Tax Prep
I worked for an attorney who did ex-pat tax preparation. We had a friend’s girlfriend working with us to help purge files and set up a new office. She stayed on because we needed a secretary.
For some reason, she thought that we were equals in the office and that we shared the same responsibilities of answering the phone and email, filing documents, and making copies, even though I was a tax-preparer, not a secretary. She also refused to be called a secretary.
She had a good-intentioned e-mail written to request tax documents from our clients if they hadn’t already submitted them to us. The email was going to be sent to our entire client list. She went and added all of the clients and sent it off.
However, instead of sending the email to ourselves with the client emails in BCC, it was a giant thread. All the clients could see each other’s emails, and if someone responded to that email, all clients would be able to see that person’s private financial information.
I had to immediately follow up with another email requesting them to disregard and delete the message. She got fired the next day. My boss and her couldn’t see eye to eye on many things, but that mistake was the straw that broke the camel’s back.