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. Agreed, that immediately got on my nerves. I used to work at a public Zoo that was owned by the state, and so we were all state government employees. In such cases, the employee should be given the benefit of the doubt. We all developed what we called the [cityname] twitch of looking over our shoulders before we talked about work stuff in a public place. Its also important to note that OP called it non-public and Alison was the person who called it confidential. Ive had to fire someone in a one-strike situation for what I genuinely believe was an honest mistake because it was too big a risk to keep that person on staff going forward. And maybe you should go next week, because the slots love you and you always win. it really should be I made a foolish mistake, Its more a case of I broke the rules bigtime and expected someone else to cover up for me.. When you don't know the sender, but the email is clearly confidential and sensitive, things are little more complicated and you have a decision to make. and sent to multiple people (!!)? Damn, thats hard core. Sure but I think its highly unlikely that someone at OPs level would have access to that. 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. And I think you can share your excitement with others, just not the information. I know that I messed up and I shouldnt have told anyone; in a moment of weakness I texted one of my best friends. Penalizing or firing such employees may lead to the loss of good talent and even create a negative impact on employee morale. These comments seem harsh for the most part. 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. Can I get fired for . So this. How do I make amends and go about apologizing to former manager(s) after being dismissed for gross misconduct? ), Im guessing it was something more like: This mixed with the coworkers inflated story, I would be more than annoyed by this coworker too. Feelings can be irrational though, or overblown, or immature, or any number of shades of wrong that means you shouldnt give them 100% credence. I gossip too much, including at work. But I now realize that I had no business sharing my bad behavior with colleagues it put them into a completely untenable position. Yes, this. 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. +100. Whether nor not anyone got fired might depend on context, but somebody would at the very least get a serious talking-to. 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. Humans, in general, are not geared towards confidentiality and secrecy long-term. I previously worked as a journalist. No matter how small the company, they trust you to safeguard the data, and you didnt do that. I imagine theres a section in the manual and training (possibly annually) about the great responsibility they bear around confidentiality and how people will try to scam them into breaching security, yet OP does not appreciate the weight of this. Passing it off as a mistake, or trying to portray ignorance (in the sense of saying "oh, I didn't realize it was wrong when I did it") is just going to make it sound like you don't bother understanding or following policies. Granted, it was to your older co-worker rather than your boss, but that still shows you felt uncomfortable with your actions. 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. Also, the OP wont be able to ever claim the good work experience she gained from the role. Its a bigger deal because that friend is a journalist. I accidentally sent the email about the female coworker to this other female coworker. Yep, I have a friend whose grandmother was a codebreaker and took loose lips sink ships seriously till her dying day. He and my mother kept their noses clean. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. 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). I imagine there are a lot like that in government but he learned from working with a non apologetic, scandal plagued politician that consequences of what seems little to you may not be to the tabloids. A good . The emphasis on how not harmful the infraction was is totally hurting your case, OP. 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. The thing is though, you dont get credit for leaking to a trustworthy person who decides not to hang you out to dry. 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. The fact that her co-worker actually followed the rules of her employer does NOT make her a rat. In the worst cases though, businesses can lose clients and employees can lose jobs. "Compose the email, and only then go back and enter the address (es)," he says. 1. 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. It being Silicon Valley, not only was the phone found, it was immediately identified for what it was. 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. For the purposes of VIWI, a confidential client shall be able to establish a mutually authenticated TLS channel with the auth server and resource service, providing a trusted identity, usually in the form of a certificate signed by . Im excited about the project I started today or Something cool is happening at work would be fine to say in most situations. That would likely lead to your manager also getting fired (for not firing you in the first place) and also make your entire department/agency look bad to the public (whod be wondering who else still working there has done something similar without getting fired). The sharing of information is a violation of your professional duties and ethics and would get me 60% of the way to firing someone if I were your boss. If the friend had blabbed, shed have been fired, anyway, even without confiding in the senior employee. 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. What happened is reputation-ruining for such jobs so re-assessing what is realistic in terms of job expectations after this is important to moving on successfully I am very sure they didnt want to fire him. Ethically, you dont have to do anything. Only hope going forward is own up flatly and without defensiveness . I know Id be pissed at you. Or if the coworker only decided afterwards this couldnt be kept in the dark, call her and tell her this. FOIA and open records requests are really big deals. No checking out salary information permitted! Once you do it, the consequences are the consequences. its not condescending to point out that what LW did was incredibly foolish. End of story. For most cases in the US, I'd expect it to be legal. 2) Told someone you broke a rule. Dont blame your colleague she may have been obligated to report this. 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. All people, of all ages, are capable of errors in judgment. I dont want to beat up on the LW, but I do think they fundamentally need to understand that the loss of trust made it impossible for the agency to give you a second chance in this position. If you got the launch codes for the missiles, thats a big no no to share. I was new, too eager to please, naive and I let the client rush me instead of following established protocol. Clearly yall do not understand handling confidential information. Sorry this happened, OP! Im of course devastated, and moving on and figuring out my next steps. The obligation to report a security breach doesnt include warning the violator. As Brett said, there was definitely a record in this case. If a member of your staff violates this explicit. While it is possible the line could be actively tapped/monitored by someone else, even if it was an unsecured line it would be reasonable to assume the home phone number on file for GSA's dad would lead to the dad. What is the correct way to screw wall and ceiling drywalls? Youve got some great feedback from Alison and I hope it all works out for you. Really? Any info I pull, I have to be able to explain why I pulled it and what I was doing with it. Sometimes he wasnt working on confidential stuff, and he could come home and geek out over what he was doing if he wanted. Its to LWs friends credit that she didnt pass on the info to a journalistic colleague who DOES work in that area; its not to LWs credit. That makes the violation much worse. It all comes down to the nature of the data you are handling. It can take down evil people who mean to do others harm. Communications professionals are privy to so many deals and information that cant be divulged to even spouses until they become public. Embarrassing or inappropriate communications sent via company email can damage professional credibility, reputations, and careers. I mean, yeah, absolutely! Oh honey UGH you are just the worst. She already acknowledged that its 100% her fault. If I wanted a cookie and I didnt get one, I can feel sad, and thats fine. 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. There were maybe 50 of us on the team for the app. Yeah, I agree. If someone preempts that, theyre not happy about it generally. you can include that in there too, not as a way to cast doubt on their decision but as a way to indicate this was a fluke, not a pattern of bad judgment. This just wasnt the place for you in the end. 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. Phrase it as a serious learning point, because you sure as hell aren't going to do it again after getting fired. There are lots of situations in which leaking information to a journalist would absolutely be the right thing to do, and we should absolutely encourage it in those cases. Protect your people from socially engineered phishing attacks, Defend against attacks originating from compromised supply chain accounts, Detect fraudulent invoices and payment requests, Prevent people falling victim to targeted impersonation attacks, Defend against the delivery of ransomware and malware by email, Stop phishing attacks that lead to credential theft, Prevent email data loss caused by human error, Block exfiltration of personal and company data, Preserve ethical walls to prevent disclosure of information and avoid conflicts of interest, Apply the appropriate level of encryption to sensitive emails and attachments, Detect and prevent advanced email threats that slip through Microsoft 365, Provide people with easy, actionable advice in real-time at the point of risk, How to use a hacker's toolkit against them. 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. 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. Re-evaluating my original comment, Id still consider lying if attempts to explain the firing in interviews end up in disaster. Request that they email you to confirm they've done so. Log the incident in an 'cyber accident book'. This is especially true if the employee in question signed a confidentiality agreement prior to starting the job. The penalty for breach of confidentiality isn't restricted to employees who have . I was fired over the phone. I did something similar over 20 years ago. I wont lie, Im tremendously curious, but I also know this is just one of those things I will never get to know. Lack of the maturity to keep exciting news to onesself. (I think, I never worked in government communications so Im not positive of this.). 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. Some are minor, some are devastating. Id like to know what LW said at the two meetings they gave her before firing her. OP has a right to be annoyed with Coworker, but Coworker was doing her job as well. Much safer. Please keep reflecting on this. It's difficult to prevent a leak from happening again if you don't know how it occurred in the first place. Any of them. The awareness that anything sent in your work email is subject to FOIA and open records requests really varies. Those usually come out the morning of the speech. If youve no idea who the message was supposed to go to, simply let the sender know you received it by accident and move on. My boss and I had a very serious conversation about it, and I think the only reason I was not fired was that I immediately and unequivocally took responsibility. If you embezzle from the company and tell a coworker who then reports it, the mistake is embezzlement, not telling a coworker about it. Also to prevent someone who might be a bit dangerous, from hurting you. Forgetting the attachment. It can depend on what mechanisms are in place to protect the content of the email, who is sending the email, who it is being sent to, the content of the email, and whether the subject of the HIPAA information has provided their written authorization for unsecured PHI to be . This is 100% on you. The amount that LW trusted that friend is a small fraction of how much the government trusted LW. Accidental disclosure is the unintentional release or sharing of sensitive information. Oh, thats a risky tack for OP to take if they want to stay in their field. about your coworker reporting you, betrayed and hard done by, is the way your employer feels about you. They might push the company to reverse your termination. Some offenses are serious enough that a single incident is enough to fire someone. OOPS! what did you want to get out of sharing with her? Reacting to being fired for that as if being personally persecuted over some piddly technical rule violation and not being given a second chance? This was supposed to be a stand-alone comment. Which is so far beyond the truth Im honestly wondering if this coworker had it out for me the whole time. So, are you clear about the severity of your action and the significance of this rule? 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). Now I just leave and cry and deal with the long-term consequences, like never moving up. I can see a manager getting pressure from the top to reduce leaks choosing to fire someone over even a minor leak. but to start the process of damage control. The actual problem is that OP shared confidential information. It still sucks, but its not really personal per se, and perhaps it will help a little bit to think of it that way. Its no worse than our organization doesnt protect classified information no matter how badly an employee disregards policies. Agreed, except for this: a journalist, who by profession is at risk for leaking said confidential information. 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. Yes, you can get fired for opening a phishing email. This is one of those very serious offenses for which there are no second chances in many organizations, even when the breach is accidental or through slop practices and not intentional. Remember when Beyonc lip synched at Obamas inauguration? I had to learn the hard way, Im afraid, but I did learn. What video game is Charlie playing in Poker Face S01E07? But when the guilt is deserved, its got a purpose. Thank you for pointing this out! I dont think you have to be Catholic.). Remember to be kind to yourself: youre human, you made a mistake and, as you said, youve learned from it. If you hadnt told your co-worker, then they could not have ratted you out. This disclosure was not inadvertent, and trying to frame it that way could backfire pretty hard. So, I can talk about it, I can say Omg, there was one scene that I was just like SuperCheese! and rolling my eyes. Nothing got out about this before it was supposed to. So seriously, just dont tell anyone at all, fight the temptation, its an icy slope. 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. My boss wanted to press charges, but his business partner didnt, so they just fired him. Companies (and governments) want to carefully manage the messaging and strategy around information that is released in order to bring the biggest buzz and the best information to the public. In addition to Alisons script, I think it also reflects well on you that you reported what you had done. Does your company know she could have called the police? Theres truly no compelling reason to break confidentiality here. Its not possible to catch every mistake or typo over the course of a whole career. Well its possible your coworker just had it out for you, but it sounds more likely that she genuinely misunderstood or that she understood perfectly but thought leaking info to a journalist friend was serious enough to report and then it was your boss who misunderstood the details. And all you learned was to avoid freshly mopped floors? But this was a self-inflicted wound, and you shouldnt frame it otherwise. I dont / cant post it publicly, but I can share all kinds of stuff with people close to me even friends in journalism, though I always specify off the record before i dish and my employer doesnt care because the concerns about confidentiality arent strict NDA / security issues. Rules are there because its so easy to do that thing that feels harmless, and sometimes nobody gets hurt.. 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). Journalists seek out and report information thats their job.. Medical too. 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. I think this really depends. I wouldnt be obligated by anything other than displaced loyalty if I wanted to try to be squirrelly of course but I respect myself way too much and have my own standards to just keep quiet about things. If youre excited about a new, increased source of funding, that shows your agency has money to spend. Its too difficult to know which internally-discussed information is confidential and which isnt. But your wording indicates that you dont yet have insight into just how much you breached the trust of your company. We asked them why they did it. Based on the post its probably public now, so I would guess its likely not too exciting. It makes me so happy that I had to tell someone is a reason to text them, OMG, huge news that I cant tell you, but you will be SOOOOO happy when its in the papers in a few days! Not to actually, yknow, tell them the private information. Many, many of us in similar positions have made similar mistakes. And Im pointing out that it wasnt a record at all. A non-disclosure agreement (often referred to as a confidentiality agreement), is a legally-binding contract which governs the sharing of information between people or organizations and sets limits on the use of the information. I think youd be in trouble for sharing that kind of information over the phone, regardless of who he was talking to. Then what? I would push back slightly on the leak to press part. How to handle a hobby that makes income in US. I agree that the companys response was wrong the sexual harasser should have been fired but in the US, authority doesnt care. I agree that you can learn how to share without breaching confidentiality. Hes in an unrelated field, it doesnt affect him at all, and he wouldnt really care outside of knowing whats going on in Eddies life but hes a chatterbox and theres a decent chance hed forget and say something to someone. Rather than leading you on and allowing you to continue to work for them under a cloud of mistrust (and all the downsides that come with that), they made a clean break and released you to get a fresh start elsewhere. Is it FOUO though? Dont disagree feelings arent wrong but the way we think about them often is. If you are still defensive or dismissive about this, it will come through in an interview. I think one can be upset at not getting a second chance without feeling necessarily entitled to one. Disclosing confidential information has, at best, resulted in nothing, and at worse, resulted in injury/death, or even political systems toppling. An employee who doesn't know about a policy important enough to fire someone over is just a ticking time bomb to an employer. You said it yourself that you were working on client confidential information, and sent it to your personal mailbox. 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. They would definitely see any mention of confidentiality breach as a huge red flag and drop OP from the hiring process at once. This is a good way to think about it. If you had stayed, they would never have trusted you again. Gossage said he believed he was speaking in confidence to someone he trusted implicitly, but the story subsequently appeared in the Sunday Times, to the dismay and rage of the author of the Harry Potter books.. If I were you, I would examine WHY I decided to tell my journalist friend the info. When weve made a mistake, it often feels unfair when we dont get an opportunity to explain, defend, and/or redeem ourselves. Messages like this can simply be ignored and deleted. You breached confidential information to a journalist. 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: 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. Learn more about Stack Overflow the company, and our products.
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