the skillful craft of email disgrace

"the great pioneer of the email disgrace was london lawyer brad chait. at 3.53pm on december 7 in 2000 his girlfriend, claire swire, sent him a smutty joke via email. a slightly salacious exchange continued until swire fatefully referred to her enjoyment of oral sex with her partner. rather than gallantly accepting the compliment chait forwarded the message to some mates. the email spread around the world and two days later swire was in hiding from the english tabloids. she dumped chait."


"richard phillips, a senior associate at the london law firm baker & mckenzie, had his career wrecked just before morning tea on june 3 this year. at 10.25am his secretary, jenny amner, replied by email to an email he had sent demanding she pay him £4 ($9.5) for dry-cleaning after she spilled sauce on his trousers.

"with reference to the email below," she wrote, "i must apologise for not getting back to you straight away but due to my mother's sudden illness, death and funeral i have had more pressing issues than your 4 pounds."

amner hit "reply to all" and within hours the message was the talk of the town."


"this week allens arthur robinson secretaries melinda bird and katrina nugent found themselves at the centre of attention, and sacked, but not because they brawled via email over a ham and cheese sandwich. their demise came about because desk jockeys at the firm and a number of other companies got their hands on the exchange and could not resist sending it on."

www.smh.com.au: you've got hot mail so have we