Conference 7.286::digital

    You mean if you can't reach an agreement with the system manager,
    then you should go to the cluster manager?
    
    I don't understand the question.
    
    Jon

    I'm not sure if this is what was meant, but it is an interesting
    question:

    ODP says you can always escalate if you don't agree with a decision
    that was made.  Does this also imply that you can take mail that
    discussed the disagreement and ship it off to someone else?

    It seems like there is a similar question about notes.  Is there ever
    a set of circumstances which warrants posting a private message in a
    notes file?  It seems like this is bad etiquette unless both the
    sender and recipient have agreed to post it.

    Pete has elaborated on the question correctly in .2; even .1 has
    chosen a reasonable example of the ODP (Open Door Policy) but at
    first I thought "mailbox" was being confused with quotas or such!
    
    Any "disagreement" must be handled diplomatically and privately.
    E-mail may NOT be personal enough, AND it can be forwarded, perhaps
    to one's embarassment.  Nevertheless, I think E-mail is a legitimate
    and expeditious extension of the ODP.
    
    But there are certainly precedents for an "Open Letter to the Secry. of 
    Education" in newspapers or for a "White Paper on Farm Policy".
    So Notes are good for discussing ISSUES that may belong to a certain
    Job Title but NOT for airing arguments.
    
    	Rick       
    	Merrill

*I* thought you were trying to figure out whether one should be allowed to
propagate an issue to higher-level management via electronic mail, as
opposed to a properly scheduled face-to-face meeting, or a telephone
conversation.

Has anyone found a manager's mail filtering practices (e.g. letting their
secretary decide what is worth their attention) to compromise the spirit
of the Open Door Policy?
				/AHM

    Funny you should mention that.  I've run into cases where a secretary
    empowered to filter a manager's mail does indeed appear to compromise
    that spirit - perhaps even maliciously.  In cases where mail may
    be the first front to approaching a manager with a question or issue,
    this obstacle can be a severe one.  I question the wisdom of having
    secretaries filter their manager's mail.  I understand the productivity
    reasoning, but I question the prudence.
    
    tim
    

        Re the secretary reading his/her manager's MAIL - there
        is a policy about divulging passwords, so the secretary
        should not even be able to log into the manager's account,
        let alone read his/her MAIL.
        

    screw up.
    your mail will be available to anyone that wants it.

    Re: .7
    
    Absolutely.  Just ask Ollie North!

        Re .7, .8 - I didn't say that it's impossible for others
        to read one's electronic MAIL.  I just said that there
        is a policy that implies that secretaries should not screen
        their boss' electronic MAIL, since they would probably
        need to "violate" the policy to do so.
        

    re .6, .9:
    
    The policy states that you should not share access to your account.
    (Of course, many managers do so, but that is a different story....)
    
    However, there is no policy against automatically forwarding your
    mail to your secretary for processing. For example, during my vacation
    last summer, I had MAIL automatically send a copy of all newmail
    to my secretary and keep a copy for me.� Thus, my secretary could
    screen requests for the time critical ones. When I returned, I could
    process everything. This does not violate any security standard
    that I know about.
    
    � One way to do this in VAXmail is to use the DELIVER mechanism.
    It is available from the TOOLSHED, and has its own conference. I
    actually used a hack in v4 mail, but it is going away with v5.

    The secretary-reading-mail bit has always bothered me.  It's not
    the security issue involved--it's the screening that was mentioned
    previously.  Nixon's White House Staff is an extreme example, but
    it shows what happens when people who have no official power or
    authority suddenly assume it, because of their position.  I don't
    think there is intentional abuse; but rightly or wrongly, I'm suddenly
    answering to the secretary and not the boss.

    Our mail system is anarchy, so a manager could get swamped with
    memos from lower-level personnel.  The solution to that is to make
    sure that the staff knows what is important to send and what isn't.
    I have a suspicion that those managers who delegate all mail to
    their secretaries are the same ones that had closed office doors
    before computers.

Re .9:

On VMS, unless MAIL is extremely unfriendly, it should be possible to slap
an ACL on the manager's mail directory which grants the appropriate access
to selected staff, and no additional people, without divulging any passwords.
Any method for granting file access which is less sophisticated might
contain a security hole.  (I don't think Peter's example qualifies, as it
doesn't really relate to file security unless the secretary's mail files
are unprotected).

I assume that secretaries often manipulate Personal Confidential documents,
and are expected to have the proper respect for them.

I associate (rightly or wrongly) the image of having a secretary filter
mail with the higher echelons of the corporation.  I don't see how a policy
*intended* to prohibit the practice could be expected to ratified without the
recognition that a lot of people would have to change their work habits,
or that it was a massive exercise of hypocrisy.
				/AHM

        re technical ways to read another's MAIL without logging
        into the account - well, I did say "probably"...:-)

        If a manager is sufficiently technical to know about ACLs
        and so on, is s/he likely to have a secretary "screen"
        her/his MAIL (this doesn't include Peter's example)?
        

    Say whaaaaat???
    
    
    Secretaries shouldn't have access to a managers account to read
    mail? C'mon folks.... let's get serious!  I know many managers that
    refuse to have terminal in their office! Their secretaries print
    their mail daily and type their responses for them.  If you think
    that every manager in this corporation reads his/her mail by pressing
    the return key, think again.  T'aint so.  Last I heard, KO has 3
    of 'em just to read the avalanche of mail he gets.  For a busy manager,
    this makes sense.  Personally, I think I'd still read my own mail,
    no matter how high I got.  (But then.., I don't get 800 messages
    a day at the moment...hmmmm maybe at that point, I'll only read
    subject lines...).
    
    8')
    
    
    

� Personally, I think I'd still read my own mail, no matter how high I got.
    
    	Guess you gotta have something to do between drinks, right?
    
    	;-}
    
    

Ken gets 450 a day.

The average senior manager gets over 100 a day.

VP's typically get 250 to 300 a day.

Do you still think so?

Geoff

Gee! with those numbers I think I would get an unlisted node :-)

        Mike

    Time for a little kicker, hey ?
    
    Security, as we know it, rests with the:
    
    a) State of the Art (ask the German "high" military Command.

    b) The system manager (Hmmm tell me again how some selected employees
        were notified by their managers that obscene mail was not
	permitted?)

    c) DEC policy .... right .. what is written down enforces the content,
    	huh ?
   
    Many people .. managers , etc have their daily mail printed out
    to a line printer, etc, as well as having it "monitored" by their
    secretary, which is why DEC (as well as many other companies ..
    does DEC ?) 'pair up' exec's with their secretaries. As the exec
    rises in the company, the secretary 'goes with the boss' to continue
    being 'their secretary'. Its a trust position.
    
    The bottom line to all this, of course, is 'if you don't want the
   information known by anyone other then the intended recipient ..
    don't write it down ! 
    
    //rwe