I recently heard of a colleague being let go.

I'm not sure if he was stripped searched and marched out of the building. BUT, that was a common occurrence on Wall Street.

There they were always trying to prevent brokers from taking their "book" home. The book was their customer list with all the details. That book was essential to a broker getting a new job and bringing all his old clients with him. The Old Firm would believe that those customers were "theirs". It was entertaining to watch the squabble. The "rules" said that the departing broker couldn't tell "his" customers on the old firm's time or phone about the change. So the first thing the broker did, when they departed or were thrown out, was to contact all the old clients to get them to move their accounts to the new firm with the broker. Great fun.

I got to know some of these characters. One old coot had a large supply of carbon paper. If he wrote anything, he'd make a carbon copy and "file" it in his briefcase. Each night, home it would go. When they nuked him, as they eventually did to anyone who was too successful or too unsuccessful, I know that they lost EVERY single one of his clients. They were convinced he was hacked into their computer system. To lose every single one was extraordinary.

About a decade later, I ran into him and he laughed as he told me he had a room at home where he had carefully filed and indexed every page.

And, he said he was still doing it. If they ever stopped producing carbon paper, then he said he'd retire.

OK what's the point for all us turkeys?

Don't EVER use your employer's email for networking activities. You can be cut off. With free gmail accounts galore, there is no reason to do it.

This colleague, now departed, used his corporate email and now I can't reach him.

Don't make that mistake. If you have, fix it!