And you might know that you trust that friend 100% to keep it confidential but your employer would prefer to make that call themselves, and thought theyd done so when they told you the information couldnt be shared. When youre put in a position of trust like that and then abuse that trust, you really leave the organization with no other option but to let you go, even if it is your first offense. I wouldnt be obligated by anything other than displaced loyalty if I wanted to try to be squirrelly of course but I respect myself way too much and have my own standards to just keep quiet about things. I minored in journalism and this attitude is why I never worked in the industry. I feel LWs pain. But we have embargoes for a reason. She would have learned a valuable lesson and still kept her job. 2. Like, how did HR and OPs boss come to the conclusion that this information was spread through Slack (!) How on earth could you know this was a misunderstanding? I work for a public universitys PR office and I 100% know Id be fired if I shared info with anyone before pub date. I work within the tech/analytics field. I have been fired for a dumb mistake. I just want to remind people that it happened. No, no, no, no, no. I guarantee you that somewhere in the company handbook for the Government Agency where you worked there is a paragraph about the obligations of an employee who learns of a data breach. Im still pretty upset that I had no second chance, but I suppose I just lost their trust. . Similar in IT in my first internship, I had access to about 40,000 social security numbers. Head of the department who everyone hates for non-scandal reasons is stepping down amid a scandal Feelings are frequently conflated with facts in our minds and it can take some work to separate them. Any of our PR folks would be immediately fired. Thank you for explaining this! You undertook those actions while working for (1) A Large Governmental Organization, who is answerable to Congress and to the general public for the actions undertaken by their employees, in the (2) Communications department, which is a department where employees will specifically, systematically, regularly be exposed to confidential information that should be kept confidential until such time as it is explicitly said to be something that can be shared publically. This is so well said. I understand your irritation with your former coworker. Which is so far beyond the truth Im honestly wondering if this coworker had it out for me the whole time. 1. I was then let go but will be extremely vigilant in the future to never let this happen again. If you had the same role in a public company, you could have have been fired because of regulations preventing insider trading. Im glad youve learned from your mistake, and I really hope you take this experience to heart as you continue your communications career. Accidental disclosure is the unintentional release or sharing of sensitive information. Im thankful I did this in grad school rather than on the job. 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. I hope youre able to learn and move on from this, OP. I imagine optimal framing varies by industry and so Im not sure what to advise there. Thats the very last reporting step for something illegal/dangerous. Yes, the ratted me out thing is probably not a fair assessment of what actually happened here. As far as I know, he held the highest security clearance a civilian could have. When I finally came clean about it an interview, the response from the hiring manager was thats ridiculous, I would never fire anyone for that.. I wouldnt lead with it, but I wouldnt hide it either if it ever comes up, and folks will likely ask about why youve left past jobs. Taking a quick peek at someones medical records just out of curiosity? I dont find it understandable that the OP expected a second chance for this, as someone who routinely deals with unclassified-but-FOUO, Confidential, and Secret information, except insofar as I can have sympathy for someone who perhaps didnt understand the gravity of their actions until consequences came down. She was fired for the leak to the single friend, the slack channel thing was a brief misunderstanding but shes annoyed it ever happened. Once its out, you have no control over it. Before I was born, there was a project where mother had to get clearance as well. And it seems like you do. Leaking private information in a huge breach, especially if that leak is to a journalist. Thats a big deal. Really? Its the only way they can maintain control of the information. (I dont know if the OP explicitly said off the record, but its not like journalists dont handle that all the time when people do.). I was new, too eager to please, naive and I let the client rush me instead of following established protocol. Misdirecting an email can be awkward. Until the boys parents threw the uncle out. update: is my future manager a bigoted jerk? I have personally learned that if you never want coworkers to find out something embarrassing or private about you, never ever tell them. 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. that should be a firing offense. 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. (I think, I never worked in government communications so Im not positive of this.). That may not be the right wordbut Im having trouble finding the right one. 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. It doesnt matter if your friend is a journalist or not; thats a total red herring. I understand the issue had to be reported, but why this way ? If I were in the coworkers position, I would need to do the same thing. Oh, I wish Id seen this before replying. Unfortunately accepting responsibility doesnt always work in some workplaces, it just digs your hole. Am I missing something? End of story. And if it is a part of that, the coworker was obligated to report it! 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. 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. Sharing HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL info. Its no more blind-siding because the coworker reported the issue, than it would be if, say, IT had reported it after monitoring OPs traffic. I dont know, I think thats overstating. You believe your friend is trustworthy but, wow, the optics of sharing with a friend who is a journalist are really bad, and . 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. So this. (Most companies that use these kinds of scanners dont let employees know. There is a greater issue here regarding judgement. If you lean over a cubicle and whisper I broke the rule! 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. The phone rang in the middle of the night and my mother picked it up, before she could hand the phone to my father, the person on the other end of the phone explained everything that was going on and why he was calling. can you get fired for accidentally sending confidential information. Completely unrelated to the topic at hand, love the username! can you get fired for accidentally sending confidential information. Rules are there because its so easy to do that thing that feels harmless, and sometimes nobody gets hurt.. Bye. 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. how to explain you were fired, when interviewing. This technique requires extra steps, but it . 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. Clearly yall do not understand handling confidential information. 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. and that was interestingthey had criticisms I hadnt thought of. Sorry, Im tired and I think that metaphor got away from me. If it comes across like you dont think it was a big deal or that you blame the coworker for alerting your employer, thats not going to go over well. Because I can almost guarantee that your reputation in that organization would never recover, even if you had remained employed. She could have been a secretary or a spy; no one knows because she went to her grave never telling anyone, not even her husband. This is not about a public records requestits about how information is released to the public before that information becomes public. A good . The employer has a policy against this and everyone working there has signed that they read the policy. Oh no! Coworker Jean who would CC her boss and her grandboss when Jean thought shed caught somebody in an errorbut would then cease CCing once she realized that there was in fact no error? The communications team is often brought on board to develop strategy for organizational decisions that may not be public for weeks or even months. A breech of confidentiality like that can land you and others in jail. It only takes a minute to sign up. 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. I agree that the companys response was wrong the sexual harasser should have been fired but in the US, authority doesnt care. Your feelings are wrong, in this context means,Your feelings arent *morally* wrong.. Im also a public affairs officer for a government agency- one that almost exclusively deals with highly classified information. There are no legal ramifications or civil lawsuits at this stage as it wasn't trade secrets or secret IP. Don't worry, you're still qualified to be Secretary of State. If you can trust someone, you can trust them, journalist or not. An example: "It is likely not private if the employee used the employer . She IS a rat! I have a friend whose mother did work for an intelligence agency during WW2. This has to be, and often is, done formally, with agreements to give something secret in advance so the journalist can prep a story for later, when its OK to share. Its part of driving a media and product blitz where it basically shows up out of nowhere because everyone has been working on it quietly so it would all be ready for the big day. (the confessional? YOU know you wouldnt do it again, but nobody else can really know that. Don't be me, is what I'm saying I guess! Its helped me when a friend has told me something in confidence but I really need to talk about it for whatever reason. We are not in kindergarten. This is 100% on you. Log the incident in an 'cyber accident book'. Or, maybe they totally overreacted, who knows its impossible to say from here. A statement added: 'Irish Ferries crews train regularly to deal with incidents at sea, and the company has put its training into action and the fire has been extinguished. Forgetting the attachment. 2.) (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.). I wont lie, Im tremendously curious, but I also know this is just one of those things I will never get to know. In fact, if I ever got a query from someone I knew, I was required to hand off the query to a colleague. You seriously violated your privileged access to confidential information. The emphasis on how not harmful the infraction was is totally hurting your case, OP. Negative emotions are a learning toolfeeling guilty is very uncomfortable, so we dont repeat the behavior that led to the feeling guilty. If she tried to downplay the seriousness of the breach in the meeting (like saying it was a victimless crime) then they may have decided that they couldnt afford to give a second chance. But that was the right response to what you did. Being honest going forward really will help OP to repair the damage to her reputation and show she has integrity. But I think in order to talk about this with future employers, youve got to take more responsibility for it. 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. A further 2 years can be added onto the sentence for aggravated identity theft. I tell my team that if it leaks from us, they cannot work here. 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. If it was something that was a big deal to LW but not huge news externally, yeah, its not a thing. Shouldnt she be in trouble too? and there she would be, going down with you. And thats still very unrealistic / way off-base, if OP truly gets why this was a slam-dunk decision, in that particular circumstance. Sure, its not going to be easy, but being honest and upfront will serve them a whole lot better than a potential employer finding out from a different source (and its not unlikely that they will find out). How to answer question on moving to another country for job? I completely agree that in the long run, this was a kindness. People working on campaigns get to be privy to all sorts of information that is not intended to be public. Everything from whats going to be on sale for Black Friday, to customer financial data. Youll also want to double-check any attachments. OP, I join Alison in wishing you the very best of luck! Egress Software Technologies Ltd. Find out what you should do when a misdirected email lands in your inbox. They looked at themselves as an organization and realized that the damage was irrevocable. Like X candidate is running for president!. Every bit of what Ive said is probably hearsay. Im assuming the LW plead their case and filled in relevant information. An employee who doesn't know about a policy important enough to fire someone over is just a ticking time bomb to an employer. Yeah, seconding this. Ive definitely been guilty of sharing exciting but not-yet-announced news with colleagues. Reporting misconduct is the right thing to do, and thats how an interviewer is going to see it. The information was work i was working on at the moment and I emailed it as I needed to do work on my personal laptop ; I couldn't take my work station away whilst on extended leave overseas. When telling me about the call, she said that when the checker said the guys name, she couldnt stop herself from bursting out, Wait, he told you to call me?!. its not condescending to point out that what LW did was incredibly foolish. Yeah, its like that line from Horton Hears A Who. For the purposes of VIWI, a confidential client shall be able to establish a mutually authenticated TLS channel with the auth server and resource service, providing a trusted identity, usually in the form of a certificate signed by . Im not sure what the best way is to address this, but were trying! That brings us to your questions. An in-person meeting might be more appropriate if you accidentally sent information about your plans to find another job to your manager. Unless this job was the bulk of your experience, I would leave it off your resume. Sometimes, like you said, you dont get a second chance. You broke a rule and you have to take responsibility. Best of luck with your search. Also, Im so done with people using the phrase ratted me out. Im not trying to beat up on the OP; goodness, Ive done similar things and felt the same way she does! The LW blabbed, why would her friend have more self-control? Then what? And if weve learned anything from this letter, its that information thats supposed to be kept secret isnt always. Age doesnt matter here. Once you told your coworker, you dragged her out there on the plank with you. I dont feel like we need that caveat though, there of course will be exceptions, but this is kinda derailing. If she hadnt told the superiors, she could have been on the hook as well if it came out that you told a journalist confidential information and then told her about it. Better to say in a single instance of poor judgment I let a piece of information get outside of the company to one person which I immediately knew was a mistake and I notified someone in my company. Which is actually good most of us get making a mistake when were young, and really learning from it. If you are still defensive or dismissive about this, it will come through in an interview. Journalists get embargoed or off-the-record information all the time and are able to play by those rules. LW used Slack at work (and was not supposed to) I am assuming you had a clearance of at least Secret. 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. The ex-coworker reached out to me asking if I could send them a copy of the report so they didnt have to start from scratch and repeat the same work they had already done. (I thought Al Frankens apology to the fellow entertainer was pretty good, actually. 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? Alison, I really liked your advice, because it can apply to any situation where the person has truly done something egregious but has to move on. I was often privy to non-public information because I was designing media campaigns around them. ), Because honestly, the more I thought about this letter as I read it, the more uncomfortable I got, too. Are there any reasons why the coworker couldnt be upfront with what had to be done ? And I told Mom, so so so many times that I didnt build it myself! Cringe. I got that impression as well and have had younger coworkers who sent random, very personal info to me in texts. Having said that, as a hiring manager, if you were able to talk to me about how this one-time error in judgment caused a deep shift in thinking and was a critical pivot point in your professional development I would hear you out. 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.