Keep Your Office E-mail from Coming Back to Haunt You

Hopefully you're already aware that work e-mail, or even an instant message string from the office, isn't the same as spouting off to a buddy from your personal account at home. If it's part of your company's system, your boss can find it and read it -- and, according to studies, almost half of all bosses do.

We're not suggesting that you're up to anything nefarious (other than reading Asylum), but sometimes it's better to keep your hand close to the vest, and letting down your guard in written communications at work is pretty much never a good idea.

Below are guidelines for keeping a purer paper trail.

1. Don't write anything to one person that you wouldn't be comfortable sending out to everyone else on staff. Okay, we've established that your boss is reading your stuff, but he and other recipients may also be forwarding it. Consequently, your work e-mail account is not the medium for dissing your co-workers.

2. Keep in mind that your boss may be flagging your e-mails with search software. Certain words or phrases may bring his attention to off-color jokes or your flirtatious missives with your office fling (That's a bad idea as well). Keep it professional, because even if you're not slapped with a sexual harassment suit, it might get your boss worried that you will be -- and get him thinking you need to take a permanent vacation.

More tips after the jump.

3. Remember that your company owns your computer and can probably retrieve deleted emails from your hard drive. Unless you're an IT whiz who understands the nuts and bolts of a PC, you should work under the premise that you can never make anything totally disappear from your outbox once you've sent it. So don't imagine you'll just clean up your hard drive and make everything go away.

4. Reread every word of your e-mail before you hit send, and if you're angry, wait a few minutes. This seems fairly obvious, but it's good to make a habit of slowly going over every word that you've written again before hitting send. Typos look bad whenever you send something, but make sure it's clean enough to be on the record for good.

5. The disclaimer at the bottom of your e-mail = pretty worthless. Lots of people append a signature to the bottom of their e-mail to note that the contents of the note are confidential. This may make you feel like there's another level of protection -- and may cause your recipient to think twice before forwarding it -- but it's not legally binding and there are plenty of ways that information can be repurposed by the person who receives it.

6. Be careful with your CCs and BCCs. When you're sending a blast e-mail to many people, it's often good practice not to reveal who all the recipients are to each other. By revealing someone's e-mail address to another person on the list, you may inadvertently be opening them up to unwanted solicitation or a boatload of spam.