My intention to leave my job with a modicum of dignity and minimum of recriminations has been derailed by a Series of Unfortunate Events. They range from the mildly irritating (they took me out to lunch and stuck ME with the tab!) to the borderline criminal (my check has gone astray for the fourth month in a row). But for some strange reason, the thing that sticks in my craw is that they’re intercepting and reading my e-mail.

How did I discover this? No, it was not a case of cyber detective work, a la The Cuckoo’s Egg. (Did you ever read that? I think that’s when I realized I was a Geek in Embryo.) I sit on an industry committee, and the chair sent me an e-mail invitation to the next teleconference, accidentally using my old work e-mail as well as the personal e-mail I had asked her to use. One of my former colleagues read it and then forwarded it back to me, directing me to tell her that he would sit on this committee in my place.

I know that corporations are typically authorized to monitor Internet traffic and read corporate e-mail, although I’m not certain that applies to my situation, as I was not a regular employee and our company never stated any such policy. I have never heard of an e-mail account being kept open after termination, though. Husband says that in the past he has been asked to handle messages for a departed employee, but in my experience the account is closed and a bounce-back message directs the sender to contact another person.

What irks me the most it that my colleague thought it was appropriate to usurp my position on the committee. I explained as politely as I could that it doesn’t work that way; the committee invited me to join, not a random representative from Company X, and my place is not entailed on Company X in as if it were a piece of property in nineteenth-century England.

I hope they are having fun reading all the e-mails that the dog-walking group, Consumer Reports, and the Mothers’ Club are still mistakenly sending to my old work address. If my colleague wants to take my spot on the Playgroup Committee, he’s welcome to it.