Well compared to murder, it of course it is a small thing. But on the scale of treating co workers with respect I see it as a very bad thing.
It would be the same as if a co worker found a way to hack into your computer and read your emails. Or read your writings in Word or something. Or found a way to listen on your phone conversations without you knowing. Or borrowed your coat, found a private letter in the pocket and read it.
I think he had a reasonable expectation of privacy and you invaded it.
I don’t think your curiousity is justification to do what you did. There was a good reason for your feeling ashamed. I can only hope you refrain from doing that in the future. If its being illegal is not enough of a reason to stop you from doing it, then thinking how you would feel knowing others were poking around into your private business would make you feel should stop you.
gigi didn’t miss anything: your OP was terribly badly worded. Regard how you wrote it:
Based on the information in the preceding paragraph, I drew the same conclusions as gigi. You wrote it wrong.
As for your question, hell no! It’s question of courtesy and trust. My wife and I don’t open each other’s mail, even when we know what’s inside. If you Xeroxed my mail, I’d think you were the biggest dick in the world, and let you know that. If you did it again, I’d escalate the issue.
If I’d found out that someone did that to me, I would be incredibly pissed off. There’s a reason that letter’s in an envelope - it’s none of your damned business, no matter how “curious” you are. Happening to glance at someone’s *open *private correspondence and noticing something can’t be helped, but deliberately photocopying something to read the contents of a letter? What the hell? You want quantified badness - well, I’d say on a scale of 1 to 10 of petty personal badness, it’s a whole heaping 11.
And even if I’d noticed something in the aforementioned manner, I wouldn’t say anything to the person concerned unless they brought it up with me. Keep your nose out of what doesn’t concern you. My correspondence is mine, and those whom I choose to share it with are welcome to do so. Everyone else - butt out.
What if my boss turned cheap all of a sudden and refused to buy me a new printer cartridge for my work printer to do my job, so when the boss went to lunch, I swapped his full printer cartridge for my empty one?
I am not seeing anything in that related to the OP, except maybe things people have done at work they feel guilty about.
But if you couldn’t do your job because your cartridge was empty, and there were no new cartridges available, then switch it out so you can finish your job. Then tell the boss when he comes back what you had to do to finish your work. Then he can decide if needs it back, or if you need it more.
I had occasion to be trying to read a piece of mail through the envelope a couple of days ago.
I had to sort the mail. I have a coworker with an unusual last name. We got a letter addressed to someone with that last name, but with a completely unfamiliar first name. Coworker didn’t know anyone by that name. The letter didn’t have a return address. We tried to peer through the envelope to see if we could tell if it was junk mail or a real letter. We decided it was junk mail and opened it to be certain before throwing it out. It was junk mail.
Reading someone else’s mail is really rotten. I open mail addressed to my husband if it comes from a doctor or hospital since I pay those bills. Otherwise, no way.
Reading another person’s mail is wrong, even if you don’t physically open the envelope. It’s an invasion of privacy, and a crime. Don’t do it.
I understand that there’s not much expectation of privacy in postcards, but I don’t even read them if I happen to see they’re addressed to someone else. I just avert my gaze. Try it! It’s not hard. I won’t read a letter addressed to my wife even if she’s already opened it, read it and reinserted the paper, unless she gives me permission. I would expect her to show the same courtesy and respect for my privacy, and she does.
I can’t believe the number of people who seem to think this is okay. It is most certainly unethical. A person has a right to privacy and to violate that privacy whether you use special measure or not is unethical.
In every system of morality that I’m familiar with, something being done by a lot of people doesn’t make it OK to do it.
I’d be OK with reading someone’s mail in a case like that, as long as you stopped reading as soon as you determined there was personal information in it, if it hadn’t been junk mail.
I feel a little bad about reading mail addressed to Mr. Neville. I only do it if I think it’s a bill, because I deal with those. If he got lab test results in the mail, I wouldn’t read them without his explicit permission- I wouldn’t assume that, because he was OK with me reading the test results he got last week, that he’d be OK with me reading these. I would be very angry with him if he didn’t do the same with mail addressed to me.
For anyone other than Mr. Neville, I wouldn’t even ask permission, because I don’t think I have any business reading their private correspondence. That applies no matter how obnoxious they are- it’s not OK to do something wrong to someone just because they’re not a nice person. It’s certainly not OK to do something wrong because you’ll benefit from doing it.
Legally are you even allowed to hold/transport/remove from the mailbox or whatever you have, someone else’s mail? Even if you don’t open it… Wouldn’t that be the same as running up on someone’s porch, grabbing the mail from their mailbox, leaving, then returning it a while later (which I assume to be illegal)?
Even if it is mail through the office, technically isn’t it “stealing”? What if the guy wanted to read his mail RIGHT THEN. He doesn’t have it. You do.
Take someone’s stereo for an hour without asking. Return it. Sure, you didn’t hurt it, you just wanted to listen to music in your apartment next door. What’s that you say? You’re shocked your neighbor called the cops when you knocked saying “oh, hey, here ya go, thanks”?
Even if you arn’t breaking any laws by some loophole or whatever… you could just be known as that creepy guy holding everyone’s mail up to the light when the secretary isn’t looking.