A reader writes:
Recently, my company added each employee’s I.D. badge picture to their email. This image appears on every email the employee sends and receives. Employees do not have the option to turn this feature off. Several people in our dept., including myself, are uncomfortable with this. When we approached upper management, we were told this was standard practice and very common in business. I have never heard of another company doing this. Is this a common business practice?
What? No, this is weird.
I’m sure they think it’s making the company appear more personable. Companies frequently think that customers want a more personal touch, and then come up with really impersonal ways to implement it, like the grocery store cashiers who are forced to call you by name as they hand you your receipt. (You’re not fooling me, Safeway! I know you don’t really know me!) I wish that companies would figure out that what most customers want is a competent, efficient, polite experience, not faux friendship.
Whoops, I’ve gone on a rant. Anyway, I suspect that’s what your company is up to.
If you have legitimate security concerns, or the photos cause customers/vendors to start crossing professional boundaries in ways that make you uncomfortable, you should raise it with your boss. Otherwise, I think you probably need to resign yourself to it, in the way that some waiters have to resign themselves to announcing their name when they greet a new table.
But don’t let them tell you it’s standard practice, because it’s not.
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