Executive Loses Job For Being Rude To Secretary

Here's the gist of the matter. The Singaporian executive, president of EMC China, got to the office one late Friday, the door was locked. He e-mailed to his Chinese secretary;

"You locked me out of my office this evening because you assume I have my office key on my person. With immediate effect, you do not leave the office until you have checked with all the managers you support,"

The secretary replied back as follows;

"I locked the door because the office has been burgled in the past. Even though I'm your subordinate, please pay attention to politeness when you speak. This is the most basic human courtesy. You have your own keys. You forgot to bring them, but you still want to say it's someone else's fault."

She copied her reply, along with her boss's original email, to all of the company staff in China.

The incident had become a big issue and the president finally resigned. To me, it seeems like the secretary was rude and way out of her line for cc'ing to everybody.

Never in Korea.