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Yep, I think its worth LW remembering that while she knew shed never leak anything again, her boss and co-workers dont. 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 have been fired for a dumb mistake. This will sound very, VERY strange, but if you have the urge to share things youre not supposed to, theres a trick you can try: telling a fictional character in an imaginary conversation. Any of our PR folks would be immediately fired. This is probably not a feasible strategy, unless the OP was at the job for only a few months. Finally I decided to own it at the next interview and I got the job. Nothing I said contradicts this. I found out accidentally.) blue_haddock wrote: . LW told a human known to be a journalist about The Thing. The first job will be the hardest but gradually you are less and less likely to be asked about an older job. Sometimes that PHI belongs to people I know. can you get fired for accidentally sending confidential information. The company would have thought everything was hunky dory, but they would have employee on staff who did not understand confidentially requirements. If someone used the words ratted me out or told on me in an interview, that would be pretty much an immediate DQ for me as it shows a total lack of personal responsibility and maturity. I think in both cases, part of the concern is this retroactive removal of risk. Instead, youre better off with something like, The truth is, I was fired. Being honest going forward really will help OP to repair the damage to her reputation and show she has integrity. I didnt read it that way, its not a question of the coworker being Untrustworthy, its a matter of the OP not being able to judge who she can trust to keep things quiet. She shared it with a friend. 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 This is a solvable problem. I encourage you to get involved with PRSA. You shouldnt be upset at your coworker, if anything she should be upset with you for putting her in that situation. OP, think about your choice to share with this person. Plus, I think part of it was that it was exciting BECAUSE it was secret, and now its apparently common knowledge. Point is that the higher-level feelings or lowest level conceptualization (that is, the integration of the gut punch and the sense that it cant have been that bad, if it wasnt meant badly, and sense that it cant have been wrong to trust friend, because friend was trustworthy) are still encouraging OP to draw incorrect conclusions about the seriousness of their action, and the appropriateness of their employers actions. I dont think we fired anyone but the need for absolute confidentiality was reiterated. This is how old I am. (They could be facing prison time.). Moving forward, the best way to handle it is be honest. In a couple of hours, the news agencies were calling the federal government, to verify the news. The part I think is dangerous is calling the coworker a rat and saying that disclosing to friend was not a mistake. Were considering opening ours up to partner agencies, and I spent a good two hours cleaning up the old messages in the general chat. how do employers know if you're answering "have you ever been fired" honestly? rev2023.3.3.43278. Between that and having family members who have been laid off and lost access to their work account that they used for personal use as well, I have learned to keep work and personal email accounts separate. 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. Because, if you did the first apology option then I think it would be (more) possible youd get a 2nd chance. The emphasis on how not harmful the infraction was is totally hurting your case, OP. Im interested in the fact that the journalist friend is described as 100% trustworthy. 2007-2023. 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. A member of the public wants some data, they contact anybody in the agency they can think of, the internal employees bounce it around because somehow they dont know who to send data requests to, and finally it gets to us and we respond. journalists dont leak information, unless its something confidential about their own employers. If there was no record, then there is no possible sanction under FOIA or sunshine law (because that only pertains to records). Judgement errors tend to repeat themselves. 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 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. Really? If I happened to expose that to my BIL who runs the comic book store and has a bunch of media and arts and entertainment contacts? Please keep us updated and let us know how things work out for you. Thats why they told you the information was confidential. In my job I often get embargoed advance copies of speeches that politicians are going to give they send them out to press to help us start working on getting most of a story written and cleared so we can just drop in a few quotes and crowd reactions and publish the story within 5-10 minutes of the speech ending. The best workplace I ever saw in this regard was a law firm that specializes in foreclosure (I am not a lawyer, but I worked there in another capacity). The type of sanctions that Contract Killer is talking about would only apply to confidential records, not non-public records. 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. I remember the line of people walked out the door for looking at OJ Simpsons records when he was arrested. You did a thing that caused this outcome. Agree with this. But if I did, itd basically just be gossip (I hear Senator Ys staff is really frustrated) that they could choose to report out in detail or not, and definitely wouldnt be traced back to me. No! Or that might not make a difference on how its interpreted. I did not get fired for the offense, but I genuinely learned a great deal from the experience and it changed the entire way I interacted with clients, for the better. If any of those connections were being intercepted by an unknown third party, however, you've just put your customer's data into their hands. This is so well said. If someone had been privy to the list of cities prior to the announcement, and leaked it, they would 100% have been fired. On the non-security side of things its fascinating to learn what the folks in the booth behind me are working on as Im quietly eating lunch, but its a serious security violation to discuss that kind of thing in public and it makes me cringe so hard when it happens. And you did it over company lines. I accidentally sent the email about the female coworker to this other female coworker. 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). They can only control what their employees do, and thats why they have those rules, and not much leeway for people who dont adhere to them. This is important both in terms of owning your mistake and not blaming the person who reported it. On other occasions, you might accidentally receive a confidential email with information meant for one person (or a few people) you know. 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. If I wanted a cookie and I didnt get one, I can feel sad, and thats fine. But if you act that way about a mistake at a previous job, I think people might worry about the same behavior in the future. Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been. The damage from most leaks isnt visible until much later, but it can be massive. Lose that part of the defense completely, OP. You didnt have a right to privileged information once you demonstrated that you werent trustworthy. Until the boys parents threw the uncle out. You can never rely on people to be 100% trustworthy, no matter how long youve known them. It made it seem like some part of OP still feels hard done by, rather than really getting it. Theres beating themselves up, but then theres also understanding and feeling properly appalled that they did something really unconscionable. Journalists discuss things all the time that dont make it into published stories, or make it into stories that get killed, or get used for shaping further investigation, or even just as gossip. As this was almost the entirety of your job they really couldnt keep you around. 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). (I think, I never worked in government communications so Im not positive of this.). The emotion is neutral; its what you do with it that counts. What if another journalist saw the email over your friends shoulder? This mixed with the coworkers inflated story, I would be more than annoyed by this coworker too. 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. Life is full of these weird potholes we find ourselves in at times. When it came up during her interview, the candidate said it was complex and that shed learned from it. And youre being very generous toward the coworker in saying she misunderstood and mistakenly misrepresented it. a coworker at my company was discussing a future potential release at a bar loud enough that someone heard it, and then posted it on a public forum. Removed a long string of comments about the condescension in the honey remark. Im not trying to teach her a lesson, necessarily, she seems to have gotten the point. Oh, I wish Id seen this before replying. Forgetting to attach a mentioned attachment is common, but still embarrassing. But even if there is no danger, an obligation to report is just that. Heres one: You work for the Census Bureau , which runs demographic surveys beyond the decennial Census, and came across [popular celebrity]s personal info, perhaps noting they live near you. Theres no context where calling a stranger honey doesnt feel condescending (whether someone intends it to or not!). This was a Friday. Yikes. Letter writer: If youre still dealing with this emotionally, focus on the facts. It helps you to catch context-driven mistakes such as adding the wrong recipient, attaching the wrong file, or forgetting to use Bcc instead of cc. But your friends profession means you often cant share these types of things with her because of other peoples perceptions about it they dont know your friend, and while she may take off the record seriously, some journalists dont and your coworkers have no way of knowing which type of journalist she is. Ill add one point: You dont know that she didnt leak it. (Most companies that use these kinds of scanners dont let employees know. I dont think it matters now, but the Slack functionality for deleting messages from channels is pretty thorough. The OP actually committed a fairly serious breach. 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. Agreed. You hear something genuinely classified and blab it too because its so cool? How do I tell potential future employers why I got fired and have them still want to hire me? Accidents happen inadvertently but this is not the case here. All journalists are human and many of us have spouses/friends who do things that are news, and this is a situation where good boundaries can protect everyone. This was more or less what I was thinking. 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 . And I told Mom, so so so many times that I didnt build it myself! I deal with it by having friends in the firm who I can say it to (but not in a bar!). Ethically, you dont have to do anything. I can see a manager getting pressure from the top to reduce leaks choosing to fire someone over even a minor leak. Also, its not clear from your response Do you understand how serious what you did was? People leak or share things to journalists they know all the time, with agreements by those journalists on how to share it. We dont know if the coworker intentionally or mistakenly misrepresented the scope of OPs disclosure. The message there is dont violate confidentiality policies. The Expert above is not your attorney, and . I got fired due to sending an email by mistake to the wrong person that had someone else's credit card information in - Answered by a verified Employment Lawyer . Yes and thats the consequence they now have to live with. And it is so hard! The org needed to know in order to assess potential damage and limit future opportunities. Im still pretty upset that I had no second chance, but I suppose I just lost their trust. 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. Is anyone else dying to know what the information was? 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.. THIS ^^^ Whether it is age or just immaturity, there is clearly a major blind spot about the big picture and the potential impact resulting from this behavior. 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.