Right. The awareness that anything sent in your work email is subject to FOIA and open records requests really varies. This makes it seem like they owe LW something, to be loving and release her to her best life. Im of course devastated, and moving on and figuring out my next steps. Accept responsibility for what you did. Let me be clear she did not leak it. I dont mean to sound harsh but you really need to break out of this frame of mind. In a roundabout way, they somewhat did you a kindness by firing you. Check out this article on that HERE. ^^. 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. So please think about that aspect when youre thinking about how she ratted you out. quite a lot of people are going to feel as though youre making them an accomplice in your bad behavior. Instead, you gossiped about it and risked an announcement before things were ready. While it didnt result in any press, it was obviously a major lapse in judgment and I understand why it resulted in my termination. What happens if an email is sent to the wrong person? : r/gdpr - Reddit Even if you feel that way, definitely dont say that! The terminology is often not eligible for rehire., And every time Ive ever given a formal reference, that has been one of the questions: Would you hire her again? or Is she eligible for rehire?. 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. I am a govt worker in NY. Handling confidential information discreetly is a day to day part of working in communications, particularly for government entities (I say as someone in this field). This was a person whose reviews had been glowing up until that moment and I am sure they are still upset that this came out of the blue. Good luck to you, OP, with getting over this one. Not generational, just a young person thing. Have you learned from your mistake? I hope youre able to learn and move on from this, OP. The z department is not allocating the staff they promised. Of course I understand that I broke a rule, and that it was my mistake 100%, and it was no one elses fault. I worked for a federal government contractor and we were awaiting news of whether we were getting a contract renewal. This is how old I am. Like, how did HR and OPs boss come to the conclusion that this information was spread through Slack (!) Don't worry, you're not alone. If it hasnt worked out yet, it isnt the end. Here are five such rules, most of which were broken by Block (who reportedly left Oracle yesterday.) This is a GREAT way to position it. From the other persons perspective, its always easier to say Oh, dont worry, its not that bad than to get a half-hearted minimizing apology for something youre really stinging from. In government, keep this confidential almost always means never share ever on pain of serious legal sanctions.. I thought it was over. Sometimes, like you said, you dont get a second chance. LW I encourage you to ask yourself why you wrote this: Your actions showed you were not trustworthy with confidential information. Even though he loves the MCU and would have enjoyed the anecdotes. Hes in an unrelated field, it doesnt affect him at all, and he wouldnt really care outside of knowing whats going on in Eddies life but hes a chatterbox and theres a decent chance hed forget and say something to someone. How is an ETF fee calculated in a trade that ends in less than a year? Conversely, I cant tell him about certain things from my work, though at least he knows what I do. :) :) :) :) Being a wealthy heiress and a socialite IS a full-time job! 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. Wouldnt you ask why the govt didnt fire them the first time? 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.. Your comment above is much closer to an effective track. 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.. Really? There isnt really such thing as a rat in the workplace. Heres the story: I worked for a large government agency, in communications. Humans, in general, are not geared towards confidentiality and secrecy long-term. Quite recently, a client of my firm contacted us to say they had heard staff in a bar gossiping about another client. We literally filled a room with records for them, and 99% of it was people asking what flavor of donuts to bring to a meeting or requesting copies of informational flyers. Everyone messes up. Goes a long way to being the right way to describe this. Yeah the world just being what it is, if youre this bad at keeping secrets, youre gonna get burned by it pretty quick. They might try to use silence to get you to say more. Well its possible your coworker just had it out for you, but it sounds more likely that she genuinely misunderstood or that she understood perfectly but thought leaking info to a journalist friend was serious enough to report and then it was your boss who misunderstood the details. (Also the NASA leaker didnt get fired. 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. But when I wrote letters to the llama farmers whose llamas had bitten a client whose story about her life-threatening goat allergy was featured in the papers (obviously this is not what actually happened), I had to be sure I didnt say anything about the llama farmer letters that could link to the goat story. So, either way my point remains. Yes, but lets face it, theres no way its as exciting as what any of us are imagining it to be. . Stack Exchange network consists of 181 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. My first thought was of the whole JK Rowling / Robert Galbraith fiasco. Id instantly think that youd learned nothing, that no information we kept around you would be secure, and that anything we brought to you as far as behavior we needed you to change would suddenly be labeled as victimless and only because *truly irrelevant fact here* and unfair. 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. End of story. I understand the issue had to be reported, but why this way ? 1964 is what I remember. Sure but I think its highly unlikely that someone at OPs level would have access to that. And all you learned was to avoid freshly mopped floors? 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. Feelings are frequently conflated with facts in our minds and it can take some work to separate them. What exactly do you want her to do so you feel satisfied that shes recognizing and acknowledging the seriousness of what happened? I dont know the full text of the conversation and I dont want to, but she was probably in a position where she had to tell someone. Sometimes people screw up and they still really need their jobs. update: is my future manager a bigoted jerk? If a member of your staff violates this explicit. You can do this, if you keep working hard on yourself. How did you talk to your boss about the slack channel full of journalists? Were you able to correct the factual mistake in context, and what phrasing did you use? Protect your people from socially engineered phishing attacks, Defend against attacks originating from compromised supply chain accounts, Detect fraudulent invoices and payment requests, Prevent people falling victim to targeted impersonation attacks, Defend against the delivery of ransomware and malware by email, Stop phishing attacks that lead to credential theft, Prevent email data loss caused by human error, Block exfiltration of personal and company data, Preserve ethical walls to prevent disclosure of information and avoid conflicts of interest, Apply the appropriate level of encryption to sensitive emails and attachments, Detect and prevent advanced email threats that slip through Microsoft 365, Provide people with easy, actionable advice in real-time at the point of risk, How to use a hacker's toolkit against them. Those questioners would hammer her on this. Ill add one point: You dont know that she didnt leak it. A while back I had a coworker/friend who created a memo, for our company A, all based on publicly available information, along with suggestions and comments by the coworker. 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. It may be a requirement of employment regarding compliance. Egress Intelligent Email Security is an example of human layer security, as its able to adapt to your individual behaviour through machine learning. Never mind firing for leaks, they dont even hire people who appear to have poor judgement about confidential information. When they call for a reference, many employers will absolutely say if you were fired or laid off, and they will give detailed references. Like, firing on the spot if I access my own chart. Maybe you get a 2nd chance IF you were contrite enough and blamed your excitement at the new teapot program. Embarrassing or inappropriate communications sent via company email can damage professional credibility, reputations, and careers. I work as a contractor on a program that just announced 10 new cities will be joining. She showed no contrition or reflection. OP has been mature about admitting fault, lets not undermine that by implying it was no big deal. If I were in the coworkers position, I would need to do the same thing. I imagine optimal framing varies by industry and so Im not sure what to advise there. One of the things your field requires is to be able to think and act dispassionately about the information you have custody over. She shared it via text not voice, but text, which could be seen by someone else. I used to be a journalist, I have lots of friends who are journalists and I never tell them anything that I shouldnt, even the ones I really trust. I work within the tech/analytics field. A recent Harvard Business Review article indicated widespread use in the workplace, with over one third of the US . I was new, too eager to please, naive and I let the client rush me instead of following established protocol. We got walked through several juicy gossip or personal information scenarios during our orientation in an interactive way, so we could experience the kind of decision-making they wanted, and it was much more memorable. Yeah, I once got fired and I have always framed it as being fired for one thing I said in a meeting, but the truth is, I really got fired for not apologizing for saying the one thing. They would definitely see any mention of confidentiality breach as a huge red flag and drop OP from the hiring process at once. Yep. Or well often hear from contacts on the Hill about something going on behind the scenes, like that a bill is about to be introduced. 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. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, Not the answer you're looking for? Well 1.) 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. But I dont think this applies in any case since it was on her personal cell. 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. LW, I work under some pretty hefty NDAs (currently, Im working on a project where the security protocols themselves are considered to be non-shareable with anyone who doesnt have a business need for them and hasnt also signed an NDA. The protected classes are race, age (40+), sex, national origin, religion, or disability. I could have just sent the report and most likely no one would have ever known, but it would have been a violation of company policy. Yep, I think its worth LW remembering that while she knew shed never leak anything again, her boss and co-workers dont. I will add that I consider neither my cats nor Jesus to be imaginary; the connection was someone you wouldnt get in trouble for sharing with. There are lots of situations in which leaking information to a journalist would absolutely be the right thing to do, and we should absolutely encourage it in those cases.