Really? 3. What happens when someone sees that message over her shoulder? Egress Intelligent Email Security is an example of human layer security, as its able to adapt to your individual behaviour through machine learning. If you are still defensive or dismissive about this, it will come through in an interview. You might add to Alisons script, I knew immediately that I needed to report my indiscretion, and I did so right away. This is a situation that youre going to have great difficulty explaining away and I might prefer a resume gap to being at such a disadvantage. Theres truly no compelling reason to break confidentiality here. My code is GPL licensed, can I issue a license to have my code be distributed in a specific MIT licensed project? Fortunately, I was not fired for the mistake, but my employer did call me on the carpet for a very serious discussion on why we cant share any information that we only have access to because we work there, regardless of how sensitive or not sensitive we think it is on a case-by-case basis. I dont feel like we need that caveat though, there of course will be exceptions, but this is kinda derailing. I dont know, I think thats overstating. I question that there are no details about your Monday meeting with HR here. Thank you it was getting boring to read everyones outrage. In fact, the coworker probably was obligated to report it anyway since she wasnt sure about the extent of the breach. Yes. OP: This x 1000 to the comment by ENFP in Texas. 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. Disclosing confidential information has, at best, resulted in nothing, and at worse, resulted in injury/death, or even political systems toppling. 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. Ideally. They have absolutely no obligation to keep secrets for government agencies or private companies. In my experience, it was highly effective. Even a private company would consider this a breach of trust, and could could consider firing. 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?!. Everyone in the workplace has an equal obligation and responsibility to ensure that rules are upheld because thats what keeps the company operating smoothly and in business and able to provide jobs to you all. It is not clear at this stage whether the 911 caller will be pursuing a civil claim for damages as a result of the privacy violation. That mindset is just so messed up. I even tell friends this who work in classified situations and I dont even report the news anymore.). 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.. No. We let him go for incredibly poor judgmentlike putting me as a reference, for example.. Only behaviors are right or wrong. I wonder how trustworthy the LW considers themself (sp?)? The info is out, the tech used to spread it is irrelevant and a distraction from the problem. Under the "General" tab, you'll see a section called "Undo send.". [important person 1] and [important person 2] are coming to my office for a press conference. If someone preempts that, theyre not happy about it generally. (Even before learning it was to a reporter!) Some things a company wouldnt want you to tell a competitor, but wouldnt mind if you told your spouse. The mistake was breaking company policy not that they announced to a coworker they broke company policy. How is an ETF fee calculated in a trade that ends in less than a year? (They could be facing prison time.). I think that WAS her second chance, and I think something she said at the meetings (perhaps about how the problem is the coworker for being a rat) blew that second chance. Letter writer, it sounds like youre new to our field and may not understand the importance of keeping confidence. exciting! 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 actually think your big mistake was telling your coworker, not telling a trusted friend. I was sent home, and then fired over the phone a few hours later. Journalists are very charasmatic and will fish for info its their job. Sent a confidential email to the wrong address? When we make mistakes, they are impactful, but we're human and it happens. I recall a year or so into this administration at least a couple federal departments making A Big Deal out of leaks because it seemed like every other story (usually negative) was quoting an anonymous source sharing sensitive information they werent authorized to release. Messages like this can simply be ignored and deleted. Aug. 4, 2008, at 11:14 a.m. 7 Ways Your E-mail Can Get You Fired. A supervisor discovers that an employee has recently downloaded thousands of pages of confidential Company billing and financial information, and e-mailed it to her personal e-mail address. Or does it only matter that I broke a rule? Im not feeding a narrative, Im expressing my opinion. [duplicate]. Animaniactoo is right that folks who have to manage confidential information begin to cultivate the skill of sharing without making an unauthorized disclosure. Journalists seek out and report information thats their job. 2007-2023. A misdirected email describes an instance where an email is sent to the wrong person or the wrong attachment has been added to an email that has the correct recipients in it. Then the second paragraph said Do not release this information to anyone outside of the office because the press are not to know about these changes until the morning of the event. Im curious about how to turn the page, and I think your advice is really good about this own it, let go of the defensiveness, be ready to talk about changes youve made so it wont happen again. There are no legal ramifications or civil lawsuits at this stage as it wasn't trade secrets or secret IP. In an ideal world, it doesnt happen at all. The co-worker absolutely had a responsibility to bring this information forward. You cant let yourself act out of emotion. Thats an important impulse to explore to avoid other similar situations with gossip. No. I minored in journalism and this attitude is why I never worked in the industry. Assuming OP was correct and journalist friend never would have said anything, OP could have pretended it never happened. Period. Depending on their responses it ranged from retraining, to suspension, to immediate dismissal.. Yeah. It made it seem like some part of OP still feels hard done by, rather than really getting it. Yeah, one of my former coworkers, who was allegedly fired from our company for bringing a gun to work, found another job a couple months later in our same industry. Unfortunately, a lot of times people mistake the first for the second. How could you have felt defensive about getting disciplined for that? I used to work in a one-industry town. In such cases, the employee should be given the benefit of the doubt. If nothing exculpatory came out in that meeting then maybe firing was the appropriate response. I know there are cases where someone might fear retaliation etc, but with a higher up getting a subordinate into (deserved sorry OP!) The contact form sends information by non-encrypted email, which is not secure. The sharing of information is a violation of your professional duties and ethics and would get me 60% of the way to firing someone if I were your boss. Regardless of what word you use when you disclose what happened, understanding that difference, owning up to it, and showing how you've changed as a result is your best hope of gaining future employment. Wouldn't employers just throw my application to the bin once I declare I have been dismissed for gross misconduct? They made much more money off of the JK Rowling name. Phrase it as a serious learning point, because you sure as hell aren't going to do it again after getting fired. Completely unrelated to the topic at hand, love the username! What OP did was incredibly serious and, as happened, a fireable offense. Im not trying to teach her a lesson, necessarily, she seems to have gotten the point. If you open a phishing email and it results in your company's confidential information being compromised, your employer may fire you. Hows work? Feelings are frequently conflated with facts in our minds and it can take some work to separate them. Perhaps the email was intended for a client in which case the clients data is at risk and the sender has inadvertently committed a data leak. All we know is that OP made a disclosure, and the coworker is aware the disclosure happened via Slack. That said, I am curious if theres other context that explains why they fired you for a first offense without warning you first. Calling this victimless shows OP still doesnt have insight into their behavior. As soon as someone has decided you're not a team player, or are a problem employee, then even tiny things get seen as evidence that you should be fired. As a former journalist, I can assure you journalists dont leak information, unless its something confidential about their own employers. Clearly yall do not understand handling confidential information. Extremely good advice! From OPs comment, it seems like shes already taken responsibility for her actions and knows what she does wrong yet 95% of the comments are lecturing her about how dumb she is (not in those words, but thats undeniably the gist), which is completely unhelpful and honestly, incredibly sanctimonious and obnoxious. You still have to go through the same information request as someone who doesnt work there. The coworker is not a rat or at fault here. Your feelings are wrong, in this context means,Your feelings arent *morally* wrong.. Theres no mitigating circumstance here. All rights reserved. Id stay under a cloud of mistrust if that meant a steady paycheck if I didnt have anything else lined up. While I agree that this needs to be explained in the right way. OP is in a pickle for sure. I agree, but its been called out and I dont want to derail on it. Of course, its your fault but it is only human to be annoyed with someone, especially someone who seemed to completely misrepresent what happened. Having a natural, human reaction doesnt mean shes in the wrong field. You didn't accidentally email the material to yourself, you did it on purpose. Unless his bedroom was a SCIF and the phone secured, thats really bad. Then, when someone particularly notable would enter our database, we would get a reminder email not naming names but reminding us that no matter how interesting the information is, its private and not ok to share. She did her job. Phishing emails are emails that appear to be from a legitimate source, but are actually from a malicious source. First, you need to be able to frame what you did for yourself. LW told a human known to be a journalist about The Thing. Any message that starts with Oh honey is going to read as rude and condescending unless its followed by a sincere Im so sorry in response to something terrible happening. I just wasn't thinking at the moment I sent the information. In that case its not so relevant that there was a misunderstanding. journalists dont leak information, unless its something confidential about their own employers. And in this case, I beleive that is correct. Also to prevent someone who might be a bit dangerous, from hurting you. UK officials are bound by the provisions of the Official Secrets Act and people have gone to prison for giving information to journalists before now. I work in a field (not government) where some nonpublic is newsworthy but only in the arts and style sections. Thats why they told you no. NEVER by email unless explicitly given the go-ahead). This includes understanding what you did wrong and explaining how you might have approached this in future (hint: ask boss, transfer via encrypted USB if necessary and allowed. I encourage you to spend some time really thinking about this and absorbing the very good feedback you have generally received here. And it seems like you do. Your understanding of confidential is not mine. 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. Take full responsibility. OP doesnt sound naive or too young, either. Examples that most journalists would find pretty snoozy (although journalists who cover the agency super-closely for trade publications, Politico Pro, Bloomberg Gov, etc, would still be interested):