It promises to be a slightly uncomfortable weekend. This afternoon, one of my email messages from work was nailed by the automatic censor which looks for unacceptable language [In my case, the phrase in question was “piss-poor”]. As a result, the mail was rejected, and a copy went to the “powers that be”; I think in this case, it’s the personnel department.

What happens now is uncertain. I know a few people who have had similar bounced emails, and have suffered no repercussions, which is soothing. However, it was a mail message that I’d probably rather prefer the powers that be didn’t see, so I hope they read it in the same light-hearted way it was…oh, God, why am I not over optimistic about this? Think I might have been reading too much Dilbert. Also, it wouldn’t be my first brush of 1997 with the authorities over, um, “unauthorised communications”, though I think this one is a relative pussy in comparison. [Buy me several pints if you want the gory details]

On the plus side, if I’m going down, I won’t be going down alone since the mail message was being sent to about 25 people within the company, as well as the extra-company recipients. What’s odd is that it’s ONLY extra-company messages which are monitored, and also ONLY email. No-one seems to care about what you send to the bloke on the other side of the desk, or what you fax, phone or print-out and slam in an envelope to anybody. Email seems to receive special treatment, as if it were the spawn of Satan himself. But the company I work for is lurking in the Dark Ages with regard to such things: Internet mail was only introduced earlier this year.

That was, in fact, just after the other “encounter with authority” — somehow, giving me Internet access at that time seemed curiously like entrapment, handing me a loaded gun to play with, in the hope that I’d give them something nice in exchange — such as my head on a plate. And maybe I’ve just passed it over. But while I seriously doubt this is a P.45 offense, I think I’ll certainly be a little more circumspect about using the phrase “piss-poor” for the next few months. More news if/when anything happens.