Ham Sandwich Fight

Claim:   An e-mail exchange between legal secretaries over the whereabouts of the makings of a ham sandwich led to both of them being fired.

TRUE

Example:   [Collected via e-mail, September 2005]

Origins:   Once again, access to immediate communication contributed to a bit of mayhem in the workplace. The e-mail contretemps reproduced above was the real thing and took place in September 2005 between two secretaries employed by the prestigious Australasian legal firm Allens Arthur Robinson at their office in Sydney, Australia.

The pair's e-mail spat was forwarded to colleagues at Allens, who copied it to rival firms, including Mallesons, Phillips Fox and Gadens. Soon it was sweeping the city's legal and financial offices, drawing comments from employees of Westpac, Deloitte, Macquarie Bank and

JP Morgan. The two secretaries who had descended into slinging words at one another were fired by the firm, and an Allens Arthur Robinson spokesman said anyone involved in forwarding the e-mail along to others would be disciplined. "E-mail is a business tool, not a personal messaging system. The use of it in this case was not in any way acceptable, nor is that the way we expect people to treat their work colleagues," he said. "We have taken appropriate disciplinary action against anyone who dealt with the e-mails inappropriately."

Communication by e-mail comes at a price often unrecognized by those it makes fools of until it becomes painfully obvious after the fact — its informal nature can lead to breakdowns of ordinary civility that occur almost in the blink of an eye. Thanks to the speed with which views can be exchanged, casual back-and-forths between co-workers can turn nasty very quickly when — one person's dander having

been raised by the other's misphrasing of a request, piece of information or proffered bit of advice — a recipient reacts in anger and zings back a deliberately antagonistic response. A recipe for disaster comes to fruition when both parties fall into the deadly pattern of reacting in knee-jerk fashion to one another's communiqués rather than choosing to break the cycle by not replying or by letting a day or two pass before sending a follow up. As tempers heat up, the exchanges become less mannerly and more vituperative, with each party's efforts to get the last word or put the other in his place leading to further descents into unprofessional behavior.

In the Nugent/Bird exchange, notice how as tempers frayed, the interval between e-mails shortened: A somewhat defensible request for reimbursement for pilfered sandwich makings (at 9:39 a.m.) was initially met with what appears to be potentially helpful information (9:55 a.m.), but once the discussion between the two clerical workers degenerated into the opening round of unpleasantries (10:06 a.m.), the e-mails were shot back and forth in response to messages that had
barely been read, let alone digested, considered and weighed by the combatants (10:14 a.m., 10:15 a.m., 10:16 a.m., 10:17 a.m., 10:19 a.m., 10:21 a.m., and 10:23 a.m.). Neither party permitted herself time to reflect on what was happening, choosing instead to escalate the situation by continuing to lash out in anger. That choice cost both women their jobs.

Roles in the modern workplace are less strictly defined than they once were. We address our co-workers and bosses by first names, involve officemates in activities unrelated to work (for instance, huckstering them into buying raffle tickets or chocolate bars in support of our child's school activities), hold social functions on company time (such as birthday celebrations or baby showers hosted in conference rooms), and converse with them in detail about the goings on in our private lives. While no one is arguing a return to Dickensian stiffness and formality wherein underlings were addressed solely by last name and those with authority by title and surname ("Jones, fetch me some wood!" "Yes, Mr. Greely!") and no interactions of non-business nature were permitted, recognition need be made that the current blurring of "at work" versus "away from the job" standards of behavior sets the stage for exchanges of unpleasantries like the one showcased above. Familiarity can breed contempt.

Barbara "inbox-clogging e-mailed commercial come-ons about presumed need aside, the premature ejaculation online society most requires help with is of written nature — it's a mail problem, not a male problem" Mikkelson

Last updated:   29 January 2016

  Sources:

McIlveen, Luke and Mark Scala.   "Firings Off an E-mail — Secretaries Sacked After Cyber Brawl."

    [Sydney] Daily Telegraph.   8 September 2005   (p. 3).

McIlveen, Luke and Mark Scala.   "Firings Off an E-mail — Secretaries Sacked After Cyber Brawl."

    The [Queensland] Courier Mail.   9 September 2005   (p. 9).

New Zealand Press Association.   "Secretaries Sacked Over Ham Sandwich Spat."

    8 September 2005.