What exactly do you want her to do so you feel satisfied that shes recognizing and acknowledging the seriousness of what happened? But it sounds like it doesnt really matter that HR jumbled the details because neither was a permitted thing to do anyway. It's a good idea to own it and let your management know. AND I told somebody within the company about that? 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). Think of speaking with a colleague like speaking with your boss. I found out accidentally.) Id stay under a cloud of mistrust if that meant a steady paycheck if I didnt have anything else lined up. (Even before learning it was to a reporter!) I personally just try to forget that I know until the information becomes public. Yes. LW, please, please look hard at what happened and how you can promise yourself first of all that this was the last time. Confidentiality can stink at an interpersonal level, everyone tends to talk about their work and it can be hard to hide things from people we care about. While some employers will accept the I take personal accountability and heres how I address it path, this probably does remove some employers from consideration. Agreed. There was no warning, no suspension, nothing. And youre a risk, on top of having done a fireable offense. They may. Or it could be about a broader picture like if youd had performance issues or other problems that made it easier for them to decide to just part ways. This makes it seem like they owe LW something, to be loving and release her to her best life. Coworker would let the other authorities figure that out. Shell lose credibility in the hiring process, and even if she did slip through and get hired, its automatically grounds for a dismissal if the truth ever came to light (even in Canada, where it is harder to let people go from roles than in most of the US states). If it was the 2nd option then, yeah, they were going to let you go. I have information that I have kept confidential for more than a decade that I know the patients wife does not even know (think undisclosed criminal record). Theres no mitigating circumstance here. Giving her information relevant to her beat and asking her not to share it is basically asking her to stand on the sidelines and fail to do her job, while somebody else gets the scoop. Either way, if you commit an offense, its best to never go with its not that big of a deal anyways. Owning up to your mistakes at the right time is hard and the natural instinct to defend yourself is strong, but ultimately thats the best thing to do and garners respect. No! Same here! 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. No one was allowed to approach her and her desk for the week and every night she locked up the removable ribbon from her typewriter because it could be unspooled and read. Agreed. (I think, I never worked in government communications so Im not positive of this.). Im interested in the fact that the journalist friend is described as 100% trustworthy. how else could you have met that need?) 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. Other agencies will provide title and dates, and whether you are eligible for rehire. How to not get fired from work for what you post or send online: Make sure your Facebook and social media accounts are locked down. Heck, at my agency were cautioned to not use work email on our personal devices (unless were management or its an emergency) because records requests could potentially get our personal devices as well. Sometimes the news is a dreadful burden to bear (staff reductions of people you know, elimination of services you think are important) and sometimes the news is exciting, you have the inside scoop and cant wait to share it. You seriously violated your privileged access to confidential information. Third, with bright line rules, we cannot adopt situational ethics where its ok to disclose to close-trusted-journalist-friend because we trust them. You know that saying Its not the crime that gets you, but the cover-up? Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. You arent entitled to a second chance to screw this up. That was not an enjoyable situation at all. That guilt is because you KNEW you did something that was explicitly not allowed, and you went to your coworker in the hopes theyd absolve you of your guilty conscious. So I guess my coworker could have misunderstood when I said I texted one friend, but I wish she would have talked to me about that first? I have a friend whose mother did work for an intelligence agency during WW2. He shared it with one person, telling them it was a joke. I was new to the field and had no idea how dysfunctional that workplace was. Businesses have a term for that kind of behaviour, and that is 'data leakage'. People working on campaigns get to be privy to all sorts of information that is not intended to be public. Can I get fired for . Log the incident in an 'cyber accident book'. 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. I would argue if you acknowledge your error in judgment, it would work more to your benefit, then classifying it as a one-off mistake and overreaction by your company. For me, that was it. She broke a very real and important rule. You can get past this, if you learn from the experience. Employees also. People just seemed to forget that with Epic, even one second of accessing a chart is recorded. 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. In my first job out of college in the insurance industry I reinstated someones coverage without verifying that they had had no claims in the lapsed period they immediately called claims and filed a $40,000 claim. Im not understanding how OPs update comment reads as defensiveit shows significant progression from deflection to ownership, to me. 1) Broke a rule OP, think about your choice to share with this person. (I mean, I think its a great program, but Im realistic about things lol.) This just wasnt the place for you in the end. Im not sure what the best way is to address this, but were trying! If I were you, I would examine WHY I decided to tell my journalist friend the info. 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. Of course. There could be a situation where it might be the journalists job to share the information LW thought they were telling to just a friend. OP will also want to consider not focusing her career path on jobs that require a security clearance for classified information. Ramp up your privacy settings across all accounts. This was more or less what I was thinking. I have absolutely no clue in your situation, but there are times when it really can be appropriate to let someone go without any second chances. I thought it was over. You didn't accidentally email the material to yourself, you did it on purpose. It can bring vital information to the public who have a right to know. Youll also want to double-check any attachments. 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? Or at least, feeling like one should have been possible. Because I said I wouldnt, I knew there would be consequences if something like your story happened to me, and also because, hows that going to look to a potential future employer that might value confidentiality equally highly? I can't remember the details, but there was a point about the fact the word "confidential" added in every e-mail by such a notice wasn't actually helpful, since tools that looked for the word confidential were flagging everything up, including a large number of false positives. 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. And most of the real socialising happened at house parties and dinner parties, not restaurants or bars. 4) The coworker was absolutely right to report the breach in confidentiality. Or they might have a zero-tolerance policy for leaks as a deterrent. ), Because honestly, the more I thought about this letter as I read it, the more uncomfortable I got, too. Learn that about yourself, and move on. In that case its not so relevant that there was a misunderstanding. Ill add one point: You dont know that she didnt leak it. Embargoes and off-the-record information are for journalists who are actually covering a story and in most cases that information can be shared in the newsroom (by saying a source told me off record if confidentiality is really important) and acted upon (you can start to write out a story to be ready when the embargo lifts, or call work to corroborate the off-the-record with on background or on record sources). Better to have a 30% chance than a 0% chance. I work as a contractor on a program that just announced 10 new cities will be joining. Unfortunately there are certain positions where you dont get a second chance when the error knowingly breaking a rule. 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. And the young comment. Its a bigger deal because that friend is a journalist. But your processing of it has to be at one step removed. Breach of confidentiality can be described as an act of gross misconduct, so deal with issues that arise in a timely manner, in line with your procedures and look at any previous cases to ensure fairness and consistency. You put your coworker in an awful spot by telling her this information. Does your company know she could have called the police? And I think you can share your excitement with others, just not the information. It will get out, eventually. Privacy Policy and Affiliate Disclosures. How exciting! and I started reading the details from the email out loud to him. The coworker did the right thing. All three have kept their mouths shut, at least to the best of my knowledge, and I can talk it over without worrying that I will cause a problem with my disclosing. I think its also something to do with the fact that if you tell a journalist something newsworthy, youre not just talking, youre offering a thing of (potential) value, which is an entirely different action from sharing news with a friend. This violates workplace compliance and trust. Say I have a friend working on a presidential campaign, and she tells me theres a bunch of debate about the candidates strategy, I have to decide whether to mention that to my colleague who covers the candidate. As a former journalist, I can assure you journalists dont leak information, unless its something confidential about their own employers. If you are facing much trouble, look for job in domains where confidentiality is not too critical and the employer is not paranoid about it. Some of the stuff I handle is really interesting logistically and historically but I just do not have the right to get carried away and share it. Is this the appropriate place to bring up Anthony Scaramucci not even uttering the phrase off-the-record during his bizarre call to Ryan Lizza and then being upset when his words were published? The HIPAA Rules require all accidental HIPAA violations, security incidents, and breaches of unsecured PHI to be reported to the covered entity within 60 days of discovery - although the covered entity should be notified as soon as possible and notification should not be unnecessarily delayed. 2.) Yes, I did filing in a small-town law office where almost every name was familiar and nothing I read or saw left the office. 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. how do I tell employers I was fired for a video I put on YouTube? You might not immediately get the same job you had before and might have to accept something more junior but be clear in your communications and you'll get there. (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.). The amount that LW trusted that friend is a small fraction of how much the government trusted LW. Fired. Sorry that this happened to you (Ive made stupid mistakes too) but you may want to consider keeping problems like this to yourself. When theres something I really want to share with my wife, I mask it, pretty much what we do here talking about how the client invested in llama shearings, or called up asking about rumours of purple llamas, or asked us to sell all their teapots that kind of thing. She screwed up, and they fired her because thats what she deserved. People are going think, If OP can minimize all the responsibility for this incident, she is going to be able to rationalize it away some other time in the future. Your tone is very this wasnt a big deal and I shouldnt have been fired for it, when it really should be I made a foolish mistake which I deeply regret and Ive definitely learned my lesson. Confidential information is meant to be confidential and not shared with anyone. 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! 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. Yikes. Honestly this feels well intentioned but not right. OP is in a pickle for sure. When it came up during her interview, the candidate said it was complex and that shed learned from it. That really set the tone for the reference she gave. While most organisations take measures to prevent and protect against external cyber-attacks, many don't protect themselves against accidental leaks by their internal staff. I used to work in a one-industry town. 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. Yes, own it. 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. If youre found to be lying, thats an instant rejection in a way that a well-explained firing would not be. Still wondering why there was no second chance, though. Its understandable that you feel betrayed by your coworker, but she probably felt obligated to say something. 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. I replaced someone who had embezzled from the (small) company. quite a lot of people are going to feel as though youre making them an accomplice in your bad behavior. 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). Letting stuff out early could mean that goes off with a whimper instead of a bang and might be a financial difference in driving extra purchases for that initial season, and the implication of The Things staying power if it doesnt do well enough during that time. Yes. Except that when the reference checker asks if the candidate is eligible for re-hire (for the position they left or any other position) should the opportunity present itself, the response will be no.