E-mail fiasco (Part 5 of ??)

A couple of weeks ago, I sent my boss an e-mail asking him if he would look at changing one of our policies. It wasn’t a huge thing, but I thought that I might as well ask. I probably shouldn’t give the specifics, but it had to do with how officers man a certain station at work.
So, I sent him an e-mail explaining the reasons why I thought the policy should be changed and asked for him to take a look at it for me/us. He replied that he would look into it and take it to the sergeants meeting for all of them to mull over.
I was pleased. It was nice to not have a quick “no”, but an actual thoughtful look into the policy. That was about a week ago.
The sergeants meeting was a couple of days ago, and I got an e-mail from my boss explaining that while the face of the idea seemed like it would be ok, it ultimately wouldn’t work. I was thanked for my request and told that I was more than welcome to submit more ideas in the future. It was a bummer that it didn’t look like it was going to work. I knew that the chance was slim, but if I hadn’t of said anything, then I would be bothered that I didn’t ask at all.
I decided that I wanted some more information. I mean, the reason I was given for the denial seemed a bit broad, so I shot off another e-mail to my boss listing the reasons I thought it may have been denied and also rebutting those reasons.
I explained to him that I knew he had already made his decision, but that his explanation of the denial didn’t make sense.
Here’s where it gets a bit negative. I tried to come across as joking and light-hearted as possible so I wouldn’t sound angry or disrespectful. I wasn’t angry at all, but I am afraid that is exactly how I ended up coming across.
I started the e-mail off with a joke. I addressed it to “Big Bad [my boss's name]“. Unfortunately, this must have set a negative tone with the thought that I was accusing him of being a “Big Bad” power hungry jerk. This was as far from the truth as it could be, but with that thought in his head, every other thing I wrote came off like I was being a prick. And if I think about it now, I would have sounded like a HUGE prick if the things I wrote were taken the way he took them.
The good thing is that he caught me in the hall on my way to leave and asked to talk to me. He asked me about it, and it was obvious that he was bothered by it. I assured him numerous times that my intention was nothing malicious. I even put a PS in that assured him that everything I wrote was “with a smile and not a frown.” The thing is, is that by the time he read the PS, it was already too late.
I am glad he talked to me though. He got to vent a bit about the e-mail, and I got my question answered. Come to find out, the reasons for the denial of my original request made sense. It was nice to hear the full information, and not just a snippet too.
Jeesh, this e-mail thing sure can be a double edged sword.
The last couple of things I have been talked to about involved e-mail. Have you ever gotten into trouble, or been totally misunderstood because of an e-mail? Tell me about it in the comments.

Why do I do this?

I don’t think I have a good handle on this question. More importantly, I don’t really have a good answer either. But you can just imagine that I’m gonna give it a stab anyway.

I know that I like the idea of writing my thoughts out so I am able to have a journal of types for myself. The funny thing, is that I get a bit excited when I hear that someone has read my blog, or when I talk to someone and they say something about my blog. I silently smile to myself. Though, I am not sure exactly why. Should I even care? What does it mean if I do?

I don’t really think that I say anything new or particularly EXCITING, but maybe that’s not what draws readers. For that matter, I seem to get about 7 “hits per day. Not exactly a HUGE readership, but respectable for someone who thinks he doesn’t care. I know that some people read to get an idea of what jail is like from an officer’s point of view. It’s not exciting to me, but to someone who has no real idea, it can be eye-opening.

I find myself checking my site stats about as often as I do my e-mail, and that can be a couple of times a day or more. I don’t hinge my efforts on how my stats are doing, but I do get curious about them when I see a spike or drop of any significance.

For instance, before I got into trouble at work, I saw a HUGE spike. Every one of my pages were looked at, and not just perused through, but really read. When I finally did get talked to about it at work, I had a good idea that my captain had read my ENTIRE site. I’m not sure that hurt or helped me, knowing he had, but I knew, so that’s something.
I don’t have stats of exactly who is reading my site, just basic info on where they are in the world. I don’t have money for the big-time stat monitor, and I don’t need it anyway. I use a free service from Google, that shows some interesting facts about who is reading and where they are coming from. This page is what February looked like.

The upper left is a stat for how many people have read the blog in the last time period you select. You can select any time. Day, month, year, hour, just about whatever you want.
The upper right, is an idea of whether they have been to the site before. You can see that the new to returning ratio is about 50%.
The lower right is a chart of how they got to your site. My referrers (as they are called) seem to be mostly direct (meaning, they typed www.thetreichels.com into their browser’s address bar) and Google. Sunnydaysareahead.blogspot.com gives me about 15% of my referrals, so thanks, Sunny.
The lower left window shows where the people are reading from. This is not precise, but is a good indicator of the general area of my readers. I can tell by this that most of my readers come from Longview. Go figure.

There is a plethora of other information available, but this is the meat-n-potatoes for me.

So, what is the answer to my question? I like it when people read my blog. What can I say. I know that not every post or every page is all that exciting. For instance, this post won’t mean much to anyone but me. On the other hand, I hope that my readers, you all, get a little from it. I just not too sure of my REAL motives. Do I write for myself or my readers?

If I had a gun to my head, I would have to say that I write some of my entries for myself, and some are for myself AND my readers. For instance, what you are reading now is mostly for me. I don’t really care if no one reads this. It is more an exercise for myself than a entertaining piece for other people. In contrast, THIS entry HERE, is for myself and the readers.

So, in conclusion, I would have to say that it really depends on the day. If it is just a “ME day” then it’s all about me, but if it’s a “US day”, then it’s about all of us. Hopefully, you won’t care either way.

Comments and Nudity

I like to hear comments. I like to hear feedback on my posts and ways to improve what and how I write. What I don’t believe in is censoring comments or requiring positive ID to comment.
I have found something interesting however. Whenever I get comments that aren’t, let’s say, “Nice”, I find that the person fails to leave any kind of info about themselves. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I am all that important, or even someone who warrants a huge readership. I also don’t think that comments from “Anonymous” are all that bad. Sometimes a co-worker leaves a telling comment that they don’t want attributed to them. I don’t see that as cowardly. I see that as more like keeping a source confidential.
I do, however think that if someone is so afraid of me that they don’t put a name or hint of who they are, then they are either:

A. Joking – a little razz now and then never hurt anyone.
B. Cowardly – Oh, please. What’s the worst I could do?
C. 12 – As in a bored 12 year old. (possibly combined with B)

So, here’s what I think. Either someone who is afraid of me (ha ha) and decided to “get me good” and leave me a sweet comment, or a pre-teen has been reading my blog. Of course, it also could be a joke, but usually I get a sense of where those come from, so I’m gonna go with B and/or C. Either way, I think further posting on this is moot.
So, on to other things.
Tonight at work was beautiful. We had plenty of officers and little to do. Usually it is exactly opposite, but tonight was a nice change. Usually, we have lots to do and few officers to do it. Of course, whenever it’s like tonight was, we almost wish that it was busy. At least that meant that there were fewer crimes being committed, or at least fewer crimes being caught. Last night was different though. Last night I worked an Area. Meaning, I was responsible for rounds in three inmate pods, consisting of about 60+ inmates each, one of which was the female pod. Here’s where things went wrong.
Last night I had a run-in with a naked female inmate. Yep. Completely naked. Why, you ask? (You may not have asked, but for this post, let’s assume that you did)
Well, I have a theory about that.
Some of our females try and use their femininity against officers. That may sound weird to some, but it is true. Now, not every female is this way, in fact, most are “normal” inmates who act in totally appropriate ways. BUT, from time to time, there are situations where females will go out of their way to show extra skin, or, in this case, be totally naked when a male comes around to their door.
I think that this may be done for a couple of reasons. One is purely to shock the officer. There is nothing less an officer wants to see than a naked inmate. Whether it is a male or female inmate, clothes are ALWAYS better than no clothes. Seeing a naked inmate is not something we usually expect to see, so when it does happen, and especially with the opposite sex, it is a shock, and not the good kind either.
The second reason is a little more sinister. I think that some female inmates try and use the situation to get the officer into trouble. For instance, if I were to see a female inmate and not tell her to put her clothes on, she may try to tell my superiors that I was staring at her or that I told her to get naked. Things like that.
What is nice about the new jail, is that we have cameras everywhere. Anything an inmate or an officer does is recorded. This is nice. As far as the naked female goes; I yelled for her to get her clothes on and had another female stand by her door until she did so I didn’t have to see her. When she was dressed, I told her, for all to hear, that nobody wanted to see her naked, and that if she was caught without her clothes on again she would be locked down.
I figured that if everyone in the area heard it, they may pressure her to act appropriately using positive peer pressure. Either way, at least she knows that her actions were noticed and not approved. Hopefully this will spare myself and other officers in the future. Only time will tell…

The Return

So, the big hubbub is all over. If you haven’t noticed, I have been pretty quiet lately. The reason I haven’t been writing is due to a conflict concerning this site and my employer. Here’s what happened.
Last Thursday I was approached by my Guild Representative. He told me that my Captain wanted to talk to me about my blog. I figured that it was concerning the video of the jerk screwing with my jeep, so I removed it before I talked to him, just in case. (P.S. Haven’t been able to return the favor yet)
On Friday, I asked to talk to the Captain, and so I got a Rep, and went to see him. Firstly, I sat down and noticed that he had a printed copy of my website in his hands. (Interesting) I then told him that I had removed the video, and that… He stopped me mid-sentence. He began to read a canned letter informing me that I was under investigation for misuse of the County property. WHOA DOGGIE!!! Put the brakes on.

The end of the letter said that the result of the investigation could result in disciplinary action “up to and including termination.” That definitely had my attention. Ears pricked, sensed in overdrive.

The Captain started to ask me about how I got the video onto the website and if I had e-mailed it to myself. I said that I had exported it onto the county server from the security program and then had e-mailed it home. (all true) From there I uploaded it and set it on my own server for all to see. (also true)
Then he started asking me if I had sent anything else home via e-mail. I didn’t remember sending anything, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if I did, so I told him so. (true) He asked me a couple of other questions that I can’t remember and then asked me again if I had sent anything else home, and specifically asked how I got my reports home. I told him that I usually had put them on a thumb drive. (true) He then asked AGAIN about sending reports home. I was sort of confused by this point, and told him that if he wanted to, he could ask for a report of every e-mail I had ever sent, because out IT department kept copies of everything ever sent via e-mail. (true)
Then he finally laid the cards on the table. He opened an e-mail and turned his screen so I could see it. Lo and behold, there were about 50+ reports that I had sent in an e-mail to myself. (Trying to catch me in a lie?) I told him that if that was from my e-mail address, then I definitely had sent them. I don’t remember why I sent them to myself. I can only assume that they were reports that looked to be interesting to me, so I wanted to take them home to read them. I can’t remember ever posting somebody else’s reports on my site, so I doubt that was the reason. Either way, I told him that I didn’t remember sending them, but I obviously had, so I wasn’t going to deny it. (true) He told me that he didn’t want me to lie if I didn’t remember sending them, to just keep with that and not just say that I remembered when I didn’t. (I thought that was nice)
It basically was at this point that he said he was finished unless I had any questions. He had asked me all of the questions he needed to and I could go if I wanted. Boy, did I ever have questions!
Firstly, I asked him what was wrong with what I had done. I told him that I can understand the issue with the video, but I said that I believed that since it didn’t actually deprive the county of any property, and it wasn’t of any super-secure area like a dorm, and also it was only of my jeep and the jerk who messed with it, I thought there would be minimal issues.
He said that the video was the minimal issue, and that since it was for the county, it could only be used for county business. Meaning, NOT my website. (Ok, I could pretty much see that one coming)
He said that the real issue was the use of the e-mail for transport. (Now here’s where I learned something.) Our reports aren’t accessible to anyone but internal personnel. Even if someone used the Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) to request them, they would get nothing. BUT (huge one here) since ALL electronic mail is available to the public, my act of sending reports via e-mail made those reports I sent home accessible when they previously weren’t.
That kind of freaked me out, because I then realized that I had made a boo-boo. I assumed… (insert Ass-U-Me joke here)
After looking sheepish, I then asked him “So, what am I looking at here [for punishment]?” He told me that he didn’t know. Since the infraction involved e-mail, the matter would have to ultimately be handled by the head of Human Resources for the county. (I think I could have thrown up a little in my mouth when he said that) Generally, if you have to deal with the head of HR, it doesn’t turn out good. So ya, I was freaked. He told me that he knew what he was going to recommend, but that the final decision wasn’t his to make. (More throw up)
After I calmed myself down enough to breath again, I asked my last question. I asked the Captain if I could write about what was happening, so people would know why I wasn’t writing my usual column. (gotta think of you, dear reader) He said that he didn’t feel comfortable answering because he would have to ask “the powers that be” what they thought. I told him that I would suspend writing until the matter was finished. I knew that I could probably have written and not gotten into trouble, but I also didn’t want to create more waves than I already had. Since he would have to ask permission, it would mean more talk about “Joel”, and the less I was talked about was the best case scenario for me.
That night, I came home and took everything offline. No links worked and only the most recent post was showing on the front page. I told my Captain beforehand that I was gonna do that, so he wouldn’t think I was trying to get rid of any kind of evidence or anything.
So, that was last Friday. Today is the following Friday morning. Last night when I came into work the Captain asked to speak with me again. (here it comes) Actually, I had a good idea of what to expect, so I wasn’t to terribly freaked out.

He brought me into his office and we commenced with my punishment. After my slap on the hand talk, I initialed a paper marked “Coaching and Counseling” (C&C), which is exactly as it sounds. I was coached to not do it again, and counseled that doing it again would result in a larger punishment.

A C&C is basically the lowest kind of reprimand available. I was lucky. Of course I think I lost 10 pounds from stress over the week, but I was glad to finally get it over with and not have to look for work elsewhere. It could have been much worse so I can’t really complain, and I’m not. I definitely learned a thing or two, so you can’t say that it wasn’t helpful. In the future, I will probably err more on the side of NEVER USING E-MAIL AT WORK caution, and maybe be more cognizant of the repercussions of my actions. All of the content is back online and the links should work again. If things are a little wonky, drop me a line in the comments.
Oh, and I just want to “shout out” to my newest reader. Hi Captain!!!