Yet, the subordinates were not pleased! And Im happy to report that I have never shared that news (still remember it bcs this was so hard that first time!). Click "Enable" if it isn't selected already. Journalists seek out and report information thats their job.. First coworker punched second coworker. Unless things have changed since I was in j-school (which is a possibility), off-the-record arrangements are basically the journalistic equivalent of a pinky swear. how did HR and OPs boss come to the conclusion that this information was spread through Slack (!) You made a mistake. 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. how trustworthy somebody actually is is never certain. 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. 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): This type of thing could have easily happened to your journalism friend in the office. Confidential information is meant to be confidential and not shared with anyone. It makes the sender aware of their mistake and less likely to bother you again in the future. How could you have felt defensive about getting disciplined for that? 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. Recently, the National Guard was hit with a data breach, where files containing personal information were unintentionally transferred to a "non-DoD-accredited data center by a . Shes assuming the friend has more self-control than she does, which is precarious at best. I would have been fired if I did any one of the things OP did when I worked for the feds (e.g., using Slack, speaking to a journalist without authorization even if they were a long-time friend, disclosing soon-to-be-public information before it was publicly available). How to handle a hobby that makes income in US. Eh, if a waitress at a homey diner calls everyone honey, I wouldnt call it condescending. Sometimes it can be a blessing in disguise. 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. Especially since the letter seems to have been written almost immediately after the incident, before their feelings had time to settle properly. Good luck! So please think about that aspect when youre thinking about how she ratted you out. Im not feeding a narrative, Im expressing my opinion. Heres another the state Supreme Court will probably make a decision on voting district gerrymandering soon., (This one happened to me, and was probably the most exciting confidential information I got access to my desk was close enough to the GIS employees that I could see the increased traffic out of their area and infer that Something was Happening. 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. Dont blame your colleague she may have been obligated to report this. OP, please do not take this comment string seriously, because internalizing these statements will severely harm your ability to address your error effectively. In no time you will have your next job lined up and all this will be just a post earning you rep. Sometimes their hands are tied too. In a couple of hours, the news agencies were calling the federal government, to verify the news. Confiding in an older mentor in the expectation of confession-like confidentiality? 4) The coworker was absolutely right to report the breach in confidentiality. Both of those would merit a reprimand, separately or together, but somehow in the telling it got turned into that the latter happened with the former as the method. Challenge them directly and be sure that when they say it's okay to start at 9.30am, make sure they actually mean it, or don't do it. You know thats not how that works. (The fact that your friend is a journalist makes it particularly egregious.) 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. The heads on spikes of the modern workplace. People do stupid or extreme things all the time; their lives dont end, but they *can* be turning points for a downward spiral. What if there was another leak and someone found out that OP had told Coworker that she had leaked info previously, but didnt report it as she was supposed. still cant believe that happened. 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. In the real world, it happens often enough that I think its more realistic to talk about the practical ways to do it that keep you on the safe side of the boundaries. Even there, be very sure the person youre talking to has the same access you do. Pay secrecy is a workplace policy that prohibits employees from discussing how much money they make. 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. You take this as a hideously painful lesson, and change your behavior across the board, and most people could see that as a learning moment, from which you learned. For a market where most of this stuff lives in a big way for one season, and then only has some ongoing staying power? Thats another instant firing, even if the information isnt ever misused. I tell my team that if it leaks from us, they cannot work here. Or does it only matter that I broke a rule? There is a greater issue here regarding judgement. 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. A fine of up to $100,000 and five years in jail is possible for violations involving false pretenses, and a fine of up to $250,000 and up to 10 years in jail is possible when HIPAA Rules have been violated for malicious reasons or for personal gain. These comments seem harsh for the most part. I know this is pedantic, but as someone raised by a mother with BPD, I feel like its important to say that no ones feelings are wrong. More commonly it means that you either cant share anything, or you cant share parts that someone could connect to a particular client. I wish I lived in your country. And it seems like you do. Im not curious at all, but Im different. Yes, own it. I understood her to say she texted from her cell phone. If we receive confidential information, there are very specific and non-flexible procedures we have to follow to handle those documents/information. I personally just try to forget that I know until the information becomes public. I can remember almost exactly what I said: It was wrong of me to put that information out. Upon further investigation, the supervisor discovers that the employee has asked other employees to also send Company documents to her personal e-mail address. Rules are there because its so easy to do that thing that feels harmless, and sometimes nobody gets hurt.. Sorry that this happened to you (Ive made stupid mistakes too) but you may want to consider keeping problems like this to yourself. The letter writer came here and owned up to what she did and said she knows now it was her fault what do you want her to do, throw herself on a sword? Nothing got out about this before it was supposed to. You did a thing that caused this outcome. No. Especially in banking! But OP gets to choose what they think the coworkers motivations may have been. Even in the private sector, there is information that is classified, sensitive or commercially in confidence and not to be shared. To say my friend was mortified would be an understatement. Yes. But they took confidentiality very seriously, and I signed an extremely ironclad NDA, so I never told anyone any of the interesting tidbits I found out about from working there. Im of course devastated, and moving on and figuring out my next steps. If not, that would be an additional reason for your bosses to take the maximum option to respond. (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.). 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. 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. Long since past, now.). I tell the character and imagine their response, and the urge to share subsides. If you lean over a cubicle and whisper I broke the rule! JustAnswer is a public forum and questions and responses are not private or confidential or protected by the attorney-client privilege. That said, I am curious if theres other context that explains why they fired you for a first offense without warning you first. If you hadnt told your co-worker, then they could not have ratted you out. I know there are cases where someone might fear retaliation etc, but with a higher up getting a subordinate into (deserved sorry OP!) 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. LW, please, please look hard at what happened and how you can promise yourself first of all that this was the last time. They sound far more serious than what happened. Youll get another job. How do I explain to those potential future employers that the only reason I got fired was because I was ratted out by a coworker for a victimless mistake and was fired unfairly, without sounding defensive? but if you mess up and by the skin of your teeth get away with it, just DO NOT talk about it with anyone at the company. The mistake may not have been trusting the friend with that information, but it was definitely telling her. Hopefully there still something to be said for that! "Compose the email, and only then go back and enter the address (es)," he says. should I tell my coworker about our colleagues criminal record, I deeply regret joining my companys leadership program, and more, my company is cutting my overworked teams pay as punishment for mistakes. What video game is Charlie playing in Poker Face S01E07? FIFTY?! Youre heading in the right direction, and youve also gotten some really good advice. (I mean, I think its a great program, but Im realistic about things lol.) Interpretations, justifications, conceptualizations can also be wrong, surely. Forgetting to attach a mentioned attachment is common, but still embarrassing. I hope there are things at your job that are exciting to you! Accept the responsibility for your actions and it will make life a lot easier going forward. Also, legally email addresses themselves dont typically count as 'personal information' as they are contact addresses and are treated in similar ways to phone numbers legally, as opposed to, say, identifying information like full name, DOB and home address all in one document. But we have embargoes for a reason. Nothing I said contradicts this. Where I work, there are policies that state an employee that finds out about certain kinds of misconduct is mandated to report it or face consequences if it comes out that they knew and didnt report it. Good luck to you I think Allisons advice for answering questions about this experience is spot on. Most companies will not say so-and-so was fired for doing x in a reference check. 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. I was sent home, and then fired over the phone a few hours later. Take full responsibility. I consider it my greatest ethical obligation in my job, because I have been entrusted with sensitive information and I treat it like Id want mine to be treated. 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. 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. Best of luck in your next job! It would have been nice- but Im sure the coworker was also pooping masonry. And most of the real socialising happened at house parties and dinner parties, not restaurants or bars. As in I am so, so sorry! Yes. Let me be clear she did not leak it. Yikes. Yeah, this is an excellent point. Even though he loves the MCU and would have enjoyed the anecdotes. when we had a high school shooting, a student I knew (10 y old) and who got into it (gladly uninjured) got a visit from his own uncle who was a journalist that very evening, who came to visit the parents and then proceeded to try to get his nephew to talk about the details. Thats the person were gonna call the blabbermouth in this situation? Same-sex marriage is going to be legalized tomorrow!. And theres a difference between feeling (sensation) and feeling (conclusion drawn from integrating sensations and information). 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. However, placing the blame on the coworker for the entire situation, even just in her own head, is likely to come though when she talks about why she was fired. Has 90% of ice around Antarctica disappeared in less than a decade? Is this the appropriate place to bring up Anthony Scaramucci not even uttering the phrase off-the-record during his bizarre call to Ryan Lizza and then being upset when his words were published? Assuming OP was correct and journalist friend never would have said anything, OP could have pretended it never happened. I think its very strange that so many commenters are trying to police the LWs feelings about the coworker. 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. 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. But if youre singling people out, or only using it in the context of chastising someone, then yeah, for sure condescending and rude. How do I politely turn down the call for an interview by another employer? 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. Unfortunately, someone did leak the info so all the employees read about the information in a major business news website AND the local newspaper the night before the event despite the intention for the employees to hear the news firsthand at the event before it was released to the public. So yeah, confidential stuff is confidential for a reason. Think of speaking with a colleague like speaking with your boss. It simply means that your employees are not to disclose proprietary information or data about your company to another person without your consent. You learned, BOY HOWDY did you learn, and now you dont mess around not even gossiping with co-workers or any of those other little ways that could instill doubt in your discretion. Having worked in communications and journalism for the past 15 years, I think this ishonestly really bad. Oh yes. Yes! In fact, if you are being sent overseas, you have to take a special counterintelligence training before you go that includes tips like dont wear items with your agencys name written on them while you travel and never park next to a panel van.. Is there a solution to add special characters from software and how to do it. (And thats before you tack on that LW thought it wasnt SO bad because he told Journalist Jason, who can keep a secret, as opposed to Reporter Robert, whos a real sieve.). That was not an enjoyable situation at all. That doesnt mean you need to go into all the details or give a lengthy mea culpa, but you dont want to sound like youre minimizing it. It's a good idea to own it and let your management know. Organisations can set up static rules (for example, you can send emails to business A but not business B), but these traditional methods are rigid and unreliable. I was in tech there and had worked on a new interface for agents, lets call it TEAPOT. This was a Friday. 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. I agree. I found out accidentally.) I work as a contractor on a program that just announced 10 new cities will be joining. I have also had to recommend the firing of a personal friend. OP has been mature about admitting fault, lets not undermine that by implying it was no big deal. What probably really hurt the OPs case was that the friend is a journalist. They may very well have not had the option to give you a second chance, whether you wanted to or not. I replaced someone who had embezzled from the (small) company. Here are five such rules, most of which were broken by Block (who reportedly left Oracle yesterday.) In my experience, it was highly effective. It is not clear at this stage whether the 911 caller will be pursuing a civil claim for damages as a result of the privacy violation. 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. 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. 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. 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. I think she got paid in sandwiches and the knowledge she was the only woman to neck with Nero Wolfe, though. Yeah, Im wondering that too. confusedabouteverything Forumite. I wont get into too many details, but where I work had a plan that was controversial and there was both opposition to it, internal and external. He was employed elsewhere within a few weeks. It might not be that the coworker reported you. You will bounce back! Second, OP should never have told their friend, trusted or notthe problem is that OP should not ave disclosed it to anyone. The type of sanctions that Contract Killer is talking about would only apply to confidential records, not non-public records. The project Im currently working on has confidentiality and embargoes that are all geared toward creating a marketplace moment. It also wasnt illegal to share it, because it was about a program or something that has now publicly been announced, so this doesnt even fall under the criminal aspect brought up in the original comment. Theres a great blog called SorryWatch (.com) that analyzes & critiques apologies made by public figures. Concepts like snitching, tattling, and ratting out dont apply in the workplace. In government, keep this confidential almost always means never share ever on pain of serious legal sanctions.. +10. Why is it so hard for people to just keep their (figurative) mouth shut? It still sucks, but its not really personal per se, and perhaps it will help a little bit to think of it that way. Funny story: My mom used to call the bank I worked at where she had an account. In some cases, there can even be criminal charges for knowingly releasing certain information. So Id do what Alison says here, and save your OMG I cant keep this in confessions for your pets. They got caught. I once interviewed someone with a great resume but had switched specialties within the field. Yes, this. LW, first, I want to offer sympathy. It can take down evil people who mean to do others harm. was. Sometimes that PHI belongs to people I know. Was this alone enough to be fired, or is there a history? I now work somewhere where I have access to sensitive information, including my own. Im interested in the fact that the journalist friend is described as 100% trustworthy. And if we do, well tell them not to tell anyone.. This was not the coworker telling the boss that OP left 5 minutes early, took a personal call during work hours but OP violating a strict rule even if they trusted the friend. Then what? If Jane knows, then it cant be too bad.. 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. I recall a year or so into this administration at least a couple federal departments making A Big Deal out of leaks because it seemed like every other story (usually negative) was quoting an anonymous source sharing sensitive information they werent authorized to release. We go through training every 6 months, that we should NOT to tell the coworker or customer that we will need to report them. YOU know you wouldnt do it again, but nobody else can really know that. 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. I wonder if OP ever got the chance to correct the misunderstanding. It stinks but in this industry, thats a deal-breaker for many. If anything went down, you could say But Older Coworker knew! Youve got some great feedback from Alison and I hope it all works out for you. I am very, very lucky. Im going to go see how they reviewed it.). That response will likely impress an employer that she has grown and learned, that she is honest and has some self-awareness, and that she would be worth trusting. If that is so, there is nothing you can do to avoid the termination and you should be looking for new employment. Employees can't just post anything they want on Facebook or anywhere else. Yeah, its like that line from Horton Hears A Who. Depending on the circumstances, you can indeed get fired for sending what you assume to be a private email or text. So, he learns about things at the same time as the public, and he just knows when Im extra busy because theres a big release coming, or someone messed something up, etc. This. They are not neutral. Yeah, I wish the mentor had walked the LW directly to the boss to discuss this openly. I recently saw a movie in pre-screening thats being pushed to be a blockbuster. This is an actual security headache/nightmare for my government department as its so common for people to go out to lunch and start discussing what theyre working on while eating. At some workplaces, the hiring process includes security checks that even go into your social media profile, blogs, etc, to see whether your personal communications display a suitable level of discretion. Everything from whats going to be on sale for Black Friday, to customer financial data. Theres a lot of admittedly not very exciting info the federal government is sitting on at any time. This is important both in terms of owning your mistake and not blaming the person who reported it. [Well-known bad person] is going to be fined/punished/arrested. Disclosing confidential information has, at best, resulted in nothing, and at worse, resulted in injury/death, or even political systems toppling. This was all public information, but the original report was work product of Company A even if it had originally been created by the coworker. Thats not how embargoes work, and the reasons why we have embargoes are important and valid, even if they may seem like not a big deal in the context of a specific disclosure.
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