Many, many of us in similar positions have made similar mistakes. I think people are reading defensiveness from the qualifiers probably and suppose. I can sympathize that this is still very raw for OP and perspective will only come with more time. But he either kept it so vague as to be useless or said nothing at all. There are different levels of confidentiality for different circumstances. Any message that starts with Oh honey is going to read as rude and condescending unless its followed by a sincere Im so sorry in response to something terrible happening. the coworker probably was obligated to report it What is the point of Thrower's Bandolier? We also got early warning that legislators were encouraged to resign, a day or two before the press releases. What probably really hurt the OPs case was that the friend is a journalist. 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? ), Because honestly, the more I thought about this letter as I read it, the more uncomfortable I got, too. I think that speaks to exactly why this was such a breach, though. Like I said, very strange but its worked for me. Any info I pull, I have to be able to explain why I pulled it and what I was doing with it. But I now realize that I had no business sharing my bad behavior with colleagues it put them into a completely untenable position. No. Instead, you gossiped about it and risked an announcement before things were ready. 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. You texted proprietary information to a journalist. No, shes a person with ethics who plays by the rules. Also, she wasnt a journalist I ever interacted with professionally shes a friend Ive had for years. Yep. All the meanwhile you're still trying to run a successful business and handling other things that are coming up. She probably felt she had a duty to disclose it and she may well have. This seems unnecessarily condescending, and I dont think the LW sounds defensive here at all. Best of luck, and believe us all when we tell you that if you sound at all dismissive of the seriousness of this, prospective employers will (rightfully) worry that you may have a similar lapse in judgement again. 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. Especially odd because LW emphasized how trustworthy the friend is for why the friend wouldnt blab. If you got the launch codes for the missiles, thats a big no no to share. OOPS! 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. ), You also werent fired for technically breaking a rule. You were fired for actually breaking a rule, and a serious one. But, bald facts, they told you not to do the thing you turned around and did. If you feel uncomfortable about a work rule you are clearly violating, your coworkers are not going to be thrilled that you get them out there on the plank with you. 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. Some seem to imply there is no reason ever to leak information, which isnt true. Wouldn't employers just throw my application to the bin once I declare I have been dismissed for gross misconduct? Sometimes the news is a dreadful burden to bear (staff reductions of people you know, elimination of services you think are important) and sometimes the news is exciting, you have the inside scoop and cant wait to share it. Yet they were fired outright for gross misconduct. If she had been doing something perfectly acceptable, seen by someone who misunderstands the situation, and fired because of that, then she would be an innocent victim of a very unfair employer. 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. I was often privy to non-public information because I was designing media campaigns around them. What the saying about eyes, ears, mouths??? Similar in IT in my first internship, I had access to about 40,000 social security numbers. 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. The emotion is neutral; its what you do with it that counts. If the answer is Yes then say that. Yes. Having said that, as a hiring manager, if you were able to talk to me about how this one-time error in judgment caused a deep shift in thinking and was a critical pivot point in your professional development I would hear you out. If I ever texted a journalist about nonpublic information Id be fired. 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. Both your friend AND your co-worker. Noooooo. 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. Received someone elses confidential email? OP is in a pickle for sure. We are not in kindergarten. How do I tell potential future employers why I got fired and have them still want to hire me? All rights reserved. But I dont think it helps OP to feed a narrative that prevents OP from owning the situation going forward. 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. She should have just sat with that feeling and let it fuel her resolve to never share confidential info with an outside party again. If you cant keep a secret, this is not a field you should be in. She already got that advice from Alison. Most companies will not say so-and-so was fired for doing x in a reference check. Which is actually good most of us get making a mistake when were young, and really learning from it. I arrived in 69. Agreed, that immediately got on my nerves. 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. 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. The anger I hold for my coworker is something I will deal with over time. She shared it with a friend. Fascinating (and fun!) Its like pain (heck, it IS pain); its telling you something important. Heres what to do. 3) The recipient was a journalist thats super relevant, even if its not in their area OP, Im sure in your excitement you truly didnt think there was anything wrong with telling your friend, someone you trust implicitly to remain discreet. Normally it can be resolved by contacting the person you wrote to by mistake, and get in writing that they have deleted it without doing anything with it. There could be a situation where it might be the journalists job to share the information LW thought they were telling to just a friend. I dont know whether you meant it this way, but the co-worker is not untrustworthy for reporting this. If her friend never told anyone it never would have gotten out. Ive been under NDA for things I cant even disclose to my boss, much less a friend outside the organization. Count your blessings that you just got fired. We need to be careful about using terms like victimless mistake. Everyone in the workplace has an equal obligation and responsibility to ensure that rules are upheld because thats what keeps the company operating smoothly and in business and able to provide jobs to you all. Mandatory reporting is a thing that exists. You can -and often should convey emotion in your official public statements. Or, heck, for all I know he didnt actually work on anything that interesting. You can get through this, but be honest with yourself! I think its also something to do with the fact that if you tell a journalist something newsworthy, youre not just talking, youre offering a thing of (potential) value, which is an entirely different action from sharing news with a friend. Also, the OP wont be able to ever claim the good work experience she gained from the role. The part I think is dangerous is calling the coworker a rat and saying that disclosing to friend was not a mistake. Accidental disclosure of PHI includes sending an email to the wrong recipient and an employee accidentally viewing a patient's report, which leads to an . Misdirecting an email can be awkward. What I find interesting in the original letter is LWs insistence that it was a victimless crime because nothing bad happened as a result of their leak. A supervisor discovers that an employee has recently downloaded thousands of pages of confidential Company billing and financial information, and e-mailed it to her personal e-mail address. Second coworker only was put on an improvement plan. 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. Phrase it as a serious learning point, because you sure as hell aren't going to do it again after getting fired. How you analyze the situation and internalize the lesson is more important than wording for future employers right now. FOIA and open records requests are really big deals. The amount that LW trusted that friend is a small fraction of how much the government trusted LW. Im not trying to teach her a lesson, necessarily, she seems to have gotten the point. I replaced someone who had embezzled from the (small) company. In the US, sexual harassment wont merit a police response. 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. This may have been part of why the manager took the steps she did. I strongly disagree with this. And especially in the field youre in, leaks are a big deal, and ESPECIALLY leaks to a member of the press. (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.). 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. How exciting! and I started reading the details from the email out loud to him. I feel your pain. 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. You arent entitled to a second chance to screw this up. Confidentiality can stink at an interpersonal level, everyone tends to talk about their work and it can be hard to hide things from people we care about. Me too. I could have just sent the report and most likely no one would have ever known, but it would have been a violation of company policy. Oh my. The z department is not allocating the staff they promised. But leadership has to know that if they share confidential material with us that it will stay confidential. They are designed to trick the recipient . Why is it so hard for people to just keep their (figurative) mouth shut? But imagine you are the government and someone leaked information. There were maybe 50 of us on the team for the app. For example, a lot of insider trading is based on the TIMING of someone finding out information. If youre excited about a new, increased source of funding, that shows your agency has money to spend. An in-person meeting might be more appropriate if you accidentally sent information about your plans to find another job to your manager. And that doesnt even take into account that I could be prosecuted for divulging any private information. Some offenses are so serious that you immediately get fired. 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. Is anyone else dying to know what the information was? But unfortunately, the rules of your job are such that you justcant. If someone preempts that, theyre not happy about it generally. Even there, be very sure the person youre talking to has the same access you do. Its good to hear from you! It's difficult to prevent a leak from happening again if you don't know how it occurred in the first place. But it sounds like it doesnt really matter that HR jumbled the details because neither was a permitted thing to do anyway. 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. And even worse when it can have legal implications like for insider trading or government secrecy. Animaniactoo is right that folks who have to manage confidential information begin to cultivate the skill of sharing without making an unauthorized disclosure. Disclosing confidential information has, at best, resulted in nothing, and at worse, resulted in injury/death, or even political systems toppling. If nothing exculpatory came out in that meeting then maybe firing was the appropriate response. You would never want someone to find out from the news media that they no longer have a job, for example. Im not sure whether this is something they can move on from or not, but they absolutely need to get themselves out of the mindset that their coworker ratted on them, because thinking that reporting things like that is tattling and childish is how corruption grows. 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. I agree that the companys response was wrong the sexual harasser should have been fired but in the US, authority doesnt care. (Obviously it would have been best not to give her journalist friend the info to begin with.) Its also possible that the way you talked to your boss about it cost you a second chance too- if you were anything other than mortified and taking 100% responsibility, they likely thought it wasnt worth trusting you again. That's why employers ask employees to sign technology use policies, as it appears yours has - to ensure the employee is aware of policy. As soon as someone has decided you're not a team player, or are a problem employee, then even tiny things get seen as evidence that you should be fired. 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. 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. I sent confidential documents to someone by accident via email I need the file completely removed - Gmail Community Gmail Help Sign in Help Center Community New to integrated Gmail Gmail Stay on. I understand the issue had to be reported, but why this way ? Its what you do with what you learn that is important. You kind of glaze over this, OP, but if you spoke in this meeting as you did here then I wonder if thats the real reason for the firing. This reminds me of how Northwestern Hospital had to fire 50 employees back in March for violating HIPAA by accessing Jussie Smolletts medical records. You are of course welcome to your feelings, we all feel what we feel, but it sounds like your thoughts and beliefs havent settled to the fact that **your feelings are dead wrong**. But your framing of this does sound defensive and doesnt sound like youre taking responsibility for what happened. Resist the temptation to gossip about fellow employees and don't express your disdain for your. I missed the phrase ratted me out in the original message, but given those feelings, it doesnt really count as self-reporting. Practically everything I do in my job is confidential to some degree. Im also not going to tell anyone else! But despite how liberal weve gotten with sharing information, you really do have to be very strict about upholding confidentiality policies without making any exceptions. The emphasis on how not harmful the infraction was is totally hurting your case, OP. nsx advanced load balancer documentation; . How to handle a hobby that makes income in US. Some projects you could talk about with a trusted friend as long as you didnt get specific, but shouldnt announce on twitter. It was absolutely drilled into all of our heads during grad school and training that you can never, ever do this. It seems like LW has had time to process and isnt being combative. To say my friend was mortified would be an understatement. Just wanted to point out that OP said they worked in the government, so while yours might be the public understanding of confidential, it wouldnt apply to anything their job considered confidential. I was fired over the phone. I have news from my job that I cannot share with some coworkers. I have been fired for a dumb mistake. You are right. Ugh, yes. Feelings are frequently conflated with facts in our minds and it can take some work to separate them. And I dont think it helps the OP to say that she doesnt have the right to have feelings of resentment toward the coworker. And in this case, I beleive that is correct. 2. I always wondered if they remained friends after that fiasco. There isnt really such thing as a rat in the workplace. (I thought Al Frankens apology to the fellow entertainer was pretty good, actually. And the young comment. Im in Chicago so I read about those firings with interest. 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. And maybe you should go next week, because the slots love you and you always win. You did a dumb, impulsive thing and when you took time to consider it, you did the right thing. I work in a field (not government) where some nonpublic is newsworthy but only in the arts and style sections. As far as I know, he held the highest security clearance a civilian could have. Shes never even heard any of the names of our clients, except for a couple she met once at an adjunct social function. Its not great, but some breaches really are that serious, and employers cant always be like the library giving amnesty for late fees if people bring the books back. The first job will be the hardest but gradually you are less and less likely to be asked about an older job. 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. But folks with strong confidentiality duties often dont disclose the confidential parts of the information to their trusted confidants or partners. Oh honey, how young are you? And all you learned was to avoid freshly mopped floors? This is a very astute comment, especially your last paragraph. Absolutely this. My adviser listened to what was going on and was like we have to tell. Sure, thered be a record in Slack of prior messages. I got defensive and young from OPs response. What exactly do you want her to do so you feel satisfied that shes recognizing and acknowledging the seriousness of what happened? No, not if its classified or embargoed. I was new, too eager to please, naive and I let the client rush me instead of following established protocol. I definitely learned my lesson, and it was a hard one, and one that I will regret for a very, very long time. I personally just try to forget that I know until the information becomes public. Youll also want to double-check any attachments. The org needed to know in order to assess potential damage and limit future opportunities. Yup! If the coworker said that when that wasnt communicated to her, that was wrong as hell. 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. LW best of luck! The Smurfs have a secret colony in the woods of Maine!. In sending that information to your own mailbox, you transmitted the data to a number of machines, any number of which could be intercepting the data for reading, and many do albeit for legit purposes of scanning for advertising relevant stuff or scanning viruses. Either way, if you commit an offense, its best to never go with its not that big of a deal anyways. Owning up to your mistakes at the right time is hard and the natural instinct to defend yourself is strong, but ultimately thats the best thing to do and garners respect. According to Tessian research, over half (58%) of employees say they've sent an email to the wrong person. The actual problem is that OP shared confidential information. If theyd covered up for her/not removed her access to confidential info and she did it again, their jobs would be on the line too the next time. And theyll be first with the story. 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. I minored in journalism and this attitude is why I never worked in the industry. I have information that I have kept confidential for more than a decade that I know the patients wife does not even know (think undisclosed criminal record). They fell prey to the Its just a quick peek and it wont hurt anybody fallacy. Yeah, I thought it was from her personal cell too. I did something similar over 20 years ago. 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. Thats the person were gonna call the blabbermouth in this situation? Its also possible that she got caught in a broader crackdown on leaks and thus wasnt given a second chance when she otherwise might have been. OP will also want to consider not focusing her career path on jobs that require a security clearance for classified information. Im sorry, what? Right. Click "Enable" if it isn't selected already. I, too, have made foolish mistakes that cost me a job. Got my first job. And in fact, NOT getting that second chance with them might mean that you take it more seriously and handle the next relationship in a trustworthy manner. This seems like a no-brainer to just not do, and if you did, certainly not to tell someone at work that you did this. Sometimes their hands are tied too. And you might know that you trust that friend 100% to keep it confidential but your employer would prefer to make that call themselves, and thought theyd done so when they told you the information couldnt be shared. I would push back slightly on the leak to press part. Trying to tell the OP otherwise is to minimize the impact of a serious offense. And calling this victimless isnt a helpful framing; if you do something thats clearly forbidden and could result in real harm, thats a problem even if no harm resulted this time. Bye. All rights reserved. We cannot do our job with our leaders if they cannot trust us. Oof this is so condescending! 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. It would have been better if she had told you first that she was going to tell someone, but whether she warns you first has no bearing on whether she was obligated to disclose. +1 Yeah, I think CA meant, the message was only sent to the friend/journalist, but you dont know where she opened it: if shes in an open newsroom or something, someone could have seen it on her screen over her shoulder. I used to work for Marvel Studios. update: is my future manager a bigoted jerk? Nowadays with mobile devices, email and the cloud, it is extremely easy to share files, easy enough that we may accidentally send and share them to the wrong person. Even though he loves the MCU and would have enjoyed the anecdotes. but to start the process of damage control. that one would be unable to resist texting a friend. OP wasnt a journalist. I understand your irritation with your former coworker. Examples that most journalists would find pretty snoozy (although journalists who cover the agency super-closely for trade publications, Politico Pro, Bloomberg Gov, etc, would still be interested): So, either way my point remains. Oh, its possible to be a rat in the workplace. Or that might not make a difference on how its interpreted. Damn, thats hard core. Period. Wait, what the friend is a *journalist*?. Was the friend a journalist, or is there something else that would explain why she said that? The reply: Yes, the friend I texted happened to be a journalist but doesnt cover the area that I was working in. As someone who practices public relations, calling this victimless gives me a lot of anxiety. Like, its so obviously wrong that people dont even talk about it. (Many of these claims have to be handled by specialists who have security clearance, but not all of them.). Agreed. I was talking about this upthread before I saw this discussion. LW is undisciplined and has a big mouth. My only other advice is to consider if there were any conversations on slack that were inappropriate. Yes. The protected classes are race, age (40+), sex, national origin, religion, or disability. I just think it serves OP to choose a more benign explanation because it will help OP deal with the fall out of the situation going forward. (It also might be notable that you didnt originally mention that your friend was a journalist until I asked about it which makes me think youre underestimating how much that matters.). Really? I have a whole bunch of very personal medical information swimming around my memory and I while some of it Ive wished I could share with my spouse, I never have. Oh yes. You put your coworker in an awful spot by telling her this information. As the other commenter noted, this could have been a very serious offence considering you were working for the government. The type of violation you are talking about normally only applies to confidential (shall close) records and not non-public (may close) records. I work for a state government agency and FOIA is a really big deal. Id spend some time processing how you felt and trying to learn to take accountability and personal responsibility for this (and seriously its something thats really uncomfortable and hard for everyone but it helps so much). OP, there is another thing to keep in mind. All this said, I think Alisons approach is the best one when youre applying for jobs. Im also miffed by the fact that the coworker kinda blind sided OP. Even if they knew she used Slack to talk to journalists in general, its a massive enough leap from I told a friend via text that Im side-eyeing the coworker and HR a little. I was kinda thinking that an otherwise level headed and calm employee wouldnt punch a colleague unless the other guy had been doing something truly egregious. As a government employee she would have been trained on that rule and should have fully understood the ramifications of breaking it. Your coworker was not at all in the wrong here, OP. But at the end of the day, the reputational risk to my company, versus the relatively low-level risk of having to replace someone entry-level, was just too great to bear. If you had to process the cool news, it may have been better to process with the mentor instead. Its too difficult to know which internally-discussed information is confidential and which isnt. While I agree that this needs to be explained in the right way. 2. I think particularly since its the government, they couldnt take the risk of it happening again and it becoming public that not only was their a breach of confidentiality but that the person responsible had done it before. But even if there is no danger, an obligation to report is just that. I was sent home, and then fired over the phone a few hours later. But you see that now I hope. No! And sometimes at shows they dont identify themselves as press immediately. But at that very moment, I was in a personal email back-and-forth with another female coworker. 4. 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. so that youre ready the next time it happens at your next job. broke a rule can be trivial, even if its technically a firing offense. Once its out, you have no control over it. (i hope this story still makes sense with all identifying details purged, but hopefully its clear from context uh why i am purging all those details smdh) Also in any governmental job or any job governed by many laws and regulations (such as medicine, law, dentistry, etc) they are laws and compliance regulations in place that must be abided by and every employee had to sign such an agreement usually yearly but at least upon hiring.