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Comment by run4yourlives | Hacker News Reader

Wait a second... this guy sent a letter to a firm looking for employment and had it along with his personal details paraded around - what looks to be - the industry?

How is that not a serious violation of privacy? I'm pretty sure this would violate even the most basic privacy statement. I highly doubt they asked the submitter if they would enjoy being emailed to the industry. In Canada or the EU you'd be violating Government legislation too.

Hope it works out for him, but this just goes to show how little Wall Street thinks of people outside of their own circle. If I were a high up in Morgan Stanley (it's the only company name not blacked out) I'd be pissed.

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Yeah, if I were looking for an internship, I'd hate to have my cover letter and resume circulated on personal emails where it's sure to be read closely.

Yeah, if I were looking for an internship, I'd hate to have my cover letter and resume circulated on personal emails where it's sure to be read closely.

Exactly, in this specific case it is a net positive! That's plenty of reason to ignore the implications of the underlying behavior.

Point is that nobody asked him.

Would you prefer that I "assume" you might be interested in buying something from my close advisor and pass on your name and address to him as well if you buy something from me?

It even says at the bottom "This email is confidential..."

I suspect that footer got added by the first person who forwarded the email, not by the original sender. Random people sending cover letters don't tend to add crazy confidentiality footers to email; business email systems do that.

It's cut off, but I thought it was a joke. It doesn't quite read as official.

serioulsy, what are you talking about ? This kid needed a job (pretty bad i would think) and he wrote a "smart" cover letter with his name/email address. HOw is that information being passed around other members of the company a violation ? I don't know about other countries but in the US, I would think it is normal. I mean u need a job. Do you really think your email address is that critical to hide from other senior members of a company u want to apply to ?

The issue is the author openly admitted to them sending these letters out for laughs when they are from people trying to blow themselves out of proportion.

Being unemployed doesn't mean you have no rights. It's just basic politeness to respect that.

There's no privacy statement involved. It's an email. Emails get forwarded. It's polite to ask first.

Forwarding emails is a copyright violation.

Always amazes me how HN is full of incredibly intelligent people yet some are so spectacularly void of common sense. Only on HN would the discussion turn to whether or not the kid would be annoyed at an email that's forwarded without someone asking him. Course he wouldn't - they are all lauding him. His email has achieved exactly what it set out to do - it's got him a gig at an investment bank.

Course he wouldn't - they are all lauding him.

So basically, the ends justify the means?

That's like suggesting that me giving away your credit card number is okay if you end up buying the product that the third party tries to sell you.

The context justifies the means.

Yes to forwarding resume/cover letter email to others who might seek to hire the applicant. No to sharing others' credit card numbers. Human beings - creatures capable of judgment and discretion - don't need to reduce every decision to predefined deontological criteria.

don't need to reduce every decision to predefined deontological criteria.

Actually, I'm pretty sure history suggests that we do.

Do you care to elaborate? History, to me, suggests quite the opposite; you might argue that it's quite common for people to actually practice the application of a generalized set of pre-packaged criteria to all situations, but the actual patterns of events we can observe indicate that we might all be better off with fewer and fewer people doing so, and more and more developing the native intelligence necessary to evaluate every unique conjunction of circumstance on its own particular merits.

So is replying to emails with the original message intact :(

So sue me.

So is reading them.

"This email is confidential and subject too... "

It's written right at the bottom of the original.

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