I received a phone call this morning from James Mailley, the Sales Director of Monster.ie. James is John Burns’ boss.
James was extremely apologetic about what happened over the last couple of days and said he would like to email me a formal letter of apology.
I told him that I would publish the letter of apology on the blog and he was happy with that. Here is the email I received:
Hi Tom,
Thanks for taking my call this morning – I appreciate you taking further time to discuss the recent events with me.
As I said on the phone and wish to reiterate, I apologise for the issues surrounding the e-mail that was distributed and also for the amount of your time being spent dealing with this situation. Having thoroughly investigated all the aspects of the original mail, I have discovered that this was an error that occurred through the enthusiasm of a brand new recruit who did not understand the policies and practices of the company.
Monster has a strict policy regarding unsolicited emails, and all Monster employees are forbidden from sending such emails unless the individuals or companies in question have specifically opted in to receive group emails of this nature. I reiterate that the email in question was sent by an individual in contravention of Monster’s policy on unsolicited emails, and that Monster in no way authorised or condoned this behaviour.
On behalf of Monster please be assured that we will do everything we can to avoid incidents of this nature occurring again in the future.
Kind regards
James
James Mailley
Sales Director
http://www.monster.ie
James was also looking for suggestions on how to make this right. I made a couple of suggestions to him which he promised to look into but if anyone else has any suggestions they’d like to add, feel free to leave them in the comments or email them to me and I’ll pass them onto James.
#1 Free Use of the Monster Blimp
#2 Free Use of the Monster Hot Air Balloon (http://media.monster.com/uken/photo/chateau%20d'%20oex_balloon_2.JPG)
#3 €57,000 bar tab for the IT@Cork Conference (10% of the potential fine is a let off. Ask any bail bondsman)
#4 Make John dress up in the Monster.com costume for the duration of IT@Cork Conference
#5 Having the pleasure of listing John’s former job on Monster.com!
A suggestion on how to make this right… hmmm… how about a few P45s? That might just do the trick.
Congrats to Monster on doing the right things (and righting a wrong.)
Monster have now done the only thing they should have done from the start; owned-up and apologised. Fair play to the blogging community for outing this incidence – it is a warning to other reputable businesses that might ever consider doing something similar.
I know you probably wouldn’t want to suggest it yourself, but how about Monster contract you in to do an awareness course in how to do business on the internet for their sales staff – explain the rules about blogs, comments, email, opt-in etc. I can think of a few companies that could do with that.
I think Pete’s suggestion is a good one! Brian’s are abit harsh, and as Hews said they did apologise!
On a frolic of his own? Its good to see the classics have life in them yet.
Sean,
I agree that the early comments are a bit harsh. John made a couple of mistakes but, in reality, nobody wants to see him lose his job.
We all make mistakes from time to time, the important thing is to learn from them and move on.
I think John has learned his lesson. Firing him won’t teach him anything he hasn’t already gleaned by now.
How about a large, clear public apology on their web site…
(how likely is that???)
I think the way this panned out was good for everyone in the end, including Mr. Burns. He’s learnt a harsh lesson but I think we can all be confident that he won’t make the same mistake again (spamming in the first place and his reluctance to apologise and recognise his mistake). Monster, through Mr. Mailly have nailed their colours to the mast as regards email policy – posted for all eternity for future reference should the need arise. The blogging community (Irish in particular) has benefited in a number of ways, it has made several people in a big organisation aware of the power of bloggers and that inappropriate behaviour will not be tolerated or accepted. Other people in organisations that have been following the posts have surely learnt a thing or two as a result of this. I’ve benefited by having an interesting thread to read and cracking up at headrambles account of the matter. Everyone’s a winner (kind of) baby!
Hang on, hang on… was there any mention of Pedro in this apology?
I see Monster are looking for customer feedback at http://www.zoomerang.com/recipient/survey.zgi?p=WEB226RP6ABZN5 if anyone feels like using another channel to get the message through.