Im also not going to tell anyone else! If it was the 2nd option then, yeah, they were going to let you go. With all the Data Protection rules, the E-privacy Regs, yes - and sorry, GDPR, my friend was in panic mode as they still didn't really understand their situation. In no time you will have your next job lined up and all this will be just a post earning you rep. Forgetting to attach a mentioned attachment is common, but still embarrassing. I work in the auto industry in media communications. This is probably not a feasible strategy, unless the OP was at the job for only a few months. On Monday, I was called into a fact-finding meeting with HR. update: is my future manager a bigoted jerk? It makes the sender aware of their mistake and less likely to bother you again in the future. Unless this job was the bulk of your experience, I would leave it off your resume. She shared *exciting* embargoed information. That may not be the right wordbut Im having trouble finding the right one. An example: Well meaning (or at least not meaning harm) maybe, but very foolish. Or if youd like to start a trial, get in touch and well be more than happy to arrange a free demo with your IT team. At some workplaces, the hiring process includes security checks that even go into your social media profile, blogs, etc, to see whether your personal communications display a suitable level of discretion. I admit to being incredibly curious as well. A number of US governmental agencies specifically require that the co-worker NOT tell LW that she will be reporting this to management. LW is undisciplined and has a big mouth. No. So for instance when I got an emergency grant from a water supplier for a woman with no income, there wasnt any risk that telling my wife would identify the woman. Second coworker only was put on an improvement plan. So in regards to the tell an imaginary friend idea, I have also: openly disclosed highly confidential information to a) my cats and b) Jesus. That OP knew it was wrong and felt guilty about it is a sign of strength. First coworker was fired in spite of the fact that he was a brilliant and (normally) even tempered guy with years of work at the corporation. I used to handle accounts, but could not handle my own. because your performance / screw-up affects them, or because they feel they are being compared to you and want to put the record straight to defend themselves), or out of a sense that they have an obligation to report (whether or not they actually do). "Compose the email, and only then go back and enter the address (es)," he says. I replaced someone who had embezzled from the (small) company. someone in another department saw the post, reached out to the person who made it and asked for information about the person they had heard it from. Heres what to do. Good luck to you I think Allisons advice for answering questions about this experience is spot on. Sorry this happened, OP! The violation was only victimless by accident and confidentiality rules dont hinge on whether or not the leak is known to have caused damage. Coworker would let the other authorities figure that out. That means that you definitely shouldnt get into anything about anyone ratting you out; that would make it sound like you dont think it really should have mattered. Yes and thats the consequence they now have to live with. One piece of information I learned (that has since been announced publicly, but hadnt been at the time) was SO EXCITING that in a weak moment, I texted one friend about it in celebration. Further, the laws/regluations dont actually make allowances for how many people are told the confidential information, or how much you, the employee, trusts the person they told. This isnt breaking a rule; its potentially putting your organization in jeopardy. You didnt have a right to privileged information once you demonstrated that you werent trustworthy. The z department is not allocating the staff they promised. As I said below, that may be why you werent given a second chance. The above divulged details to a journalist about allocation and resources they should not know about. Youre heading in the right direction, and youve also gotten some really good advice. We got walked through several juicy gossip or personal information scenarios during our orientation in an interactive way, so we could experience the kind of decision-making they wanted, and it was much more memorable. But Im a journalist whos covered federal agencies, so I know super exciting to agency employees does not necessarily equal huge news for everyone else. I want to caveat that when I originally wrote this, it had just happened and I was still extremely emotional about it, which is probably why I chose to leave out important information in my initial question. Yeah, if the LW is in the US or things operate the same way in their country, theres no point in trying to lie or even waffle about what happened. I think thats misunderstanding the severity of why what OP did was not ok. Theres any number of non-confidential matters that are embargoed prior to their public announcement. What probably really hurt the OPs case was that the friend is a journalist. I think that WAS her second chance, and I think something she said at the meetings (perhaps about how the problem is the coworker for being a rat) blew that second chance. I dont find it understandable that the OP expected a second chance for this, as someone who routinely deals with unclassified-but-FOUO, Confidential, and Secret information, except insofar as I can have sympathy for someone who perhaps didnt understand the gravity of their actions until consequences came down. Your tone is very this wasnt a big deal and I shouldnt have been fired for it, when it really should be I made a foolish mistake which I deeply regret and Ive definitely learned my lesson. This was also my thought. Shes never even heard any of the names of our clients, except for a couple she met once at an adjunct social function. Its a bigger deal because that friend is a journalist. Sharing HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL info. Youll get another job. (And thats before you tack on that LW thought it wasnt SO bad because he told Journalist Jason, who can keep a secret, as opposed to Reporter Robert, whos a real sieve.). Dan is such a pain! I might consider you as a candidate who truly gets it in a way that someone who hasnt been tried by fire might not. Thats not really a response to the OP but more a pushback on some the comments. Organisations can set up static rules (for example, you can send emails to business A but not business B), but these traditional methods are rigid and unreliable. Why are Suriname, Belize, and Guinea-Bissau classified as "Small Island Developing States"? I remind people about once a year that not only can I not look up their medical info on my own, I cant look it up even if they ask me to, and I get in even more trouble if I look up my own medical info. In some cases, there can even be criminal charges for knowingly releasing certain information. I dont think it was over company lines. Fired. That doesnt mean youre a horrible person who should never work again! 1) Broke a rule If something like this would help, maybe try it. Trying to understand how to get this basic Fourier Series, Linear regulator thermal information missing in datasheet. Perhaps the email was intended for a client in which case the clients data is at risk and the sender has inadvertently committed a data leak. Pay secrecy is a workplace policy that prohibits employees from discussing how much money they make. I recently saw a movie in pre-screening thats being pushed to be a blockbuster. I am very sure they didnt want to fire him. Regulation people have heard of is going to be changed/repealed and its a big deal 4. Be careful. I mean in the end there is not a lot of reasons to trust either, but demonstrating ongoing cluelessness is not a good way to sell this will never happen again. According to Tessian research, over half (58%) of employees say they've sent an email to the wrong person. True, but youre talking more about deciding to become a whistleblower over something potentially dangerous to the public. Its understandable that you feel betrayed by your coworker, but she probably felt obligated to say something. I would have been fired if I did any one of the things OP did when I worked for the feds (e.g., using Slack, speaking to a journalist without authorization even if they were a long-time friend, disclosing soon-to-be-public information before it was publicly available). Yeah, I thought it was from her personal cell too. Also, if your mentor went through the trouble of having a conversation with you about your duties and seemed concerned, I doubt she was out to get you she probably felt it was her duty and to her best interest to report now that you have made her an accomplice-after-the-fact in any potential breach (say, your friend was the one out to get you and it leaked before your department had any plans for dealing with a leak, this mentor would also be in trouble for not reporting it as soon as she knew if they found out she did), OP I want to comment on one aspect that I didnt see anyone mentioning directly. 1964 is what I remember. So the judgment on trustworthiness is flawed. I tell the character and imagine their response, and the urge to share subsides. So to summarize, while an individual in your circumstance can be fired for the accidental dissemination of confidential employment information, their employer cannot press criminal charges against them, both because a private entity lacks the authority to make that decision and more fundamentally because the accidental dissemination of . Its a great professional resource with a lot of professional development around ethics. Then the second paragraph said Do not release this information to anyone outside of the office because the press are not to know about these changes until the morning of the event. If you lie during the interview and the truth later comes out, thats enough to get you fired. Talking about your work on a more general level is usually allowed unless your employer or their client is unusually paranoid. High-profile thing the president wanted and agency employees opposed isnt going to happen "I made a dumb mistake and misjudged the sensitivity of some data" is both more accurate and less severe. I dont know the full text of the conversation and I dont want to, but she was probably in a position where she had to tell someone. Or they might have a zero-tolerance policy for leaks as a deterrent. OP: Practically everything I do in my job is confidential to some degree. "Yes, humor in the workplace is a fabulously invaluable thing that any workplace can benefit greatly from, but when your colleagues already feel buried under a pile of never-ending emails, adding. that should be a firing offense. that one would be unable to resist texting a friend. The financial firm I worked for had mandatory quarterly compliance meetings with examples of Dont Be This Guy Because He Doesnt Work Here Anymore. Heres another the state Supreme Court will probably make a decision on voting district gerrymandering soon., (This one happened to me, and was probably the most exciting confidential information I got access to my desk was close enough to the GIS employees that I could see the increased traffic out of their area and infer that Something was Happening. Personal info is never OK to share with anyone, or things that could lead to recognizing a person if someone happens to know that person (and you never know who knows who). It can feel like the end of the world but I promise you it isnt. Sometimes it can be a blessing in disguise. Email violations can jeopardize your job. Penalizing or firing such employees may lead to the loss of good talent and even create a negative impact on employee morale. I tell my team that if it leaks from us, they cannot work here. And that doesnt even take into account that I could be prosecuted for divulging any private information. Any of our PR folks would be immediately fired. I think in both cases, part of the concern is this retroactive removal of risk. Not because my coworker ratted me out, but because I came to her for guidance and instead of being straight with me, she made me think it would be OK only to be questioned hours later. Regardless of what the coworker did, ideally we want to nudge OP toward exercising greater impulse control and discretion if OP wants to have a successful career in the same sector/field. Not generational, just a young person thing. OP can come up with steps to fix the real problem in their future jobs, but they cant really fix an evil coworker. Mostly, Im saying this to you so that you understand that you should never have trusted that co-worker to keep that kind of information to herself, no matter how much of a mentor shed been to you I do think that she should have told you that this was serious enough that she couldnt not report it. Confiding in an older mentor in the expectation of confession-like confidentiality? The heads on spikes of the modern workplace. They might push the company to reverse your termination. Employees also. If OP reasoned I told mentor, confident that there was NO WAY she would let anything slip it throws a lot of doubt on her parallel reasoning of how certain it was that the journalist wouldnt let anything slip. OP I dont want to pile on, many people have made the point that this would be a very big deal in many industries, and that your coworker was not responsible for your being fired, and indeed may have been obligated to report the violation. And most of the real socialising happened at house parties and dinner parties, not restaurants or bars. Ive worked in the banking industry for a couple decades and this would be a fireable offense on the first instance, no ifs, ands, or buts. (The fact that your friend is a journalist makes it particularly egregious.) Im not going to tell them about it, unless it actually falls out that I end up being the person who is put in charge of telling them their thing is done. What if there was another leak and someone found out that OP had told Coworker that she had leaked info previously, but didnt report it as she was supposed. I actually think your big mistake was telling your coworker, not telling a trusted friend. It's hard to answer this question without specifics, but it strikes me as very important to differentiate between an accident or mistake in the sense of "oops, I did that by unintentionally" versus misconduct, as in "this was against policy and I deliberately did it anyways" regardless of whether you knew about the policy or had a good reason to do it or not. You said it yourself that you were working on client confidential information, and sent it to your personal mailbox. You might not immediately get the same job you had before and might have to accept something more junior but be clear in your communications and you'll get there. I arrived in 69. If people really need jobs, they need to act like they really need jobs. Thats what I would do. This is incredibly condescending. Id say forgive that coworker NOWyou put her in a terrible position by being a big blabbering blabbermouth. They might try to use silence to get you to say more. Yeah. 4a) Coworker did not owe (and usually would be discouraged from giving) notification to the OP. But thats not what happened here. Both your friend AND your co-worker. You've learned from this mistake and had no malicious intent. Then, when someone particularly notable would enter our database, we would get a reminder email not naming names but reminding us that no matter how interesting the information is, its private and not ok to share. Thats the one that needs to learn to keep things to herself? If that is so, there is nothing you can do to avoid the termination and you should be looking for new employment. Non-public just because it hadnt been announced yet isnt the same as the location of the emergency bunker. Agree with this. I would also lay odds that when LW says Coworker was understandably very uncomfortable with what I did, and we had a very nice conversation about our duties as communication officers, and trust, etc., that means that despite what LW thought about it being a nice confidential chat, her mentor figure was trying to imply to her that she was going to HAVE TO report the incident, because trust and responsibility. Having a natural, human reaction doesnt mean shes in the wrong field. For the other 2 questions, I would simply urge you to remove the phrase ratted out from your professional vocabulary. Having a mentor at a different organization in a similar role might be a good idea for the future. As Brett said, there was definitely a record in this case. Why is there a voltage on my HDMI and coaxial cables? It may be unfair to assume a journalist is cutthroat and would kill for a lead, but its also nave to assume they wouldnt let anything slip to the exact wrong person. Yeah just assume that for the next few years youre out of the running for jobs that require a confidentiality. Or you mistyped her email by one letter and it went to a colleague who had no reason to respect the embargo? Your understanding of confidential is not mine. She did her job. Im not curious at all, but Im different. +100 to this. I dont know, I think thats overstating. Better to have a 30% chance than a 0% chance. Based on the post its probably public now, so I would guess its likely not too exciting. One of my friends is working on projects that she cannot list on her resume now that shes applying to jobs and I only know that because Im looking at it and she told me shes frustrated because she has good work that she can quantify but cant talk about yet. Site design / logo 2023 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under CC BY-SA. You know thats not how that works. Handling confidential information discreetly is a day to day part of working in communications, particularly for government entities (I say as someone in this field). I imagine there are a lot like that in government but he learned from working with a non apologetic, scandal plagued politician that consequences of what seems little to you may not be to the tabloids. 2. Yes, when I worked at a financial firm I believe that exact question was on a privacy training test: If I run across the name of a celebrity in the client management system while performing my duties, its okay to tell friends and family about it, True or False?. Finally I decided to own it at the next interview and I got the job. The co-workers obligation is to the employer, not to the OP. Draft your UI forms and pre-write your objection to his unemployment on the grounds of "good cause" firing for willful misconduct- Then after all that you can fire him. You committed battery. I gossip too much, including at work. Especially since the letter seems to have been written almost immediately after the incident, before their feelings had time to settle properly. When theres something I really want to share with my wife, I mask it, pretty much what we do here talking about how the client invested in llama shearings, or called up asking about rumours of purple llamas, or asked us to sell all their teapots that kind of thing.

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