sound recording at work to help in conflict, lawsuits, etc

this post is on a technical subject and then a social/legal subject. Sorry if I posted this before I can't remember.

I appreciate the advice on workplace attire over yonder in another thread. I hope to god I never have to again work someplace where it matters how I dress. But anyway. This thread is also workplace related...

So I got this $70 digital sound recorder... it's VERY small.. it runs on a single AAA nickel metal hydried (sp?) battery for up to 14 hours on a single charge, assuming the mAh rating of your battery is something reasonable. I got several AAA batteries and a quick charger that charges them up in under 15 minutes. It records only in WMA format, which for the purpose of recording voice generally isn't too bad, and compresses the sound pretty well. I find that an 8 hour shift takes up 500 MB, and that's with constant background noise (I work in a factory) so I imagine that a quiet office setting might result in smaller files, depending on how WMA works.. I dunno... It's an olympus.. I recommend against Olympus because the interface is kinda crappy... I'm sure tascam or whoever makes some that are just as good, if not better. It has a few features like the option to filter out highs or lows or whatever to make voice stand out better against background noise. I found that you have to really shop around, as it seems that at least for some brands, maybe all brands, they make a cheap version of every model that is carried everywhere, but to find the model with the better features, you maybe will find only a few suppliers that carry it.. might have to go mail order or whatever.

So I'm listening to it for the first time since I started recording a few weeks ago... and god damn... I keep it in my jeans pocket, and it picks up every god damn thing. It's almost like I can hear voices better on the recording than I can in person, and this despite an abundance of background noise. Well also, in person, I am wearing ear plugs, so that might make a difference. But yeah, it can hear me, it can hear people I'm talking to. it's amazing. I use a freeware audio editing program (Audacity, the latest beta version) to assist in navigating this 8 hour long audio file.

So at the end of each shift, I stop the recording, and then I start a new recording, and I narrate my notes for the day. What happened at work that day, etc. Having the two recordings be in separate files helps a lot for record keeping.

so anyway.. point being, is, you NEVER know when having an archive like this might come in handy. Obviously, if you have a confrontational workplace environment where people are constantly trying to stab you in the back, such as I unfortunately have, then this is handy.

But even if you have a wonderful and trusting relationship with everyone you work with, you NEVER know when things can change. A new manager might come in, or whatever. Especially in this scenario, it might seem silly to record your notes at the end of each day "nothing to report, nothing of note happened" but several months from now, when you discover that your workplace personnel file reflects you having been given a warning or write-up for poor job performance on that day... your diary, this log, actually constitutes evidence which may well be admissible in a court of law, or in an unemployment benefits eligibility hearing.

A surreptitious recording of your workplace environment, however, to include co-workers, supervisors, and possibly customers as well, is, as far as I understand, criminally illegal in some (many?) states, and may violate constitutionally protected expectation to privacy in some scenarios...

Never the less, it is my understanding that a recording which was illegally recorded may well be admissible in court if it proves perjury... Of course that is an unlikely scenario... "your honor, my client would like to admit into evidence some illegal recordings which were not disclosed to the defendant in the course of discovery...."

But still, these recordings can really be useful for yourself. These recordings allow you to place very specific facts in your diary. For example, my supervisor bitched to me today that some other supervisor said I didn't start work soon enough at the start of the shift on some random day last week... And I'm like... okay... So if I go back and listen to the recording, I can probably extrapolate exactly when I started work, the exact sequence of events, and if there may have been any witnesses.

I would imagine, too, that having an audio recorded diary log might prove to be much more compelling evidence for a jury, in the event of a lawsuit, than if you had a written log. One more thing to weigh in your favor to help ensure that whatever settlement in eventually reached between your lawyer and their team of lawyers is as much in your favor as possible.