Greenwood Village Sagamore Hills Condos For Rent, Articles C

what did you want to get out of sharing with her? and the agency lost control of the information. 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. If a member of your staff violates this explicit. How to handle a hobby that makes income in US. Theres a lot of admittedly not very exciting info the federal government is sitting on at any time. Ethically, you dont have to do anything. Can I be fired for breaching data protection? Some seem to imply there is no reason ever to leak information, which isnt true. update: how can I turn down training requests from my clients? 2007-2023. They might push the company to reverse your termination. as a manager, should I not wear a childless shirt in my off-hours? Im in public relations/global communications. I dont think your coworker ratted you out. He shared it with one person, telling them it was a joke. Its too difficult to know which internally-discussed information is confidential and which isnt. So no matter what, she cant be the person that you reach out to in any kind of way to share that kind of information. Yes you can. Or they might have a zero-tolerance policy for leaks as a deterrent. If asked specifially try to describe in detail what happened and what you learned from it, for example: ask if the new employer has clear guidelines on data handling. Similar in IT in my first internship, I had access to about 40,000 social security numbers. One Employee's Accidental Email Leads To A Significant Data Breach As easily as one of them knowing OP uses Slack to contact reporters and assuming I told a journalist friend or I told Rain (who they know is a journalist, possibly on that channel), anything but I texted a (journalist) friend meant OP went the usual Slack route. In those cases I have to be even more careful, because minor details might get linked to the news story and suddenly its not anonymous any more. She already acknowledged that its 100% her fault. ), Im guessing it was something more like: On other occasions, you might accidentally receive a confidential email with information meant for one person (or a few people) you know. Nah. BUT, that shouldnt excuse leaking things, and theres a big difference between a spouse or a journalist, though I can understand why it can still be difficult. Recurring theme here is that tattling isnt a thing at work. I have been fired for a dumb mistake. Maybe you havent worked with, or known anyone whos worked with, sunshine law and right-to-know, but this is incredibly serious for anyone who has. While I was working there, I started dating an entertainment journalist who then covered some Marvel projects, and there were definitely things that happened at work which I did not share with him because of my NDA. She already got that advice from Alison. For many fed and state agencies, non-public records _must_ be released on a records request despite their non-public status unless they fit into a narrow set of explicit exemptions. Going forward definitely own this mistake and explain that you are freaking Fort Knox going now to new employers, knowing now the seriousness of such a transgression. You cant let yourself act out of emotion. Im sorry this happened to you OP, yeah, in communications at nearly any company this in indeed A VERY BIG DEAL. They might tell superiors accidentally, out of frustration (e.g. We had a discussion on a work committee about not using our work emails when discussing some sensitive information. She can still apply to jobs in her field, and even in the fields you noted, shell just have to be very clear in interviews that she understands why she was fired from this job and how shell work to ensure nothing like this ever happens again. Well meaning (or at least not meaning harm) maybe, but very foolish. The company I work for uses keyloggers and text scanners on our computers to catch these kinds of issues. LW told a human known to be a journalist about The Thing. That functions differently from confidential information in government sectors and sounds closer to your examples in your original comments, but it would still be a really bad idea to share that information. It doesnt matter that the information is going public next week. Is it a HIPAA Violation to Email Patient Names? - HIPAA Journal Including their reputation being damaged. Its no fun to be fired. I work in communications for a large organization and I see this as a trust issue with leadership. Then what? I think people beat themselves up enough internally without us having to do it for them most of the time. 1) Broke a rule I agree, but its been called out and I dont want to derail on it. 1. And Im pointing out that it wasnt a record at all. Someone would then check into it to see if there was a valid reason for someone to be poking at it. Keep your chin up are you not getting any extra help? I used to work in a one-industry town. but if you mess up and by the skin of your teeth get away with it, just DO NOT talk about it with anyone at the company. So I guess maybe it is a generational thing? Despite a good track record and being with this team for a few years now, the rules were made very clear to me and I know I wouldnt be given a second chance in that situation. I screwed up in grad school and had to go in front of an IRB board for being sent information that I hadnt gotten full clearance for. Those usually come out the morning of the speech. It can, should, and does happen, depending on the details of what all happened. But I think in order to talk about this with future employers, youve got to take more responsibility for it. Not so here because what she did was wrong, just not quite as bad as the misunderstood version. The heads on spikes of the modern workplace. Your failure to understand the gravity of your actions is alarming. Funny story: My mom used to call the bank I worked at where she had an account. I understand your irritation with your former coworker. and that person did what they were told to do and reported it. So, you've accidentally sent an email to the wrong person. (Most companies that use these kinds of scanners dont let employees know. Since you touched on it in your follow-up, OP, dont look at this as not getting a second chance. You are its just going to happen at another organization. He was very good about keeping track of his boundaries, and we got very used to finding ways of being politely interested in how his work was going for him without putting pressure on him about the details. Your coworker was not at all in the wrong here, OP. There is zero entitlement in saying that shes upset she didnt get a second chance. 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. And while you felt mad at coworker, really youre mad at yourself. one last post-script: this person wasnt super good at their job, but was a teammate i worked closely with, and doubt they had been put on a PIP prior to this. LW I encourage you to ask yourself why you wrote this: Your actions showed you were not trustworthy with confidential information. I wanted to say, it sucks you lost your job after this one time indiscretion, but Im glad you understand the seriousness of it and with Alisons script, I hope youll find a new job soon. Its very dangerous to OPs professional reputation to assume OP can trust anyone who is unauthorized, including a good friend, with embargoed information. Yeah. I wanted to add to the part about putting your friend in a bad position: shes a journalist its a competitive industry and being first with the story matters a lot. Im also not going to tell anyone else! I work in patents, and regularly see information that can definitely not be made public and has to be sent back and forth with extra security measures, but would also be tremendously boring to everyone but the IP team for a few specific rival companies in a very tiny field. As someone who practices public relations, calling this victimless gives me a lot of anxiety. RIGHT NOW it is totally privileged information and it needs to be treated that way. All we know is that OP made a disclosure, and the coworker is aware the disclosure happened via Slack. Ohhhh come on. Thats a big deal. Fired for gross misconduct because I sent confidential information to Thank you it was getting boring to read everyones outrage. Alisons given you great words to say now its to you to live out your learning with sincerity and build trust with a new employer. Thank you for saying that feelings are never wrong. The OP would be better off to own up to her mistake and her mistaken thinking in saying/writing/texting the information, say what she learned from it, say how she would plan to deal with a similar situation about exciting confidential information if this ever happens again, and conclude by saying that it was 100% her own fault, that she doesnt blame the organization, the manager, or her coworker, that she understands that she put her coworker in a horrible position, and that she will NEVER do anything like that EVER again. I dont mean to sound harsh but you really need to break out of this frame of mind. (Even if its not an area she covers, she likely knows the person who does, and journalists share tips/info all the time.). Im a publicist. 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. It would have been nice for her to warn you that she was going to report it, or even given you a chance to do it yourself so it would have gone over a bit better. If *you* got that carried away, you cant guarantee that she wont, either. If you were fired for an embarrassing reason that would torpedo your chances in an interview, say that your position was eliminated. (I dont know if the OP explicitly said off the record, but its not like journalists dont handle that all the time when people do.). If you break certain unspoken rules, you can lose your job or ruin your career. Much safer. I always appreciate your combination of kindness and firm clarity. In a professional context, close friendships and personal trust arent always as ironclad as they can be in personal relationships, particularly when it comes to security and confidentiality. I was new, too eager to please, naive and I let the client rush me instead of following established protocol. She can come to value the lesson while seeing it all clearly. I consider it my greatest ethical obligation in my job, because I have been entrusted with sensitive information and I treat it like Id want mine to be treated. I do a lot of trade shows and we always remind booth staff of what to say (talk points) and what not to say to trade journalists. This type of thing could have easily happened to your journalism friend in the office. Clearly yall do not understand handling confidential information. Maybe thats the case in your field, but usually confidential doesnt mean that. I think its fair for you to be upset that you didnt have another chance, but also understandable that your employer felt it couldnt give you one. I work for a state government agency and FOIA is a really big deal. I disagree. Eight Warning Signs of Potential Employment Termination and Eight Ways Minimizing it will make it harder for future employers to trust OP, whereas frank ownership and an action plan will read as much more responsible and accountable. This may have been part of why the manager took the steps she did. No one was allowed to approach her and her desk for the week and every night she locked up the removable ribbon from her typewriter because it could be unspooled and read. Agreed. If she really understood or valued confidentiality, she would not be trying to convince us of how victimless this was. The focus moving forward should be about realizing how serious a problem it was, how badly you feel about it, and how youre committed to not making the same mistake again. Being honest going forward really will help OP to repair the damage to her reputation and show she has integrity. Firing you was probably not what they wanted to do, and Im sorry. You might have to take a step back in your career to come back from it but you can you bounce back. But it could be that GSA's dad had a code/password to verify it was actually him and the caller forgot to verify that first. The consequences are serious and could have legal implications if youre representing a government or publicly traded company. Yep. The coworker did the right thing. People working on campaigns get to be privy to all sorts of information that is not intended to be public. Shell lose credibility in the hiring process, and even if she did slip through and get hired, its automatically grounds for a dismissal if the truth ever came to light (even in Canada, where it is harder to let people go from roles than in most of the US states). Man I am swamped with the publicly known project I am barely treading water. This seems unnecessarily condescending, and I dont think the LW sounds defensive here at all. Replying to the sender is a good thing to do for a couple of reasons. How do I explain to those potential future employers that the only reason I got fired was because I was ratted out by a coworker for a victimless mistake and was fired unfairly, without sounding defensive? Best wishes to OP in her work on this. But what you do when youre on the other side of the inbox? 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 went to my boss explained the situation and let me boss make the decision if we wanted to share the report. None of this makes you a bad person, untrustworthy, or unemployable. A little time isn't unreasonable. I dont think we fired anyone but the need for absolute confidentiality was reiterated. Her best chance of moving forward and looking as good as possible in an interview is to accept full responsibility and say that she made a mistake and learned from it. Know your workplace rights: New laws protect employees during - NBC12 Theres a great blog called SorryWatch (.com) that analyzes & critiques apologies made by public figures. Oh, I wish Id seen this before replying. You Sent an Email to the Wrong Person. Now What? - Tessian You were wrapped up in a project and yes you messed up but no you didn't mean to. And in the future if you really cant hold something in (that is not full on illegal to discuss) and want to share it with your spouse or something, dear God dont ever do it in writing! Additionally, J. K. Rowling won a lawsuit against the lawyer and the firm. How to get feedback on application rejections sent from a noreply mailbox, Is it bad to answer "Why/how did you get into that job" with "Because I just wanted a job". When weve made a mistake, it often feels unfair when we dont get an opportunity to explain, defend, and/or redeem ourselves. All three have kept their mouths shut, at least to the best of my knowledge, and I can talk it over without worrying that I will cause a problem with my disclosing. I know this is pedantic, but as someone raised by a mother with BPD, I feel like its important to say that no ones feelings are wrong. Once info is out in the community, you have no control over where it goes and any and all ramifications. I came here to say this. We also got early warning that legislators were encouraged to resign, a day or two before the press releases. But when youve broken someones trust, they dont owe it to you to offer that opportunity and shouldnt offer it unless they sincerely believe that you could meaningfully repair the breach quickly and comprehensively. This includes understanding what you did wrong and explaining how you might have approached this in future (hint: ask boss, transfer via encrypted USB if necessary and allowed. This is a very astute comment, especially your last paragraph. Spek raised a good point- find out what your HR policy is so you know what to be prepared for in an interview. 911 Dispatcher Fired for Privacy Violation - HIPAA Journal Now were just nitpicking the OPs words here. You are fortunate to get the opportunity to learn it early when it hasnt resulted in severe long term consequences. Policy change that is a big deal to staff that works on it, but very in the weeds for the general public (regulation is going to be changed in a way that is technically important but at most a medium-sized deal), Fairly real examples that would be much bigger deals: Or at least, feeling like one should have been possible. I would feel terrible about it, definitely, and probably think about it for a while after, but ultimately, Id need to prioritize my family and act in a way that would protect my job/salary/health insurance so I could continue to provide for my them. Inadvertently, in my view, would be something along the lines of had confidential documents in a briefcase that you accidentally left behind at a coffee shop. assigning women extra work to help them, calling out when youre in the ER, and more. If any of those connections were being intercepted by an unknown third party, however, you've just put your customer's data into their hands. And by becoming the must fanatically trustworthy discreet person. This was also my thought. Maybe you get a 2nd chance IF you were contrite enough and blamed your excitement at the new teapot program. How exciting! and I started reading the details from the email out loud to him. Or the surrounding land if its something that will raise property values. Under the "General" tab, you'll see a section called "Undo send.". That oh honey is so unnecessary, and questioning LWs age is just rude. What is the point of Thrower's Bandolier? Dec. 17, 2009 -- You probably don't think twice about sending personal messages through your work e-mail. Don't worry, you're not alone. TootsNYC is talking about this latter case. After all, nobody wants to tell their manager that they might (however accidentally) be responsible for a data breach. The 2nd chance is just too much risk as far as theyre concerned. When youre put in a position of trust like that and then abuse that trust, you really leave the organization with no other option but to let you go, even if it is your first offense. Since its a government agency, I have to wonder if there are regulations in place about this kind of leak as well, most places that deal with confidentiality clauses arent messing around with them. Or you mistyped her email by one letter and it went to a colleague who had no reason to respect the embargo? I used to work for Marvel Studios. Any of them. But imagine you are the government and someone leaked information. I work as a contractor on a program that just announced 10 new cities will be joining. Egress Intelligent Email Security is an example of human layer security, as its able to adapt to your individual behaviour through machine learning. exciting! I doubt she had it out for you and rather was worried you confided a big breech to her which could adversely affect the company. No. how do I get out of an active-shooter drill at my office? It will also help you to not repeat the mistake in the future. We asked them why they did it. Specifics dont matter, but to me, being able to explain you told your friend your employer was about to buy this farm to build a park so they bought the farm so they could raise the price and make a profit would make a huge difference in terms of making the OP aware of the consequences of their actions. Dont blame the co-worker for ratting you out. Im very aware of that reality, so I confine my work email to work stuff only. Im curious about how to turn the page, and I think your advice is really good about this own it, let go of the defensiveness, be ready to talk about changes youve made so it wont happen again. If you had the same role in a public company, you could have have been fired because of regulations preventing insider trading. Which is not how I would handle things now, but I was a lot younger and in a bad place in my personal life, so. The problem here is that the OP misjudged the level of confidentially expected in the situation, and maybe by their office/profession in general. Heck, at my agency were cautioned to not use work email on our personal devices (unless were management or its an emergency) because records requests could potentially get our personal devices as well. I remember the first time (as a teen) that I had something from a volunteer position that I had to keep my mouth shut on. A recent Harvard Business Review article indicated widespread use in the workplace, with over one third of the US . Were considering opening ours up to partner agencies, and I spent a good two hours cleaning up the old messages in the general chat. I hope youre able to learn and move on from this, OP. You colleagues are often the closest people to you, so it makes sense to want to tell them about your problems (which include work screw-ups), but you cant. You broke a rule and you have to take responsibility. If I was that coworker, Id have to think shed continue to go around blabbing about this, and there is No Way I could just sit on it until *I* got called on the carpet. I love my younger co-workers and value their fresh take on things and energy, but there is a clear pattern of not understanding reputation risk and liability. But what you were effectively asking your employer to do is trust a totally unknown (to them) journalist not to publish something that was apparently such exciting news that you, bound by confidentiality, simply couldnt keep quiet about it. Obviously telling the friend was the fireable offense here, Im not arguing that. Telling the trusted friend was the fireable offense. Or it could be about a broader picture like if youd had performance issues or other problems that made it easier for them to decide to just part ways. Negative emotions are a learning toolfeeling guilty is very uncomfortable, so we dont repeat the behavior that led to the feeling guilty. Certainly not an electronic blog. Breach of confidentiality at work - Dealing with employees - Peninsula UK It involved something the OP had learned about in confidence, but hadnt even been publicly announced and the OP blabbed about it to someone completely unrelated to her job. I was talking about this upthread before I saw this discussion. Basically, one of the key ways that spies get information is by social engineering picking up seemingly minor information through friendly chat that they can then combine together to make more. (And even then, the existence of the record has to be disclosed even if the actual record is not disclosed. This kind of reaction from the company screams 'serious laws broken' and there aren't many other possibilities on what these laws maybe. The actual problem is that OP shared confidential information. I was reading the email at home and after reading the first paragraph I exclaimed out loud (so my spouse could hear) Ooooh. Reacting to being fired for that as if being personally persecuted over some piddly technical rule violation and not being given a second chance? Are there any reasons why the coworker couldnt be upfront with what had to be done ? And that is a hard pill to swallow, for sure. As a government employee she would have been trained on that rule and should have fully understood the ramifications of breaking it. You can bet Id be gone with no second chance despite my almost-20-years and ton of good work. We go through training every 6 months, that we should NOT to tell the coworker or customer that we will need to report them. If youd like to learn more about human layer security and email data loss prevention (DLP), you can explore our content hub for more information. Definitely anti-climactic to actually know at this point! A while back I had a coworker/friend who created a memo, for our company A, all based on publicly available information, along with suggestions and comments by the coworker. Your assistance is much appreciated. It goes through a game of telephone and the person at the end of the line gets mad that the first person would say such a thing. So Id do what Alison says here, and save your OMG I cant keep this in confessions for your pets. As Alison said, its a lot like DUI; even if no one gets hurt, theres a reason we shouldnt take those risks. That being said, it doesnt change the fact that OP shouldnt have done it anyway, so harboring ill will towards this coworker is pointless. The LW blabbed, why would her friend have more self-control? This is one reason why I could only ever give a vague explanation of what my dad did. Hopefully whatever she disclosed doesnt violate a public access law, since the information was released publicly shortly afterward, but wow did she dodge a bullet. Noooooo. For the other 2 questions, I would simply urge you to remove the phrase ratted out from your professional vocabulary. No, no, no, no, no. But how do I explain this to show I learnt from my mistake and get a new job. It doesnt matter if theyd trust this person with their firstborn child. And Im happy to report that I have never shared that news (still remember it bcs this was so hard that first time!). I was under the impression that most big companies had a policy against telling a reference checker anything beyond dates of employment. So please think about that aspect when youre thinking about how she ratted you out. At the risk exposing my identity to a reader who knows me offline, two big things Ive leaked without running afoul of any organizational trust are: Such and such church is giving away their building and my nonprofit is under consideration to be the recipient and Were going to be filing a lawsuit against X because of Y., To clarify, Im not trying to minimize the gravity of OPs mistake or the seriousness of strict confidentiality in other contexts. can you get fired for accidentally sending confidential information Take ownership and accountability of it, because for better or worse, all of us could have made OPs mistake at some point in our careers. But your wording indicates that you dont yet have insight into just how much you breached the trust of your company. If it bleeds, it leads, and if its not bleeding, you might as well kick it a few times to see if itll start bleeding Nope. Sometimes it can be a blessing in disguise. All mom did was hand dad the phone. Ive been thinking a lot about apologies in general lately, and one of the most thought-provoking pieces of advice Ive seen is to always err on the side of assuming that whatever you did was a bigger deal than you think.