What is your HR climate?

I hope the lesson you have learned is to be very circumspect what you write down at work.

HR departments are bureaucracies and operate as such.

I’ve never had a job of any consequence for a company that had an HR department. Your story is exactly the reason why. It steams me up just to read that, not only because it was a huge overreaction on their part, but also because I consider that a violation of your privacy.

@dappled_leaves There is no presumption of privacy in the workplace. You should assume that all of your electronic communications are subject to review.

I agree, we all are made aware that there is no expectation of privacy on comapny owned media, ie’ cha and company email.
I’m over it, I guess. I just thought the whole thing was alomst too ridiculous to even gripe about.
I mean, four year olds tattle. I’m surprised he didn’t come over and say “Trillian’s mother! Guess what she said?”

Do not expect your corporate overlords to be “reasonable” or see anything as ridiculous if something that is anything like it could lead to embarrassment for the firm or a lawsuit.
It’s part of our submission to the big machine to accept that kind of tunnel vision and discipline.
I don’t for a moment pretend I like that sort of stuff… I once accidentally did a reply-all to some dufuss telling him “DO NOT FUCK WITH THE <some business process he had just fucked up for the umpteenth time>” and it took a month of tedious meetings and extra supervision for it to blow over. These days I would just figure out how to drop his mess back in his lap.

Let me say firstly that this is obviously a huge overreaction. I work for a huge organisation and some departments make my blood curdle because of the way they interact with other parts of the organisation and with individuals.

Secondly, consider that HR departments are tasked with ensuring sexual harassment, discrimination, workplace bullying and the like are dealt with (not that they do those things particularly well). They are supposed to be aware of the legislation and regulations an organisation has to comply with.

Imagine for a second that message wasn’t meant for your boss and part of a little private messaging stream you had going. What if it was for another employee and you were harassing them or messing with their head in some way? HR is not looking at it from the perspective you are. They are looking at the bigger implications I would imagine.

In saying that I don’t see why your boss couldn’t say, ‘I know it was a joke and it was meant for me. I will make sure it doesn’t happen again’.

@Bellatrix thanks for the validation. It was a huge overreaction. And my boss did put an end to it. Decisively. It was a first for me in a work situation where someone “got my back” so quickly and definitively.
I was more just trying to shake off my pique with the stupid tattle-tale attitude.
I think a big part of the angst in many organizations is emotional dissonance. People are NOT allowed to express their very valid irritation at some things, and for whatever reason, they are actually supposed to “mouth the party line” for every situation and never acknowledge that something is silly or ridiculous. This causes emotional dissonance and over time can cause such a negative impact on people that they burn out, snap and just quit, or in some cases completely lose it.
Just my opinion, though I’m sure that there are studies that back this up. It’s to cab that corporate America can’t figure that out and integrate that into every day operations.