible. They will still monitor your blackberry. Just get an Ipod/touch, whatever. Small price to pay for networking. Get an Ipad if you want, I love mine.

 
ACEinTHEholeI just got the Droid Incredible and it blows the iPhone out of the water. It also has flash support.

I support this statement. It is fast as shit, too

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 

Don't combine personal/professional. Get yourself a phone with e-mail. You look around a little bit, you'll be surprised how cheap it can be. I'm paying about $60/month for unlimited web/text. The voice minutes don't mean shit because I'm working all day and nights/weekends are free. I'm sure you can find an even better deal to haircut a few bucks, but when its like $40 anyway for pretty standard service, the extra $20 is well worth it.

 
Wheeler33As long as you can log on to m.gmail.com in your mobile browser while you're taking a shit, you should be fine.

But wouldn't that be using your firm's network/wifi? And so they'd track your personal emails.

 

fuck the phone. an even better solution: install an anonymous VPN (you connect through a different IP address securely-google it) service on your computer. all your internet traffic will be re-routed through the new IP address (which can be in Cambodgia if you want to) and is encrypted-your bank wont know shit and you'll be able to access all the "banned websites" including your email. The bank will not be able to decypher the messages as they are 256 bit encrypted.

 

you dont keep it open all day. you connect to it for a few minutes when you need to check personal emails or in some unfortunate cases, when in need to watch porn. it's not a programme, just a VPN connection. click connect and you're anonymous. I doubt it they'll catch up to it and even if they do so they wouldnt be able to see what you've been doing. its all anonymous and encrypted. OR buy yourself a mobile broadband dongle and connect it via usb. Disconnect your LAN/WAN work connection and connect via 3g mobile broadband. slow, but enough to browse a few websites, check email. c'mon people-you don't need to have computer science at undergrad to know this shit.

 

wamartinu - that's all very nice except at any shop with a half-way competent IT department, you don't have admin rights on a work computer. so no mobile broadband device (requires a driver) or vpn (also installs a virtual ethernet adapter).

 

fair enough. if that's the case then installing a mobile broadband device is not possible. However, you can still use a VPN (through PPTP Protocol) which doesnt require any drivers or any installation. Its really simple-you only need the VPN ip address, a username and password and connect similarly to a dialup-no drivers no nothing.

 

Just got the Droid Motorola A855; was thinking about getting the Incredible, but wanted the hard keyboard as well. In my opinion, the A855 blows the iPhone and Blackberry out of the water. The Apps Market is still developing, but they've already got a lot of good ones. Plus, auto-sync to gmail is good stuff.

 
Walter Ray AllenThe Apps Market is still developing, but they've already got a lot of good ones. Plus, auto-sync to gmail is good stuff.

Is it just me, or is this whole apps craze completely overrated? I use like 7 of the apps on my iPhone on a regular basis (weather, bloomberg, times, ft, wsj, pandora, mint.com--nothing I couldn't get on any smart phone I bet). Most of the apps on the appstore are completely useless. The games get boring quickly.

200k iphone apps vs 20k droid apps...I honestly don't see how the end-user experience is significantly different.

 

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