The problem here is that the OP misjudged the level of confidentially expected in the situation, and maybe by their office/profession in general. 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. 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. picture of male guinea fowl . Once you do it, the consequences are the consequences. 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. What happens when someone sees that message over her shoulder? And, of course, some agencies dont have a policy and, when contacted can provided whatever info they feel is relevant. 2. Nothing I said contradicts this. Upon further investigation, the supervisor discovers that the employee has asked other employees to also send Company documents to her personal e-mail address. Of course, its your fault but it is only human to be annoyed with someone, especially someone who seemed to completely misrepresent what happened. I strongly disagree with this. The person whos emailed may have inadvertently caused a data breach, so it could be important you get in touch and let them know. A majority of those who work from home would use their own personal digital devices such as laptop, tablet or mobile to perform their daily work tasks and it is also convenient for employees to. These policies are sometimes written down in employee handbooks. Yep! The contact form sends information by non-encrypted email, which is not secure. When it came up during her interview, the candidate said it was complex and that shed learned from it. I have absolutely no clue in your situation, but there are times when it really can be appropriate to let someone go without any second chances. Absolutely this. Sharing HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL info with a JOURNALIST? This is just an opportunity to choose words that allow for the most generous possible interpretation (similar to how you say with a friend rather than with a journalist). 4. how do you handle being pregnant at work? I, too, have made foolish mistakes that cost me a job. Im thankful I did this in grad school rather than on the job. I dont think it was over company lines. Oh yes. The consequences are serious and could have legal implications if youre representing a government or publicly traded company. I understood her to say she texted from her cell phone. This x 1000 to the comment by ENFP in Texas. Really? Its hard to imagine what at a government job could be SOOO Exciting! Actually advertising is not going to be any better. Im going to go see how they reviewed it.). If that is so, there is nothing you can do to avoid the termination and you should be looking for new employment. This was a Friday. @MarkAmery OP said themselves that what they sent was 'client confidential information' but ruled out trade secrets/IP being involved. It would have been nice- but Im sure the coworker was also pooping masonry. See Rule 1.2 (d). If you had to process the cool news, it may have been better to process with the mentor instead. If youre found to be lying, thats an instant rejection in a way that a well-explained firing would not be. 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. I will be in so much trouble if anyone finds out! your blindsided coworker is not required to enter into a cover-up conspiracy with you. No one ever called for a reference. He and my mother kept their noses clean. Its too difficult to know which internally-discussed information is confidential and which isnt. And Im not saying it was fair or unfair or whether your previous employer made the right call. Leaking information can actually be the right thing in some cases. i think we often send the message (societally) that making someone feel bad is a mean thing to do; its not. And maybe they can, and maybe that chain will end with someone who doesnt forward the info on, or peter out once the information does become public in this case. and the agency lost control of the information. Your coworker didnt choose to know this information and does not owe you silence. You know that saying Its not the crime that gets you, but the cover-up? They are designed to trick the recipient . People are going think, If OP can minimize all the responsibility for this incident, she is going to be able to rationalize it away some other time in the future. And I think you can share your excitement with others, just not the information. She just needs to learn discretion. Perhaps the way you feel (felt?) Yes, the ratted me out thing is probably not a fair assessment of what actually happened here. Blame yourself for breaking the rules. And if the coworker didnt tell and it somehow got out that she knew another job lost. I didnt agree with it myself, and knew that it wasnt really possible without raising a lot of money, something my organization just isnt that good at doing. 3) The recipient was a journalist thats super relevant, even if its not in their area From OPs comment, it seems like shes already taken responsibility for her actions and knows what she does wrong yet 95% of the comments are lecturing her about how dumb she is (not in those words, but thats undeniably the gist), which is completely unhelpful and honestly, incredibly sanctimonious and obnoxious. I recently saw a movie in pre-screening thats being pushed to be a blockbuster. I work for a charity that offers a telephone service nationwide, and I take a lot of calls from people in quite distressing situations. Yup. There is zero entitlement in saying that shes upset she didnt get a second chance. OP has a right to be annoyed with Coworker, but Coworker was doing her job as well. OP, I join Alison in wishing you the very best of luck! I get that youre trying to take responsibility here, but your Im still pretty upset that I had no second chance, I suppose suggests to me you still have a long way to go toward recognizing and acknowledging the seriousness of what happened. "You can call or text and say, 'Call me, you were sent the wrong information.' " She recalls one time when a co-worker accidentally sent an email calling a client a "tough cookie" to the. Yes. Thats totally true, and when I worked for state government release of confidential information would have been grounds for immediate termination, but Alison is the only one who calls it confidential, OP calls it non-public. Yes, this was a fireable offence, but Im less interested in the nuances of violating confidentiality than in the bigger picture question I have done something where I really screwed up how do I move on? (Someone above mentioned someone bringing a gun to work (Dwight? People do stupid or extreme things all the time; their lives dont end, but they *can* be turning points for a downward spiral. (For the record, I always told people I was interviewing as a source that there was no such thing as off the record with me its not a requirement of our field, theres no law saying we have to follow that request if asked, so if the subject didnt want me to print something, they shouldnt tell me. True story: in my last job someone mistyped an email address by a single letter and instead of going to a related government org it went to a journalist. OP: So, are you clear about the severity of your action and the significance of this rule? I dont think you have to be Catholic.). I have been fired for a dumb mistake. My 2cents, LW if something was so exciting you couldnt keep it in, you were in the wrong field. Excellent points, especially LWs use of ratted out. Alison has said so many times that theres no tattling in the work world. I definitely learned my lesson, and it was a hard one, and one that I will regret for a very, very long time. Yes, if you're sending a mass email, BCC makes sure no-one else sees each other's emails and therefore reduces the risk of a breach. I empathize I LOVE being a person who is in the know and I can be impulsive. The person you wronged is not obligated to give you that second chance with them. Im not going to spell out what it was, but it was completely unethical and immoral, and shes lucky her license wasnt permanently revoked for it. 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. (And yes, the records request would come through the custodian of records, but the point of my second paragraph is that non-public information does not have special protections like confidential information and that the general public has a right to access that information as soon as it is available, and not just when the agency finds it convenient to send out a press release.). Theres no such thing as blind-siding once youve committed an infraction and people have to act on it. I have to deal with famous folks at well; I work for a company that handles federal medical insurance and every once in a while I might run across Justice X, Senator Y, etc. Im now turning my head sideways and re-reading/rethinking. 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. Before I hired you, Id want to know you were familiar with and in agreement with our ethical code, which talks a lot about protecting our clients. They did exactly the right thing to you. Is it FOUO though? Completely unrelated to the topic at hand, love the username! People working on campaigns get to be privy to all sorts of information that is not intended to be public. Instead, the employees found out by reading the news instead, which hurts morale. (IE: if they think you f*cked up, then respond like you did, however you actually feel). So the judgment on trustworthiness is flawed. It wasnt particularly kind to her friend, either. Im still pretty upset that I had no second chance, but I suppose I just lost their trust.. I dont recall that Lily Rowan ever had a job. But your friends profession means you often cant share these types of things with her because of other peoples perceptions about it they dont know your friend, and while she may take off the record seriously, some journalists dont and your coworkers have no way of knowing which type of journalist she is. ), Im guessing it was something more like: The main problem is that 'copying data in a very insecure way to be able to bring those data. They may very well have not had the option to give you a second chance, whether you wanted to or not. 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. I DEFinitely sometimes shared those tidbits with friends and family who were big tiger/hippo/etc fans. OP wasnt a journalist. Because I said I wouldnt, I knew there would be consequences if something like your story happened to me, and also because, hows that going to look to a potential future employer that might value confidentiality equally highly? I can remember almost exactly what I said: It was wrong of me to put that information out. 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. How did you talk to your boss about the slack channel full of journalists? Were you able to correct the factual mistake in context, and what phrasing did you use? Wouldnt you ask why the govt didnt fire them the first time? Sure, its not going to be easy, but being honest and upfront will serve them a whole lot better than a potential employer finding out from a different source (and its not unlikely that they will find out). Yep. 4a) Coworker did not owe (and usually would be discouraged from giving) notification to the OP. The secretary is going to be featured at [cool upcoming event]! Submitting a contact form, sending a text message, making a phone call, or leaving a voicemail does not create an attorney-client relationship. OP needs to learn the art of discernment. Fired. Yeah. The org needed to know in order to assess potential damage and limit future opportunities. You added nuance that I hadnt thought about. Identify the cause of the information leak. Yeah, I once got fired and I have always framed it as being fired for one thing I said in a meeting, but the truth is, I really got fired for not apologizing for saying the one thing. Head of the department who everyone hates for non-scandal reasons is stepping down amid a scandal Is anyone else dying to know what the information was? Of course, if this happens regularly there is more chance of human error being made so it's always best to use a mailing program. Confiding in an older mentor in the expectation of confession-like confidentiality? I reminded him that anything sent in our work email is subject to FOIA and not really completely private from our employer, so if he was going to continue to work against the plan, use personal email. Libel or slander or posting comments about individuals that are not related to your work environment are not protected. I would have serious questions about your judgment if I found out you told any reporter about something that was confidential. From the other persons perspective, its always easier to say Oh, dont worry, its not that bad than to get a half-hearted minimizing apology for something youre really stinging from. Government tends to operate differently. That was a stressful week for all concerned. Oh honey UGH you are just the worst. Like X candidate is running for president!. I agree. Letter writer, it sounds like youre new to our field and may not understand the importance of keeping confidence. Because a) LW broke confidentiality. A senior UK diplomat has resigned over the matter. Im sure he knew about things that he would have liked to talk about, and my dad can talk about anything to anyone at great length. How exciting! and I started reading the details from the email out loud to him. And this will definitely have an effect on how you come across to people interviewing you in future. Sure, thered be a record in Slack of prior messages. Obviously telling the friend was the fireable offense here, Im not arguing that. Yes and thats the consequence they now have to live with. Your assistance is much appreciated. If you lean over a cubicle and whisper I broke the rule! Maybe a different (and appropriately mortified) approach from the OP in those meetings would of had a different result or maybe not! but the approach in the letter definitely would have convinced me to let her go if I was on the fence. You asked how to handle this in future interviews and one key is owning the mistake, taking responsibility for it. And, to be fair, based on your language about technical leaks, victimless, and ratting out I dont think your organization could entirely trust that you understand the gravity of the situation and wouldnt repeat the mistake. Maybe OPs workplace does the same? Unless this job was the bulk of your experience, I would leave it off your resume. You didn't accidentally email the material to yourself, you did it on purpose. I want to push back hard on this, the coworker is not a rat. +100 to this. Lack of integrity. But reasonable minds can certainly differ. 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: In no time you will have your next job lined up and all this will be just a post earning you rep. Spek raised a good point- find out what your HR policy is so you know what to be prepared for in an interview. Im a journalist and Id concur and depending on how sensitive/important the information was, and what a big deal it was when it did break, you might have put your friend in a tough spot at her job by giving her a news tip she couldnt pursue or share with her colleagues. how trustworthy somebody actually is is never certain. This is a great point LW. Theres a lot of admittedly not very exciting info the federal government is sitting on at any time. And I told Mom, so so so many times that I didnt build it myself! They might tell superiors accidentally, out of frustration (e.g. Youll get another job. The above divulged details to a journalist about allocation and resources they should not know about. Sometimes it can be a blessing in disguise. Im still learning Slack, so maybe being naive. Employees also. Trying to understand how to get this basic Fourier Series, Linear regulator thermal information missing in datasheet. Employees can't just post anything they want on Facebook or anywhere else. Dan is such a pain! You still have to go through the same information request as someone who doesnt work there. Better to have a 30% chance than a 0% chance. As a government employee she would have been trained on that rule and should have fully understood the ramifications of breaking it. The violation was only victimless by accident and confidentiality rules dont hinge on whether or not the leak is known to have caused damage. Fired. In a couple of hours, the news agencies were calling the federal government, to verify the news. (Presumably easier to get caught via company comms but doesnt make the leak any different imo). Which means have to vet things like your friend is a journalist, but doesnt cover your area? How to you ensure you're aware of it, and following it? I was working on some client confidential information on my client issued laptop and I emailed this info to my personal mailbox as I wanted to continue doing work on my personal laptop; I couldn't take my work laptop away whilst on extended leave overseas. 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). I completely agree that in the long run, this was a kindness. Screw-ups happen. I have accidentally terminated people, messed up HRIS changes that prevented people from getting their paycheck, and scanned/sent confidential information to an employee instead of myself. And especially in the field youre in, leaks are a big deal, and ESPECIALLY leaks to a member of the press. And while you felt mad at coworker, really youre mad at yourself. I will add that I consider neither my cats nor Jesus to be imaginary; the connection was someone you wouldnt get in trouble for sharing with. 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. If people really need jobs, they need to act like they really need jobs. Most companies will not say so-and-so was fired for doing x in a reference check. Also ratty. Like, how did HR and OPs boss come to the conclusion that this information was spread through Slack (!) But I dont think this applies in any case since it was on her personal cell. 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. I ran across an old letter recently where someone had negotiated themselves into a poor position, and hit on dragging some subordinates out there on the plank with her. Oh no! Not to mention if you tell a lie (even by omission), its a lie you have to keep up, indefinitely. They are pretty free with stating exactly why someone was fired. Your employer lost control of this information, even in a very small way, and thats a big deal. How to answer question on moving to another country for job? Cringe. Im sure they thought she was a fruit cake. Keep rewriting what happened in the most factual, dispassionate way possible. How to handle a hobby that makes income in US. MUCH stronger. Leaking to the press can come with criminal penalties and you need to be very careful with how you report illegal/dangerous information for your own protection. Sometimes that PHI belongs to people I know. NEVER by email unless explicitly given the go-ahead). My first thought was of the whole JK Rowling / Robert Galbraith fiasco. When telling me about the call, she said that when the checker said the guys name, she couldnt stop herself from bursting out, Wait, he told you to call me?!. Pro tip: when working in mental health residential treatment, do not have clients write your staff logs. You did a dumb, impulsive thing and when you took time to consider it, you did the right thing. This violates workplace compliance and trust. 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. Its very possible that LW could think what happened to me wasnt totally fair and still accept full responsibility for it during interviews (which is obviously the smart thing to do). You are allowed to feel your feels about things, so long as you understand the reality. 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. Im also a public affairs officer for a government agency- one that almost exclusively deals with highly classified information. (I think, I never worked in government communications so Im not positive of this.). Its the Im still pretty upset that I had no second chance, but I suppose I just lost their trust. that did it for me (especially after all the ways the OP dodged responsibility in the original letter). (the confessional? 1964 is what I remember. That mindset is just so messed up. We will always be privy to confidential information in our roles, its the nature of what we do. When an employer says something is confidential, take it seriously If a breach is proved, the employee may be liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages Howard Levitt Published Aug 01, 2019 Last updated Oct 28, 2019 4 minute read Join the conversation To be clear, you were fired for admittedly breaking confidentiality not because of your coworker. Wrong is wrong- regardless of scale of the offense, and LW has no one to blame but themselves. Unauthorized Emails: The Risks of Sending Data to Your Personal Email Accounts. RIGHT NOW it is totally privileged information and it needs to be treated that way. But fairly often it was classified to some degree, and he could only talk about how his project was going but not about what it was.
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