A terse to non-existent IT policy or one that's full of unexplained jargon can work against a company. It may be unfair to assume a journalist is cutthroat and would kill for a lead, but its also nave to assume they wouldnt let anything slip to the exact wrong person. But thats where having friends in the same workplace comes inyou can expend the impulse by gushing to them and then zip your lips once you leave the building. Even though I was only suspended for two weeks, it hurt so, so much. the coworker? People tend to share with trusted confidants/partners/etc. Sorry, Im tired and I think that metaphor got away from me. (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) Thats not really a response to the OP but more a pushback on some the comments. Then the stories died down and the pressure with it even though there were still occasional leaks. ), You also werent fired for technically breaking a rule. You were fired for actually breaking a rule, and a serious one. The first person needs to understand that most of the time, you arent entitled to negotiate a yes, because the answer is no. I was under the impression that most big companies had a policy against telling a reference checker anything beyond dates of employment. Let me be clear she did not leak it. 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. Ive definitely been guilty of sharing exciting but not-yet-announced news with colleagues. Absolutely this. Nothing I said contradicts this. If when when LW talked to their boss, they conveyed the sense that theyre thinking Whats the big deal, its all fine, the coworker who ratted me out sucks, I did it once and Id do it again but next time I wouldnt self-report to my coworker the boss would probably be unwilling to give a second chance, whereas a oh shit I screwed up, heres what Im going to do to make sure this never happens again could have gotten one. i think we often send the message (societally) that making someone feel bad is a mean thing to do; its not. Upon further investigation, the supervisor discovers that the employee has asked other employees to also send Company documents to her personal e-mail address. how else could you have met that need?) You Sent an Email to the Wrong Person. Now What? - Tessian 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. The coworker could have totally done the right thing and the LW would still have a right to be annoyed and hurt by the action. Accept responsibility for what you did. +1 on the choice of language and framing. 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. Thanks for answering! This x 1000 to the comment by ENFP in Texas. 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. I do have to wonder if the hospital failed to educate its employees on how freaking serious that kind of breach was, although Id still put the failure on the feet of the violators. I get that people can learn from their mistakes, but this could be an indicator of a lack of proper framework, and perhaps a boss wouldnt want to risk it. As this was almost the entirety of your job they really couldnt keep you around. You say that the information eventually became public, and you seem to think that this mitigates the problem. No checking out salary information permitted! Fired. If the answer is Yes then say that. I used to work in a one-industry town. Its not an obligation to confront. And I dont think it helps the OP to say that she doesnt have the right to have feelings of resentment toward the coworker. From there they have 72 hours to resolve the situation. Im still pretty upset that I had no second chance, but I suppose I just lost their trust. If you lean over a cubicle and whisper I broke the rule! This is your making, and while I wish you luck, you have zero cause to be disgruntled with your coworker or employer. Pay secrecy is a workplace policy that prohibits employees from discussing how much money they make. It sounds like OP is young enough that they havent learned that there are some jobs where gossiping about your workplace with your friends is okay, and some jobs where that absolutely cannot fly. Browse other questions tagged, Start here for a quick overview of the site, Detailed answers to any questions you might have, Discuss the workings and policies of this site. Those usually come out the morning of the speech. Im thankful I did this in grad school rather than on the job. You might add to Alisons script, I knew immediately that I needed to report my indiscretion, and I did so right away. Many Government Agencies have specific rules about reference checks. If you told, you breached confidentiality, no matter what the other people did. whatever you think is appropriate] to make sure it doesnt happen again.. As a government employee she would have been trained on that rule and should have fully understood the ramifications of breaking it. We literally filled a room with records for them, and 99% of it was people asking what flavor of donuts to bring to a meeting or requesting copies of informational flyers. You did a dumb, impulsive thing and when you took time to consider it, you did the right thing. More employers are still going to be turned off by that than impressed. If I were in the coworkers position, I would need to do the same thing. @MarkAmery OP said themselves that what they sent was 'client confidential information' but ruled out trade secrets/IP being involved. Contact the unintended recipient It's a good idea to contact the unintended recipient as soon as you realize the error. Leaking private information in a huge breach, especially if that leak is to a journalist. We dont know if the coworker intentionally or mistakenly misrepresented the scope of OPs disclosure. Im so paranoid about it, that I only talk about what the company has already shared publicly. OP, there is another thing to keep in mind. and sent to multiple people (!!)? OP thinks she was super discreet in texting her friend. My code is GPL licensed, can I issue a license to have my code be distributed in a specific MIT licensed project? An Employee Is Stealing Company DocumentsThat Can't Be Protected It doesnt matter that its a good friend of yours who happens to be a journalist shes a journalist, and her JOB is to tell people about things she finds out about. Don't worry, you're not alone. When we accidentally receive a confidential email from people outside our own organisations, things are a little trickier. I stopped when my boss had a stern talk with me about it, but also because I noticed that I was getting the bad news later, too (other people at my level were told about layoffs the night before, I was told shortly before the companywide announcement) and I realized I was getting a reputation as someone who could not be trusted to keep my mouth shut. 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. Got my first job. Any info I pull, I have to be able to explain why I pulled it and what I was doing with it. I have worked and volunteered at government-related organizations before. This may have been part of why the manager took the steps she did. The co-workers obligation is to the employer, not to the OP. Honest Mistake: Have You Ever Shared Sensitive Data to the Wrong Person? 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). The reason all this info is locked down tightly is so that they can control the message when it goes out. One piece of information I learned (that has since been announced publicly, but hadnt been at the time) was SO EXCITING that in a weak moment, I texted one friend about it in celebration. This disclosure was not inadvertent, and trying to frame it that way could backfire pretty hard. Yeah, this is an excellent point. Oh yes. Trying to tell the OP otherwise is to minimize the impact of a serious offense. (sorry for all the theys. English has a pronoun problem.). Yup. Having a natural, human reaction doesnt mean shes in the wrong field. Or even if you sit at the bar and the llama design keeps crossing your mind and you talk before you think. (Drunk driving is an extreme example of this. +1000. They may. It was spur of the moment and, as soon as I realized what Id done I circled back to her to clarify that that information was confidential. 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. Your understanding of confidential is not mine. 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. Is it possible to rotate a window 90 degrees if it has the same length and width? In my first job out of college in the insurance industry I reinstated someones coverage without verifying that they had had no claims in the lapsed period they immediately called claims and filed a $40,000 claim. The info is out, the tech used to spread it is irrelevant and a distraction from the problem. I think also this illustrates how hard confidentiality is; these are trained and likely reasonably experienced people who still couldnt resist this temptation. I actually think your big mistake was telling your coworker, not telling a trusted friend.. It also protects the coworker from any immediate threats or retribution by LW. End of story. The violation was only victimless by accident and confidentiality rules dont hinge on whether or not the leak is known to have caused damage. I also wanted to address a couple things that jumped out at me in this part: Also, am I even allowed to bring up the fact that someone ratted me out? OP will also want to consider not focusing her career path on jobs that require a security clearance for classified information. (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.). Im a fed and we have annual mandatory training out the wazoo on these kinds of rules, as well as frequent reminder emails from the ethics folks and/or the IGs office. Maintaining confidentiality is a foundational occupational requirement in a lot of fields. 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. As a sidenote: *Even if* you think it *wasnt* a big deal, when you get hauled into the boss office and told it. Lack of rigor. Coworker Dorcus, who used to write down what time the rest of us got in each morning so she could report to our supervisor when the rest of us were late, even though he hadnt asked her to, even though Dorcus had no idea when wed left the night before, how late we were working that day, or what arrangement we had with our supervisor? However, were only human. It goes through a game of telephone and the person at the end of the line gets mad that the first person would say such a thing. Not necessarily for the leaking but for the way youre talking about it. A little time isn't unreasonable. Best of luck in your next job! I came here to say this. Please keep reflecting on this. Yeah, seconding this. Instead, you gossiped about it and risked an announcement before things were ready. Not to mention if you tell a lie (even by omission), its a lie you have to keep up, indefinitely. Same applies here as you stated. They sound far more serious than what happened. 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. Confiding in an older mentor in the expectation of confession-like confidentiality? as a manager, should I not wear a childless shirt in my off-hours? But at that very moment, I was in a personal email back-and-forth with another female coworker. 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 Yeah just assume that for the next few years youre out of the running for jobs that require a confidentiality. I would feel terrible about it, definitely, and probably think about it for a while after, but ultimately, Id need to prioritize my family and act in a way that would protect my job/salary/health insurance so I could continue to provide for my them. Yep! If youre excited about a new, increased source of funding, that shows your agency has money to spend. What happens when someone sees that message over her shoulder? The type of violation you are talking about normally only applies to confidential (shall close) records and not non-public (may close) records. The LW blabbed, why would her friend have more self-control? Maybe the information was a big deal to the agency but not externally (say getting a big grant funded), but if it was something that was legitimately important news, her friend would have been at least a little torn between loyalty to her friend and loyalty to her job. Not so here because what she did was wrong, just not quite as bad as the misunderstood version. 4a) Coworker did not owe (and usually would be discouraged from giving) notification to the OP. She got paid to pose as Roeders* mistress, once. She already got that advice from Alison. Fwiw the journalist agreed to destroy the info. The anger I hold for my coworker is something I will deal with over time. No! A federal appeals court recently addressed whether employees had standing to bring a lawsuit when their personally identifiable information (PII) was inadvertently circulated to other employees at the company, with no indication of misuse or external disclosure. 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. LW used Slack at work (and was not supposed to) Our grant program is going to be fully funded by Congress! So Id do what Alison says here, and save your OMG I cant keep this in confessions for your pets. Whether it's done to work from home, to print . I DEFinitely sometimes shared those tidbits with friends and family who were big tiger/hippo/etc fans. There isnt really such thing as a rat in the workplace. The joker on the other hand was running off at the mouth. Yes. The HIPAA Rules require all accidental HIPAA violations, security incidents, and breaches of unsecured PHI to be reported to the covered entity within 60 days of discovery - although the covered entity should be notified as soon as possible and notification should not be unnecessarily delayed. 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. Find somewhere else to tell it in order to release the steam valve. And then that coworker did tell someone, and she was fired. But even if there is no danger, an obligation to report is just that. 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). With regards to getting a new job within the software engineering/analytics/data science field, I wouldn't lie on application form and in interviews if asked why I left my old job. 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.. I say dont lie during any part of the job application. You didn't accidentally email the material to yourself, you did it on purpose. She should have told her this is serious and Im going to have to report you. Then at least OP could have avoided the slack room full of journalists escalation. This is so well said. Thats pretty ratty behavior. Aug. 4, 2008, at 11:14 a.m. 7 Ways Your E-mail Can Get You Fired. The contact form sends information by non-encrypted email, which is not secure. But unfortunately, the rules of your job are such that you justcant. If her friend never told anyone it never would have gotten out. Me too in Government. Click the "Settings" icon (the wheel/cog) and click "See all settings". It may be unfair to assume a journalist is cutthroat and would kill for a lead. Like you said, it was a breach and thats serious on a professional level (your friend is a journalist, too! We've added a "Necessary cookies only" option to the cookie consent popup. The awareness that anything sent in your work email is subject to FOIA and open records requests really varies. Now, hopefully that would never happen, but if you consider reporting serious breaches to be ratting out, narcing or even tattling, your (potential) employers are going to know that you cant be relied on to report when its necessary. Click "Enable" if it isn't selected already. Dont disagree feelings arent wrong but the way we think about them often is. Its to prevent covering of tracks or retaliation or extinction bursts (Im about to be caught for X may as well make the punishment worthwhile and do Y and Z too, or if they are acting with deliberate malign intent Im caught, better leak as much as possible asap). 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. OP needs to learn the art of discernment. OP, its great that you trusted your friend enough to be confident that she wouldnt share what you told her. If you want to work in comms, you need to be crystal clear that the TIMING of disclosure is a crucial issue. The emphasis on how not harmful the infraction was is totally hurting your case, OP. Sending work-related information to personal email account: a fast (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. Ah, no, there definitely was a record if there was any form of written communication at all about the information. The problem here is that the OP misjudged the level of confidentially expected in the situation, and maybe by their office/profession in general. In fact, if I ever got a query from someone I knew, I was required to hand off the query to a colleague. Reacting to being fired for that as if being personally persecuted over some piddly technical rule violation and not being given a second chance? Unauthorized Emails: The Risks of Sending Data to Your Personal Email Accounts. But it sounds like it doesnt really matter that HR jumbled the details because neither was a permitted thing to do anyway. Firing you was probably not what they wanted to do, and Im sorry. How could you have felt defensive about getting disciplined for that? Ive had the occasional day when Ive really wanted to tell someone I met X today! OP I dont want to pile on, many people have made the point that this would be a very big deal in many industries, and that your coworker was not responsible for your being fired, and indeed may have been obligated to report the violation. Email violations can jeopardize your job. Discretion and brand protection are as critical to this role as promotion and talking to the media. If someone stole money from their workplace, or illegally harassed a coworker, and their colleague reported it would that person be a rat too? OOPS! Further, the laws/regluations dont actually make allowances for how many people are told the confidential information, or how much you, the employee, trusts the person they told. For example, a lot of insider trading is based on the TIMING of someone finding out information. Your second co-worker who sexually harassed a woman was put on a PIP? 5 unspoken rules that can get you fired - CBS News Here's how you fix that horrible email blunder on the job - New York Post Im assuming the LW plead their case and filled in relevant information. Taking a quick peek at someones medical records just out of curiosity? 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. My late dad worked for a government defence research agency for most of his career. ugh, no if you cant tell them the actual news, dont tease it. If you say, My coworker ratted me out, an interviewer hears, My coworker reported my misconduct. Youre the one who comes off looking poorly there, not the coworker. 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. I deal with it by having friends in the firm who I can say it to (but not in a bar!). journalists dont leak information, unless its something confidential about their own employers. 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. But this was a self-inflicted wound, and you shouldnt frame it otherwise. 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. UK government has fired people for looking up records of contestants on reality TV series, multiple times. But the other person she spoke to, her coworker, told others, and somehow that message (of who and how she leaked it) got twisted into something much worse. Doesnt matter if it was a friend. Its not about breaking a rule, its about potentially causing some serious issues by leaking information. Cut to a couple hours later, and Im called into my bosss office because she has heard that I leaked this information to a SLACK CHANNEL FULL OF JOURNALISTS. In some cases, those policies . The co-worker absolutely had a responsibility to bring this information forward. So, either way my point remains. (I mean, I think its a great program, but Im realistic about things lol.) A further 2 years can be added onto the sentence for aggravated identity theft. 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. If it hasnt worked out yet, it isnt the end. My only other advice is to consider if there were any conversations on slack that were inappropriate. You were wrapped up in a project and yes you messed up but no you didn't mean to.
Window Bead Removal Tool Screwfix, Happy Hour Lake Oswego, Queen Bed Rails With Hooks On Both Ends, How Much Does It Cost To Fix A Rooster, Pityriasis Rosea And Covid Vaccine, Articles C