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No work friendship is worth putting my familys financial security on the line. Confidential Info Accidentally Sent to a Large Distribution List If anyone required training to answer FALSE! It shouldnt happen but Id understand if it did. When it came up during her interview, the candidate said it was complex and that shed learned from it. (I mean, I think its a great program, but Im realistic about things lol.) Im not understanding how OPs update comment reads as defensiveit shows significant progression from deflection to ownership, to me. 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.. confusedabouteverything Forumite. But fairly often it was classified to some degree, and he could only talk about how his project was going but not about what it was. She was an employee of the agency, who shared it with the journalist. This is your making, and while I wish you luck, you have zero cause to be disgruntled with your coworker or employer. When they took the only course of action they could have taken and still kept their job and notified your employer of your actions, you became defensive of your actions. As a government employee they are obligated to report a breach of information regardless of whether they like the employee they are reporting or hate their guts. You wrote, The only reason I got fired was because I was ratted out by a coworker for a victimless mistake and was fired unfairly. But you werent fired because your coworker reported you; you were fired because you broke a serious rule. 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. The fact that you were surprised and angry (to the point of calling her a rat, essentially) speaks to the fact that you actually do NOT know who you can expect to keep things secret, at least not as well as you think. Ive been poking around in our payroll system for the last two weeks. Personal info is never OK to share with anyone, or things that could lead to recognizing a person if someone happens to know that person (and you never know who knows who). Good luck to you, OP, with getting over this one. It simply means that your employees are not to disclose proprietary information or data about your company to another person without your consent. I am trying not to be too harsh but yes you screwed up. You colleagues are often the closest people to you, so it makes sense to want to tell them about your problems (which include work screw-ups), but you cant. Your employer lost control of this information, even in a very small way, and thats a big deal. Same here. I have also had to recommend the firing of a personal friend. She showed no contrition or reflection. (the confessional? Good luck to you I think Allisons advice for answering questions about this experience is spot on. Another point: you didnt just accidently tell about it. Dont fall for it. Based on it happening before GSA was born, this most likely happened on a land line. I can remember almost exactly what I said: It was wrong of me to put that information out. Thanks for sharing all of this. If I had an employee that did this, Id expect them to be mortified and I would expect to hear how seriously they were going to take embargoes from here on out, and the LWs letter and response are almost the exact opposite. My company is not going to jeopardize a $500M/yr contract over my mouth. A large part of this is creating the interest that will drive The Thing, and the market/desirability of The Thing. In "Labs," scroll down to "Undo Send" and enable it. 27 April 2021. This was a Friday. Its also true that people do break confidentiality for a variety of reasons, but people who are really really REALLY aware that they are breaking confidentiality and how big the consequences of it are, are also on top of not leaving a footprint that can be traced back to them. There wasnt any risk, my judgment was good!. 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. If the policy says people who tell information to non authorized individuals must be fired they could have been fired for not firing you. ), You also werent fired for technically breaking a rule. You were fired for actually breaking a rule, and a serious one. I was under the impression that most big companies had a policy against telling a reference checker anything beyond dates of employment. From there they have 72 hours to resolve the situation. (For example, my BFF works at the Pentagon. Plenty of folks are friends in my business lobbyists, journalists, staffers you cant lose control of your impulse to share information. Including their reputation being damaged. . Sometimes were lucky and there arent any repercussions. In this case you will get a second chance it will just be with another employer. Maintaining confidentiality is a foundational occupational requirement in a lot of fields. You believe your friend is trustworthy but, wow, the optics of sharing with a friend who is a journalist are really bad, and . And sometimes at shows they dont identify themselves as press immediately. (Even before learning it was to a reporter!) How do you approach company policy in general? And by becoming the must fanatically trustworthy discreet person. a. problem then you APOLOGIZE and APOLOGIZE rather than defend yourself. It wasnt particularly kind to her friend, either. So Id do what Alison says here, and save your OMG I cant keep this in confessions for your pets. My first thought was of the whole JK Rowling / Robert Galbraith fiasco. how do I get out of an active-shooter drill at my office? I understand that the breach was very bad and that the organization needed to take some disciplinary action, but it seems to me that firing an employee who fessed up to something like this to a senior coworker sends the message: If you mess up bad enough, dont tell anyone. At the same time, though, its a program the average American would likely never have heard of and would give less than a crap about. The best solution for avoiding misdirected email altogether is through human layer security. Theres beating themselves up, but then theres also understanding and feeling properly appalled that they did something really unconscionable. Confidentiality is a big deal for a lot of reasons, and people in those types tend to respect that. I wanted to say, it sucks you lost your job after this one time indiscretion, but Im glad you understand the seriousness of it and with Alisons script, I hope youll find a new job soon. Its no fun to be fired. Can You Get Fired for Opening a Phishing Email [Deep Research] Nah, I think the odds of whats super exciting to a government agency being equally exciting to me are pretty slim. And even worse when it can have legal implications like for insider trading or government secrecy. Best wishes! Second chances arent a foregone conclusion in any aspect of life or work; your expectation that there should have been one at all suggests a level of entitlement that needs to be examined. Messages like this can simply be ignored and deleted. I doubt it was the plan to storm Area 51. 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. On Monday, I was called into a fact-finding meeting with HR. The project Im currently working on has confidentiality and embargoes that are all geared toward creating a marketplace moment. Also, no matter how good a friend someone is, if they are a journalist you need to zip your lips. Im so sorry and I will never do anything like that again.. The embargoes I deal with are not earth-shaking (or even quivering), but the people involved are dead serious about not publicizing the information before a specific time. Can I be fired for sending a derogatory text about my boss to my - Avvo Where the investigation uncovers evidence of divulging confidential information, then the employer should take formal action. 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). If OP reasoned I told mentor, confident that there was NO WAY she would let anything slip it throws a lot of doubt on her parallel reasoning of how certain it was that the journalist wouldnt let anything slip. 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? If theres anything else you can say about your work there to put this in context like that you had received a glowing performance review, were taking on increasing levels of responsibility, etc. You didn't accidentally email the material to yourself, you did it on purpose. The initial complaint filed against Google is currently under seal because the judge has asked the bank to redact the Gmail account from its filings. 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. Fired for gross misconduct because I sent confidential information to Submitting a contact form, sending a text message, making a phone call, or leaving a voicemail does not create an attorney-client relationship. Ultimately, its your choice to make. An employer of mine got a FOIA request where they asked for every email wed sent to anyone from any regulatory agency. I admit to being incredibly curious as well. This is mostly a matter of describing your motivation appropriately, and in this respect "At that time, I did not realize" does a better job of conveying that your basis of judgment has changed in the course of that experience than a mere "I did not realize" would. This type of thing could have easily happened to your journalism friend in the office. OPs best bet is to stop blaming their coworker or minimizing what happened. We received a staff email that shared that they were going to release some BIG news about positive new office changes and remodeling and that there was going to be a BIG press conference in 2 days at our office with a lot of high-up political bigwigs and asked everyone to show up for support. I think its very strange that so many commenters are trying to police the LWs feelings about the coworker. This. In a roundabout way, they somewhat did you a kindness by firing you. I think youd be in trouble for sharing that kind of information over the phone, regardless of who he was talking to. 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). Your first step should be to contact your old HR department and ask about their policies for reference checks. This is an issue in most fields. Does your company know she could have called the police? Journalists seek out and report information thats their job.. Best wishes to OP in her work on this. Its unfortunate that LW lost her job over it but the coworker isnt to blame for LWs decision to disclose information they werent supposed to. It was a refreshingly candid answer and so we wound up hiring him. Doesnt matter that its your friend or that you trust her, its still a huge liability. Loved your opening act for Insolent Children, btw. The issue of whether HIPAA information can be emailed is complicated. You certainly don't need to blurt out a 5 minute monologue unprompted, but you do want to be ready to answer these questions because they will come up if you disclose what happened as you intend to. Sometimes that PHI belongs to people I know. And I told Mom, so so so many times that I didnt build it myself! If you break certain unspoken rules, you can lose your job or ruin your career. No! Yup! Did you apologize profusely and then explain that there was some miscommunication here? Yeah, seconding this. And if weve learned anything from this letter, its that information thats supposed to be kept secret isnt always. Of course, but if you think that there arent tons of people out there whove made huge mistakes and managed to keep it from getting out, youre kidding yourself. read something out loud THEN realize that it wasnt public information. 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. Once you realize that you are likely on the road to employment termination, you need to know that there are options: Responding To The Red Flags. I work in patents, and regularly see information that can definitely not be made public and has to be sent back and forth with extra security measures, but would also be tremendously boring to everyone but the IP team for a few specific rival companies in a very tiny field. Oh, so LW cant keep a secret from her reporter friend or her coworker, but were ragging on the coworker for not keeping LWs secret? Its hard though, and its a skill thats learnt over time. The latter looks more like something that could repeat under similar circumstances. It can feel like the end of the world but I promise you it isnt. A few weeks ago I worked on a medical chart for A Big Rockstar, but not only do I get fired if I tell anyone which one, I get fired if I open up a single page of his chart that I cant explain, if asked, what the exact and specific work-related reason for opening that page was. When they call for a reference, many employers will absolutely say if you were fired or laid off, and they will give detailed references. Can you get fired for a PERSONSAL email accidentally sent to a coworker The main problem is that 'copying data in a very insecure way to be able to bring those data. And off the record requests from journalists arent mandated by law. Thats not really a response to the OP but more a pushback on some the comments. Its also something that happens in a business relationship rather than a personal one, because the assumption is that personal relationships are entirely off the record. When we accidentally receive a confidential email from people outside our own organisations, things are a little trickier. 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. As far as I know, he held the highest security clearance a civilian could have. It makes the sender aware of their mistake and less likely to bother you again in the future. Unfortunately accepting responsibility doesnt always work in some workplaces, it just digs your hole. I am now going to assume that its exactly that. One Employee's Accidental Email Leads To A Significant Data Breach If I ever texted a journalist about nonpublic information Id be fired. 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. The mistake was breaking company policy not that they announced to a coworker they broke company policy.. 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. If we think about this, not only did she trust her journalist friend, she trusted her coworker not to tell anyone either. But from there you can talk about what you learned from the experience and how this makes you a better employee/candidate now. One of the things that is emphasized very heavily at my agency is that your own perception of how important a piece of information is does not give you enough information to decide if its really a big deal. Resist the temptation to gossip about fellow employees and don't express your disdain for your. 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. This is 100% on you. Oof this is so condescending! 1. Its too difficult to know which internally-discussed information is confidential and which isnt. I think the wider point is that anyone can make that mistake at any age, and speculating about this part of it is irrelevant and not helpful. The emphasis on how not harmful the infraction was is totally hurting your case, OP. Agreed. 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. Oh honey UGH you are just the worst. Not me. That makes a certain subset of people *extremely* excited. At the time, I thought it would be ok since it wouldnt cause a problem, but I realize it was not up to me to make that judgement. 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. Our newspapers report quite frequently on gossip of whats happening behind the scenes. I sent a compromising message to the wrong person. How will I ever I used to work at a public Zoo that was owned by the state, and so we were all state government employees. But you see that now I hope. I wonder LW, would your interactions with the higher ups have been different if your co-worker/mentor had given you the heads up that she was going to have to report this? Sometimes they do, and other times they tell the person telling them that they or their actions negatively impacted another person that *they* are the ones in the wrong for telling them something that made them feel bad. Being honest going forward really will help OP to repair the damage to her reputation and show she has integrity. Also, am I even allowed to bring up the fact that someone ratted me out? Im assuming the LW plead their case and filled in relevant information.