I usually don’t have the time or patience to read all of the e-mails that have been cc:’d to me. You know, the not-so-funny jokes, Web site links, lists of bizarre facts and those motivational tips of the day or week. OK, so I do read the motivational tips.
But normally, when I see an e-mail that’s been copied to me and 19 other people, I’m skeptical of its value. There was one, however, that made it to my in-box from three separate acquaintances. It’s obviously making the rounds, so you may have seen it already.
If not, I thought is was worth sharing, not only for the shock value, but to perhaps spark discussion within your workplace about whether employers should have any jurisdiction over what their employees do on their own time.
I must run a disclaimer, though. Like everything you find on the Web these days, it’s hard to check for accuracy. I, by no means, am assuming the following statistics are factual, but I’d be surprised if there weren’t some grain of truth in them.
So here it is: The following statistics apply to a well-known organization. Of its 500 professional employees, 29 have been accused of spousal abuse; seven have been arrested for fraud; 19 have been accused of writing bad checks; 117 have bankrupted at least two businesses; three have been arrested for assault; 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit; 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges; eight have been arrested for shoplifting; 21 are current defendants in lawsuits; last year, 84 were stopped for drunk driving.
Who, you may ask, is their employer? The answer is, you are. The organization is our U.S. Congress, and you are paying their salaries.
As their employer, you may find these employees’ personal-time behavior shocking. You may even decide to fire a few of them (with your vote, of course). But would you fire your own employees if you found incidents like these in their records? Or shouldn’t you care, if their work records are stellar?
I asked my employer if he cared what his employees do on their own time, and this is what he told me: “I don’t care what people do on their own time, as long as it doesn’t affect my company. However, if someone is doing something that does affect my company that can be measured in loss or harm, then it does affect me. Then I care.”
Even though I wouldn’t make it as a statistic in any of the aforementioned categories, I was still, for some reason, relieved to hear his answer.
Connie Swenson ([email protected]) is editor of SBN.