We call this a misdirected email and it's really, really easy to do. Period. Ive been in the position of having the relevant information, and even if its hard, you just cant tell your journalist friends unless youre okay with them using it: its what they do, and its not fair to ask them not to. 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? If it keeps happening, you can report the sender as junk or spam to block future messages. That brings us to your questions. LW, youve learned half of your lesson, but really need to keep working to get there. As Brett said, there was definitely a record in this case. My mother got a reference-check call recently regarding someone shed managed and then fired. And that is a hard pill to swallow, for sure. We let him go for incredibly poor judgmentlike putting me as a reference, for example.. I do have to wonder if the hospital failed to educate its employees on how freaking serious that kind of breach was, although Id still put the failure on the feet of the violators. In some cases, there can even be criminal charges for knowingly releasing certain information. 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. Sometimes were lucky and there arent any repercussions. Im assuming the LW plead their case and filled in relevant information. Absolutely! You kind of glaze over this, OP, but if you spoke in this meeting as you did here then I wonder if thats the real reason for the firing. Hi LW, I agree with Alison the best way to approach with is by taking full ownership of what happened. December 15, 2009, 1:05 PM. a coworker at my company was discussing a future potential release at a bar loud enough that someone heard it, and then posted it on a public forum. I would absolutely be fired for checking out things for curiosity, I only have access in the first place so I can see whether people are currently clocked in (if you change their access to something while they are actively using it, odd things happen, so I need to check to see if they clocked in that day before I begin). She broke a very real and important rule. Appropriately so, but still, wow. Then your story isnt just I did something wrong, they found out, and I got fired, its I did something wrong, I knew it was a mistake and told a senior member of my team about it, and as a result I got fired. The more you can acknowledge that you took responsibility for your mistake, the better it sounds for a potential employer. The thing is, its a big deal that you were given confidential information and then texted it to a friend. I work within the tech/analytics field. I dont think you have to be Catholic.). Email DLP: A key investment management tool. Our actions and our thoughts can definitely be wrong, but calling someones feelingswhich they have little to no control overwrong (or, dead wrong with double asterisks), only contributes to shame and self-loathing. As much as I love some of my coworkers, Im not taking one of the team. Sometimes their hands are tied too. trouble, it doesnt seem applicable. My adviser listened to what was going on and was like we have to tell. Is there a single-word adjective for "having exceptionally strong moral principles"? She IS a rat! OP, specifically following up with Alisons advice above, you were fired because you showed your employer that your first reaction when learning about confidential information was to text (1) someone outside of your company who was not authorized to know that information and (2) someone who was a journalist, who by profession is at risk for leaking said confidential information EVEN IF you only know them as a friend and EVEN IF you promise pinky swear that they would never ever do that. Maybe you let them know more then they should even without meaning too? Like, its so obviously wrong that people dont even talk about it. Ive had to fire someone in a one-strike situation for what I genuinely believe was an honest mistake because it was too big a risk to keep that person on staff going forward. But, bald facts, they told you not to do the thing you turned around and did. She cut a guys LVAD wires so that hed be bumped up to the top of the heart transplant donor list? How could you have felt defensive about getting disciplined for that? 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. This is an issue in most fields. I would feel terrible about it, definitely, and probably think about it for a while after, but ultimately, Id need to prioritize my family and act in a way that would protect my job/salary/health insurance so I could continue to provide for my them. Is there a solution to add special characters from software and how to do it. The problem here is that the OP misjudged the level of confidentially expected in the situation, and maybe by their office/profession in general. A little time isn't unreasonable. When I was a journalist I did not appreciate people giving me tips I couldnt use! What is the correct way to screw wall and ceiling drywalls? The Census Bureau does NOT play with that sort of thing, and you would indeed be given the boot as soon as the breach was uncovered. Yeah, its like that line from Horton Hears A Who. Theres a great blog called SorryWatch (.com) that analyzes & critiques apologies made by public figures. The difference is if the potential for and type of jail time you risked. you get to a point where you just really really need to share. Concepts like snitching, tattling, and ratting out dont apply in the workplace. So please think about that aspect when youre thinking about how she ratted you out. Not so here because what she did was wrong, just not quite as bad as the misunderstood version. They take information security and confidentiality so seriously that they make delivery people who come to the offices sign an NDA just in case they were in the elevator with Sam Jackson. While the 911 caller believes criminal charges are appropriate, that is a matter for the district attorney to decide. You can avoid finding yourself in this position by double-checking the recipient email address (especially when autocomplete is involved), the cc field, and the Bcc field. It involved something the OP had learned about in confidence, but hadnt even been publicly announced and the OP blabbed about it to someone completely unrelated to her job. People leak or share things to journalists they know all the time, with agreements by those journalists on how to share it. What the saying about eyes, ears, mouths??? If I were in the coworkers position, I would need to do the same thing. I might consider you as a candidate who truly gets it in a way that someone who hasnt been tried by fire might not. This is essential to sanction the employee and also send out a clear . The amount that LW trusted that friend is a small fraction of how much the government trusted LW. Not me. If you cant maintain confidentiality, you can work elsewhere. But if youre singling people out, or only using it in the context of chastising someone, then yeah, for sure condescending and rude. There isnt really such thing as a rat in the workplace. If you got the launch codes for the missiles, thats a big no no to share. 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. +100 to this. Not to mention if you tell a lie (even by omission), its a lie you have to keep up, indefinitely. How do I explain to those potential future employers that the only reason I got fired was because I was ratted out by a coworker for a victimless mistake and was fired unfairly, without sounding defensive? And sometimes at shows they dont identify themselves as press immediately. I feel LWs pain. 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. I playfully made a sexual remark about a female coworker. Theres beating themselves up, but then theres also understanding and feeling properly appalled that they did something really unconscionable. And in fact, NOT getting that second chance with them might mean that you take it more seriously and handle the next relationship in a trustworthy manner. You would never want someone to find out from the news media that they no longer have a job, for example. Because when your mentor is a coworker at the same employer, you cannot, cannot speak as freely. The misrepresentation of what happened is my concern. This. I want to push back hard on this, the coworker is not a rat. The issue of whether HIPAA information can be emailed is complicated. If I were your coworker I would have done the exact same thing. If each person tells just one person it can end up being a lot of people. Or maybe one of those people isnt quite as trustworthy as the person who told them thought they were, and they tell the wrong person, or tell multiple people, or write an article about it because theyre also a journalist. confusedabouteverything Forumite. I dont / cant post it publicly, but I can share all kinds of stuff with people close to me even friends in journalism, though I always specify off the record before i dish and my employer doesnt care because the concerns about confidentiality arent strict NDA / security issues. But reasonable minds can certainly differ. She can still apply to jobs in her field, and even in the fields you noted, shell just have to be very clear in interviews that she understands why she was fired from this job and how shell work to ensure nothing like this ever happens again. Theres no mitigating circumstance here. OP, there is another thing to keep in mind. Yup. They must always assume the worst case anyway. I think its fair for you to be upset that you didnt have another chance, but also understandable that your employer felt it couldnt give you one. I now work somewhere where I have access to sensitive information, including my own. The co-worker absolutely had a responsibility to bring this information forward. See Rule 1.2 (d). Having a mentor at a different organization in a similar role might be a good idea for the future. Im in Chicago so I read about those firings with interest. So mention it only if explicitly asked. +1 on the choice of language and framing. I got fired due to sending an email by mistake to the wrong person that had someone else's credit card information in - Answered by a verified Employment Lawyer . Contact the unintended recipient It's a good idea to contact the unintended recipient as soon as you realize the error. Yes, some employer will bin you, others might give you a second chance. While it didnt result in any press, it was obviously a major lapse in judgment and I understand why it resulted in my termination. I was sent home, and then fired over the phone a few hours later. I have been fired for a dumb mistake. I had the same thoughtthat was very unwise. If you had stayed they would have never trusted you again.. I think people beat themselves up enough internally without us having to do it for them most of the time. (Drunk driving is an extreme example of this. If you had stayed, they would never have trusted you again. Me too in Government. So, if you find out that company X is going to be reporting a surprising drop in profits next week, the person in the company who told you this is gone. I recently saw a movie in pre-screening thats being pushed to be a blockbuster. It might not seem to be that big a deal to you, but depending on what the information you shared was its really easy to use seemingly trivial information for profit. I didnt agree with it myself, and knew that it wasnt really possible without raising a lot of money, something my organization just isnt that good at doing.

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