|. Occasionally our clients have been in the media and have shared part of their story. One of my coworkers saw another coworker sexually harassing a woman. Accidents happen inadvertently but this is not the case here. That brings us to your questions. Between that and having family members who have been laid off and lost access to their work account that they used for personal use as well, I have learned to keep work and personal email accounts separate. I work within the tech/analytics field. What OP did was incredibly serious and, as happened, a fireable offense. I would push back slightly on the leak to press part. Its completely understandable that you were upset about it when you wrote in (and upset about it now). Or does it only matter that I broke a rule?, For #1, Youre certainly allowed to bring up anything you want in an interview, the question you should really be asking is, Will it help or hurt my candidacy to bring this up?. And it could be part of the reason why the story was a bit incoherent, too she went from sort of uncomfortable to really, really uncomfortable. A lot of times, the actual employee might not be important, but they might know something like when a key senior person works, or gossip about so-and-so, that is then used to either help with hacking, help with fraud, do additional social engineering where they know just enough about a topic to lead the conversation, or in some cases to put pressure on a higher-level person to try to get them to give further information or make certain decisions. Oh no! Im sorry but it would definitely be a good idea to recognise that this is a really big deal and learn from it. Here are the things that OP needs to remember: First, the coworker is not a rat, even if she misunderstood the scope of OPs unauthorized disclosure and mistakenly misrepresented it. 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. 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. Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been. It could also end poorly if the employer actually sees a job opening posted for the position the LW claims was eliminated. You said it yourself that you were working on client confidential information, and sent it to your personal mailbox. I know that I messed up and I shouldnt have told anyone; in a moment of weakness I texted one of my best friends. Yep! 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. But unfortunately, the rules of your job are such that you justcant. If you had stayed they would have never trusted you again.. It has to be violent sexual assault before theyll even consider responding. Finally I decided to own it at the next interview and I got the job. But even the first is really really, really bad. The details dont really matter. If you lie during the interview and the truth later comes out, thats enough to get you fired. And even more so in ballistic missile submarines! These policies are sometimes written down in employee handbooks. Me too. Everyone makes mistakes at all points in our careers. how to explain you were fired, when interviewing. If you werent human, you wouldnt make mistakes. Even if the coworker had malicious intentions, they were following privacy laws and regulations. She shared it via text not voice, but text, which could be seen by someone else. But when the guilt is deserved, its got a purpose. It may help in your next position to transpose your thinking around these things a bit. You violated your contract so your previous employer had little choice but to let you go - your new employer will understand this but if you show them you've accepted responsibility for it and will make sure never to do that again then I think you've got a good chance of getting another position. Its not their call. I wrote back and asked, Is there more context for why your coworker thought that? Maybe you let them know more then they should even without meaning too? I got that impression as well and have had younger coworkers who sent random, very personal info to me in texts. To be fair Jules, I was making the assumption that it had been, in effect, sexual assault, which may not have been the case. I cant say any details yet, but needed to share my excitement!!. Lack of the maturity to keep exciting news to onesself. Hi LW, I agree with Alison the best way to approach with is by taking full ownership of what happened. If you cant keep a secret, this is not a field you should be in. If you cant keep your mouth shut then you need a new line of work. You can bounce back! And that wasnt even technically confidential. So I guess maybe it is a generational thing? Of course I understand that I broke a rule, and that it was my mistake 100%, and it was no one elses fault. LW, youve learned half of your lesson, but really need to keep working to get there. Im sorry it happened to you, though, and it definitely stinks. It was super not personal, it was just a situation were second chances were not given, period. If a member of your staff violates this explicit. The enforcement has to be based on the idea that the leak was damaging. 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. So, he learns about things at the same time as the public, and he just knows when Im extra busy because theres a big release coming, or someone messed something up, etc. Within hours, there were writeups on tech blogs about the new iPhone before its official release. Yes. Aug. 4, 2008, at 11:14 a.m. 7 Ways Your E-mail Can Get You Fired. Yep, we regularly are reminded about FERPA requirements (academia) and staff members have gotten in hot water for not promptly picking up student transcripts from the printer (for instance). Absolutely this. When we think about misdirected email, we often put ourselves in the shoes of the sender. Ah, no, there definitely was a record if there was any form of written communication at all about the information. While irritating, email from mass marketing lists dont require a response and you probably wouldnt get an answer anyway. Its a big difference if you sit together at a bar, your friend mentions chocolate teapots and you say oh, this morning I was asked to design a llama-themed one before you realize that you really shouldnt have said that. All we know is that OP made a disclosure, and the coworker is aware the disclosure happened via Slack. 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. Your second co-worker who sexually harassed a woman was put on a PIP? The best case scenario is former company only verifies employment. Messages like this can simply be ignored and deleted. Because she knows other journalists who do cover your area and one of them just might need a serious break right when she knows this information. It was a really bad decision on my part and I have learned a lot from the experience. Its sounds like you are pretty young and people tend to be a slightly more forgiving when you are young a make a mistake like this as long as you take ownership of it. Because when your mentor is a coworker at the same employer, you cannot, cannot speak as freely. Yes of course it feels bad that you were fired. I completely agree that in the long run, this was a kindness. I work in retail, and the company has yearly mandatory training on How to handle confidential info. Stack Exchange network consists of 181 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. Its not the end of the world as long as you adjust your thinking going forward and really try to understand why confidentiality policies exist. If OP doesnt recognize and own up to that, thats going to be a bigger red flag for potential employers than if OP said, I made a mistake, learned from it, and it wont happen again.. In an ideal world, it doesnt happen at all. You're fired for violation but convince the Dept of Labor that no one without an IT degree could ever understand your policy. Also, am I even allowed to bring up the fact that someone ratted me out? that one would be unable to resist texting a friend. In this case you will get a second chance it will just be with another employer. Letting stuff out early could mean that goes off with a whimper instead of a bang and might be a financial difference in driving extra purchases for that initial season, and the implication of The Things staying power if it doesnt do well enough during that time. Im also not going to tell anyone else! I didnt read it that way, its not a question of the coworker being Untrustworthy, its a matter of the OP not being able to judge who she can trust to keep things quiet. Im sorry this happened to you OP, yeah, in communications at nearly any company this in indeed A VERY BIG DEAL. 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. Things can be the way they are for understandable reasons and you can still feel like crap about it. No work friendship is worth putting my familys financial security on the line. While I agree that this needs to be explained in the right way. Or when she builds a pattern of sharing harmless information until suddenly it isnt harmless? She already got that advice from Alison. Taking full responsibility isnt just the better moral choice, its the more effective one. I am in this place when I read OPs response. Second chances arent a foregone conclusion in any aspect of life or work; your expectation that there should have been one at all suggests a level of entitlement that needs to be examined. This is so true. Possible scripting adjustment: I mistakenly shared some non-public information with a friend outside the agency before it was officially released to the public. I agree that its ok to be upset with people, even if its irrational or illogical, as long as we ultimately let it go and refrain from mistreating someone because of our illogical emotional response. I wonder if OP ever got the chance to correct the misunderstanding. +1 on the choice of language and framing. 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. The OPs comment here didnt seem defensive to me at all, and its definitely understandable that the letter was written in the heat of the moment. I got defensive and young from OPs response. Sometimes they go so far as tell the bearer of the news that they now have to soothe them bc its their fault they feel bad. Yeah, this is a big part of it. Yeah, thats a good point. I had friends who would jokingly-semi-serious ask me if I was poking around their accounts and such while I was working there and I would deadpan look at them and say your finances and personal information isnt interesting enough to lose my job over and then change the subject. what did you want to get out of sharing with her? And I think you can share your excitement with others, just not the information. So this. I want to encourage you to drill deeper on something you said in your letter: I did feel guilty. That OP knew it was wrong and felt guilty about it is a sign of strength. If you shared something with me that I didnt ask you about or probe for, and just knowing it could jeopardize my reputation or career you bet your ass Id share it with our manager. Re-evaluating my original comment, Id still consider lying if attempts to explain the firing in interviews end up in disaster. Someone would then check into it to see if there was a valid reason for someone to be poking at it. In this situation, I reported myself is simply false, given OPs expectation that her mentor wouldnt pass along what she knew to anyone else. I found out accidentally.) How risky is sending a sensitive work email to the wrong person? If someone used the words ratted me out or told on me in an interview, that would be pretty much an immediate DQ for me as it shows a total lack of personal responsibility and maturity. He had a fairly high security clearance and was stationed at NORAD for a time. Wrong is wrong- regardless of scale of the offense, and LW has no one to blame but themselves. I remember the line of people walked out the door for looking at OJ Simpsons records when he was arrested. Like, how did HR and OPs boss come to the conclusion that this information was spread through Slack (!) Im in public relations/global communications. Why is there a voltage on my HDMI and coaxial cables? Yeah the world just being what it is, if youre this bad at keeping secrets, youre gonna get burned by it pretty quick. The hospital I was working for last year had the best of this kind of presentation that Ive ever seen. OP if I was part of an interview for you, and you brought up this situation the way its phrased here, Im sorry to say it would be an immediate pass. Employees who violate their companies' email policies can face penalties ranging from disciplinary action to termination. I guarantee you that somewhere in the company handbook for the Government Agency where you worked there is a paragraph about the obligations of an employee who learns of a data breach. Breach of confidentiality can be described as an act of gross misconduct, so deal with issues that arise in a timely manner, in line with your procedures and look at any previous cases to ensure fairness and consistency. I dont think your coworker ratted you out. The financial firm I worked for had mandatory quarterly compliance meetings with examples of Dont Be This Guy Because He Doesnt Work Here Anymore. ugh, no if you cant tell them the actual news, dont tease it. It's a good idea to own it and let your management know. In my experience, a FOIA request can come from anywhere. 2. You wrote, The only reason I got fired was because I was ratted out by a coworker for a victimless mistake and was fired unfairly. But you werent fired because your coworker reported you; you were fired because you broke a serious rule. Those kinds of disclosures often rise to the level of immediate termination, which is what happened, here. I can't remember the details, but there was a point about the fact the word "confidential" added in every e-mail by such a notice wasn't actually helpful, since tools that looked for the word confidential were flagging everything up, including a large number of false positives. Are you being GDPR compliant in your marketing? Let me be clear she did not leak it. Situations like this are one reason I think workplaces with confidential/sensitive information should regularly remind their employees of what confidentiality means for them, rather than leaving it as a blanket statement or only discussed during new employee training. Although it was mortifying at the time, this has taught me a hard but valuable lesson about handling sensitive information setting boundaries in my relationships with reporters. You would never want someone to find out from the news media that they no longer have a job, for example. 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. Employees also. This incident was a huge violation of trust. My mom worked in sunshine law for state government, and what constitutes a record is a lot broader than most people realize. 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. Im of course devastated, and moving on and figuring out my next steps. Well, it has been released now, so technically we could. This friend understood the gravity of the information I told her, and I 100% trusted her to not leak it. For a market where most of this stuff lives in a big way for one season, and then only has some ongoing staying power? In addition to 100% needing to own it when asked about it, I think OP may also benefit from focusing the job search on jobs that dont involve handling sensitive or high profile information. Lack of integrity. If you live in a place where its illegal to shoot guns into the air, and you shoot a gun into the air and the bullet does not actually kill anyone in its fall, you have still broken the law and placed others in danger. If someone preempts that, theyre not happy about it generally. None of this makes you a bad person, untrustworthy, or unemployable. Its your actions that are right, wrong, or in that confusing gray area, and what you feel doesnt have to dictate what you do. Dont disagree feelings arent wrong but the way we think about them often is. I might consider you as a candidate who truly gets it in a way that someone who hasnt been tried by fire might not. Its also something that happens in a business relationship rather than a personal one, because the assumption is that personal relationships are entirely off the record. When you accidentally receive a confidential from someone within your own organisation, things are pretty simple. This is not about a public records requestits about how information is released to the public before that information becomes public. This has to be, and often is, done formally, with agreements to give something secret in advance so the journalist can prep a story for later, when its OK to share. 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. An employer of mine got a FOIA request where they asked for every email wed sent to anyone from any regulatory agency. Especially odd because LW emphasized how trustworthy the friend is for why the friend wouldnt blab. You undertook those actions while working for (1) A Large Governmental Organization, who is answerable to Congress and to the general public for the actions undertaken by their employees, in the (2) Communications department, which is a department where employees will specifically, systematically, regularly be exposed to confidential information that should be kept confidential until such time as it is explicitly said to be something that can be shared publically. Doesnt matter that its your friend or that you trust her, its still a huge liability. 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. If anything went down, you could say But Older Coworker knew! On the other hand maybe they didnt listen to her or believe her, and in that case shes been fired based on a misunderstanding but that doesnt help her because what she actually did wasnt OK either. Theres no way your managers could safely assign other confidential projects to you after leaking the information on this project. If you had the same role in a public company, you could have have been fired because of regulations preventing insider trading. This x 1000 to the comment by ENFP in Texas. ! but you just cant. Oh, dear. I can see a manager getting pressure from the top to reduce leaks choosing to fire someone over even a minor leak. To be clear, you were fired for admittedly breaking confidentiality not because of your coworker. Theres a difference between wishing you had a second chance (acknowledges they arent entitled to one) and being upset you didnt have one (expected that there would be one). The mistake may not have been trusting the friend with that information, but it was definitely telling her. You are almost certainly an at-will employee so you can be discharged at anytime and for any reason or even no reason at all. If you break certain unspoken rules, you can lose your job or ruin your career. Its very dangerous to OPs professional reputation to assume OP can trust anyone who is unauthorized, including a good friend, with embargoed information. It might possibly be seen as less bad that the information shared was intended to be made public anyway, as opposed to it being information that wasnt ever supposed to get out. But if I found out a coworker was sharing this information with just anyone it would be a probably HIPAA violation and, yes, I would need to tell my boss. Of course. 1. The fact that you were surprised and angry (to the point of calling her a rat, essentially) speaks to the fact that you actually do NOT know who you can expect to keep things secret, at least not as well as you think. You technically did something, your friend happened to be a journalist, victimless mistake, and so on. Same applies here as you stated. Thanks for sharing all of this. And Im happy to report that I have never shared that news (still remember it bcs this was so hard that first time!). The Census Bureau does NOT play with that sort of thing, and you would indeed be given the boot as soon as the breach was uncovered. They thought it was funny and shared it with a couple more. Employees can't just post anything they want on Facebook or anywhere else. It stinks but in this industry, thats a deal-breaker for many. So if shes genuinely surprised at this outcome, it stands to reason that its new for her, which strongly implies she just hasnt been working very long, which implies youth. While that obviously wasnt the result Id have wanted, I learned an important lesson about confidentiality, and its not a mistake Ill ever repeat.. I wouldnt lead with it, but I wouldnt hide it either if it ever comes up, and folks will likely ask about why youve left past jobs. They are pretty free with stating exactly why someone was fired. It should go without saying: a breach of confidentiality could and would wind up in a bar complaint in my jurisdiction. I think this really depends. Much safer. And that even one second counts as a HIPAA violation. LW told a human known to be a journalist about The Thing. 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). All we can do is learn, rest, and go on another day. The amount that LW trusted that friend is a small fraction of how much the government trusted LW. I thought it was over. Sometimes, like you said, you dont get a second chance. That was a stressful week for all concerned. I constantly have journalist friends asking for confidential tips, and there is no way I would ever give up any information. Government tends to operate differently. No, shes a person with ethics who plays by the rules. You know thats not how that works. This reminds me of how Northwestern Hospital had to fire 50 employees back in March for violating HIPAA by accessing Jussie Smolletts medical records. I was reading the email at home and after reading the first paragraph I exclaimed out loud (so my spouse could hear) Ooooh. Damn, thats hard core. You added nuance that I hadnt thought about. While they may not state why someone was fired, Ive found it pretty common to state that someone was fired (or laid off etc) and if the person is eligible for rehire. What if another journalist saw the email over your friends shoulder? In fact, if I ever got a query from someone I knew, I was required to hand off the query to a colleague. I previously worked as a journalist. I work for a government entity and believe me if you need a reminder not to text a journalist non-public information my line of work is not for you. The difference is if the potential for and type of jail time you risked. I encourage you to spend some time really thinking about this and absorbing the very good feedback you have generally received here. Request a personalized demo to see how Egress Prevent will help you prevent data breaches over email. The ex-coworker reached out to me asking if I could send them a copy of the report so they didnt have to start from scratch and repeat the same work they had already done. I worked for a federal government contractor and we were awaiting news of whether we were getting a contract renewal. "Compose the email, and only then go back and enter the address (es)," he says. 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). OP, please do not take this comment string seriously, because internalizing these statements will severely harm your ability to address your error effectively. However, were only human. If I know that Senator Y is releasing a health care plan on Monday that would require mandatory surgery for every American, and he has bipartisan support for it, thats a much more specific news tip, and Id rather my friend just not tell me and save me the heartburn. As much as I love some of my coworkers, Im not taking one of the team. It's really just a 30 . It was the wrong thing to do, and Im sorry. The info I released did not in fact cause any problems, but I tremble now because it so easily could have, in even slightly different circumstances. Firing you was probably not what they wanted to do, and Im sorry. Dont blame your colleague she may have been obligated to report this. Don't say "I was escorted out by armed guards" where you can say "My manager was disappointed enough to let me go". And this will definitely have an effect on how you come across to people interviewing you in future. At the end of your explanation, look your interviewer in the eye, and dont say anything else. > On Monday, I was called into a fact-finding meeting with HR. You can avoid finding yourself in this position by double-checking the recipient email address (especially when autocomplete is involved), the cc field, and the Bcc field. Or maybe one of those people isnt quite as trustworthy as the person who told them thought they were, and they tell the wrong person, or tell multiple people, or write an article about it because theyre also a journalist. We are not in kindergarten. As I read it, LWs friend couldnt pass the information along at all. Similar in IT in my first internship, I had access to about 40,000 social security numbers. While some employers will accept the I take personal accountability and heres how I address it path, this probably does remove some employers from consideration. Or if the coworker only decided afterwards this couldnt be kept in the dark, call her and tell her this. However, at the time, I did feel guilty so I confided in an older coworker who I considered a mentor. OP needs to learn the art of discernment. I was often privy to non-public information because I was designing media campaigns around them. I agree. You did wrong, fessed up, and got fired anyway. Fired for gross misconduct because I sent confidential information to personal mailbox - how do I get another job? Also, Ive seen plenty of firings that were absolutely not presented as position elimination. Even if the exact reason wasnt shared employer isnt going to say Oh, Jane took home a spreadsheet full of MNPI they will absolutely share that the ex-employee was fired for cause, not laid off. That, and I never slapped another plucky again. The company would have thought everything was hunky dory, but they would have employee on staff who did not understand confidentially requirements. They might try to use silence to get you to say more. And then THAT person got so excited that they just had to tell someone Each person thinks theyre only telling one other person, and that they can trust that person. Remember to be kind to yourself: youre human, you made a mistake and, as you said, youve learned from it. Noooo. You cant even take a look at *your own* records if you are also a patient at the medical facility. In a roundabout way, they somewhat did you a kindness by firing you. Any of them. And while you felt mad at coworker, really youre mad at yourself. 2) Multiple people is relevant, but its easy to misunderstand 3rd hand stories. Its no fun to be fired. She can come to value the lesson while seeing it all clearly. It will also help you to not repeat the mistake in the future. Yup, landline. exciting! Sometimes he wasnt working on confidential stuff, and he could come home and geek out over what he was doing if he wanted. (Most companies that use these kinds of scanners dont let employees know. Something LW has not seemed to understand: the fact that you worked for a governmental agency is not the issue, the fact that you leaked info early is. I gossip too much, including at work. (Drunk driving is an extreme example of this.