can you get fired for accidentally sending confidential informationhow to draw 15 degree angle with set square

Another point: you didnt just accidently tell about it. One of my favorite shows had a plotline about a sibling not liking someone not breaking doctor confidentiality. 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. And thats still very unrealistic / way off-base, if OP truly gets why this was a slam-dunk decision, in that particular circumstance. Remember to be kind to yourself: youre human, you made a mistake and, as you said, youve learned from it. While it didnt result in any press, it was obviously a major lapse in judgment and I understand why it resulted in my termination. But it could be that GSA's dad had a code/password to verify it was actually him and the caller forgot to verify that first. The damage from most leaks isnt visible until much later, but it can be massive. Firing you was probably not what they wanted to do, and Im sorry. How do I make amends and go about apologizing to former manager(s) after being dismissed for gross misconduct? Bye. As a damage control, should I (as the manager responsible) send a message to all employees explaining what occurred and asking them to respect the confidentiality of the information and not open nor forward the information to anyone else or should I just not bring additional attention to this message? I agree with you that its ok for OP to feel resentful (at least in the short-run)! Yes of course it feels bad that you were fired. I dont know the OPs financial status but if she needed the $$$ its not that easy to look at it as a kindness in the moment. You knew better. TootsNYC is talking about this latter case. I understand that you get that what you did was a very big deal as a single event, but I think you might need to spend some more time examining for yourself why you would describe this as a victimless crime. The fact that your friend didnt as far as you know tell anyone else about your bombshell doesnt meant that nothing happened. If OP doesnt recognize and own up to that, thats going to be a bigger red flag for potential employers than if OP said, I made a mistake, learned from it, and it wont happen again.. Count your blessings that you just got fired. But if I found out a coworker was sharing this information with just anyone it would be a probably HIPAA violation and, yes, I would need to tell my boss. This is probably not a feasible strategy, unless the OP was at the job for only a few months. Even when it doesnt require them to report it, it still could have consequences they dont want to be a part of! I replaced someone who had embezzled from the (small) company. In fact, the coworker probably was obligated to report it anyway since she wasnt sure about the extent of the breach. the coworker had an obvious physical feature that the poster mentioned, so the company was able to figure out who was discussing it in a public place and *fired* them for it. Nothing I said contradicts this. Yes, the ratted me out thing is probably not a fair assessment of what actually happened here. If you lie during the interview and the truth later comes out, thats enough to get you fired. OP, take a deep breath. (They could be facing prison time.). Journalists seek out and report information thats their job. Its no fun to be fired. It might not be that the coworker reported you. "Compose the email, and only then go back and enter the address (es)," he says. An example: 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. 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. Thats also real life. They looked at themselves as an organization and realized that the damage was irrevocable. The OPs comment here didnt seem defensive to me at all, and its definitely understandable that the letter was written in the heat of the moment. I think its very strange that so many commenters are trying to police the LWs feelings about the coworker. Period. 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. a friend sent en email containing critical information and documents about a particular person to a person who wasn't that person. A number of US governmental agencies specifically require that the co-worker NOT tell LW that she will be reporting this to management. If you were fired for an embarrassing reason that would torpedo your chances in an interview, say that your position was eliminated. I feel LWs pain. And calling this victimless isnt a helpful framing; if you do something thats clearly forbidden and could result in real harm, thats a problem even if no harm resulted this time. Blame yourself for breaking the rules. I doubt she is the only person that has ever done anything like this. Its a risk when you ignore these compliance issues especially willfully. There are, unfortunately, many things I am doomed to not know even though I would really like to find out. To say my friend was mortified would be an understatement. See Rule 1.2 (d). He was very good about keeping track of his boundaries, and we got very used to finding ways of being politely interested in how his work was going for him without putting pressure on him about the details. But heres the thing you still have to have a ton of discretion about how you share and where. They fell prey to the Its just a quick peek and it wont hurt anybody fallacy. I think particularly since its the government, they couldnt take the risk of it happening again and it becoming public that not only was their a breach of confidentiality but that the person responsible had done it before. I was an HR coordinator at a hospital and even though I did not deal with patient records or patients or anything remotely health care-y, I was required to take the annual training and accept compliance as a mandatory part of my employment. Honestly this feels well intentioned but not right. Those kinds of disclosures often rise to the level of immediate termination, which is what happened, here. When an employer says something is confidential, take it seriously If a breach is proved, the employee may be liable for hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages Howard Levitt Published Aug 01, 2019 Last updated Oct 28, 2019 4 minute read Join the conversation 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. MUCH stronger. All the meanwhile you're still trying to run a successful business and handling other things that are coming up. I wont lie, Im tremendously curious, but I also know this is just one of those things I will never get to know. I was new, too eager to please, naive and I let the client rush me instead of following established protocol. Finally I decided to own it at the next interview and I got the job. You can never rely on people to be 100% trustworthy, no matter how long youve known them. Even innocuous-sounding information, like the name of a database, can be a huge security risk. (I mean, I think its a great program, but Im realistic about things lol.) I love telling people things! Which is so far beyond the truth Im honestly wondering if this coworker had it out for me the whole time. I wonder if OP ever got the chance to correct the misunderstanding. 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. We dont even know where the LW is; Alison has gotten letters from outside of the United States before. She has to protect her job and reputation as well in the end, she shouldnt have to risk her own job stability due to your choices! This incident was a huge violation of trust. If youre excited about a new, increased source of funding, that shows your agency has money to spend. And by becoming the must fanatically trustworthy discreet person. The mistake was breaking company policy not that they announced to a coworker they broke company policy. Excellent points, especially LWs use of ratted out. Alison has said so many times that theres no tattling in the work world. Instead, the employees found out by reading the news instead, which hurts morale. On other occasions, you might accidentally receive a confidential email with information meant for one person (or a few people) you know. Note: You dont want to frame this as It would have been made public eventually so I did nothing wrong. Your tone is still very much acknowledging that you messed up. So far that has not happened. how do you handle being pregnant at work? Theres no context where calling a stranger honey doesnt feel condescending (whether someone intends it to or not!). I dont mean to sound harsh but you really need to break out of this frame of mind. And youre being very generous toward the coworker in saying she misunderstood and mistakenly misrepresented it. 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. 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. I encourage you to get involved with PRSA. They care a little more in the last 2 years, but not much. But there was no way we were actually going to get the contract now if they didnt. If it was something that was a big deal to LW but not huge news externally, yeah, its not a thing. Good luck to you I think Allisons advice for answering questions about this experience is spot on. I dont know if shell do it again, but Im certainly not going to take the risk on someone who doesnt even seem to be sorry. In most reporting policies i am aware of it would be considered tipping off and get the person reporting in trouble. If you shared something with me that I didnt ask you about or probe for, and just knowing it could jeopardize my reputation or career you bet your ass Id share it with our manager. 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. If not, an investigation would be started on which employees were poking around in Famous Persons account and why. We also got early warning that legislators were encouraged to resign, a day or two before the press releases. Yeah, I thought it was from her personal cell too. The main problem is that 'copying data in a very insecure way to be able to bring those data. It makes the sender aware of their mistake and less likely to bother you again in the future. In other words, dont assume the information only went to the person you sent it to. 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. Equally, when we had a client who does the same job role as someone I know, I had to completely embargo that piece of information in my head, because I know that its a small field and my friend might recognise the detail I thought was vague enough to be anonymous. 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. Oh, its possible to be a rat in the workplace. 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. I hope you find something good soon and can put this behind you. 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. If you need to share with the boss do so. 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. You shouldnt be upset at your coworker, if anything she should be upset with you for putting her in that situation. If someone had been privy to the list of cities prior to the announcement, and leaked it, they would 100% have been fired. The best solution for avoiding misdirected email altogether is through human layer security. People dont talk about it very much but it definitely happens. Contact the unintended recipient It's a good idea to contact the unintended recipient as soon as you realize the error. Does your company know she could have called the police? We were interviewing someone who had broken the #1 cardinal ethical rule in our industry (a branch of health care). 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. Same applies here as you stated. Leaking private information in a huge breach, especially if that leak is to a journalist. But even if there is no danger, an obligation to report is just that. and starting the work of rebuilding reputation. How could you have felt defensive about getting disciplined for that? I think it most likely would be very boring, but some stuff like the jobs report a few days early would be very interesting to unscrupulous investors. But I agree that reporting coworkers for actual errors that actually affect the company isnt ratting. And it doesnt sound to me as though the OPs coworker was in any way a rat. Im more curious about what KIND of exciting information it was. (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.). That said, I am curious if theres other context that explains why they fired you for a first offense without warning you first. You violated your contract so your previous employer had little choice but to let you go - your new employer will understand this but if you show them you've accepted responsibility for it and will make sure never to do that again then I think you've got a good chance of getting another position. Only behaviors are right or wrong. Ive worked in the banking industry for a couple decades and this would be a fireable offense on the first instance, no ifs, ands, or buts. The emotion is neutral; its what you do with it that counts. True, but youre talking more about deciding to become a whistleblower over something potentially dangerous to the public. Perhaps the way you feel (felt?) That oh honey is so unnecessary, and questioning LWs age is just rude. If you talk about sensitive stuff in public you best be sure youre actually anonymizing what you have to say. Posting confidential company information, good or bad, is not protected. Messages like this can simply be ignored and deleted. Ideally. I went to my boss explained the situation and let me boss make the decision if we wanted to share the report. Separately, when you share, you have to still be oblique enough to not get yourself in trouble. But folks with strong confidentiality duties often dont disclose the confidential parts of the information to their trusted confidants or partners. But Im a journalist whos covered federal agencies, so I know super exciting to agency employees does not necessarily equal huge news for everyone else.

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