can you get fired for accidentally sending confidential informationwho is susie wargin married to

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Your former job will probably only verify your employment unless you broke a governmental regulation. Perhaps the way you feel (felt?) And maybe they can, and maybe that chain will end with someone who doesnt forward the info on, or peter out once the information does become public in this case. +10. When we think about misdirected email, we often put ourselves in the shoes of the sender. 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. I had not thought about this issue via this lens, but I think youre 100% right. 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. This incident was a huge violation of trust. The company I work for uses keyloggers and text scanners on our computers to catch these kinds of issues. Whether nor not anyone got fired might depend on context, but somebody would at the very least get a serious talking-to. Only behaviors are right or wrong. Its very possible that LW could think what happened to me wasnt totally fair and still accept full responsibility for it during interviews (which is obviously the smart thing to do). I got that impression as well and have had younger coworkers who sent random, very personal info to me in texts. True, but youre talking more about deciding to become a whistleblower over something potentially dangerous to the public. Or that might not make a difference on how its interpreted. I mean, mayyyyyybe but the OP put the coworker in a really uncomfortable position here, and while Im sure she didnt mean to, thats what she did. Judgement errors tend to repeat themselves. its not condescending to point out that what LW did was incredibly foolish. 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. I accidentally sent the email about the female coworker to this other female coworker. (Also the NASA leaker didnt get fired. My code is GPL licensed, can I issue a license to have my code be distributed in a specific MIT licensed project? Assuming the coworker had evil intentions pulls OPs focus away from the real problem (disclosing an embargoed piece of information to someone not authorized to know that information at that time) and fixates it on the coworker. Have you learned from your mistake? You've learned from this mistake and had no malicious intent. The protected classes are race, age (40+), sex, national origin, religion, or disability. I thoughtlessly mentioned an embargoed announcement to a longtime friend in journalism before it was public. 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. Your failure to understand the gravity of your actions is alarming. I was often privy to non-public information because I was designing media campaigns around them. I love my younger co-workers and value their fresh take on things and energy, but there is a clear pattern of not understanding reputation risk and liability. The z department is not allocating the staff they promised. broke a rule can be trivial, even if its technically a firing offense. When you don't know the sender, but the email is clearly confidential and sensitive, things are little more complicated and you have a decision to make. Although it was mortifying at the time, this has taught me a hard but valuable lesson about handling sensitive information setting boundaries in my relationships with reporters. In other words, this whole line of discussion is moot. People leak or share things to journalists they know all the time, with agreements by those journalists on how to share it. This mixed with the coworkers inflated story, I would be more than annoyed by this coworker too. The main problem is that 'copying data in a very insecure way to be able to bring those data. Really? (The fact that your friend is a journalist makes it particularly egregious.) 2. Not saying you did this! So, the implication is actually the opposite of giving your feelings 100% credence its saying, separate how you feel from what you do. If you talk about sensitive stuff in public you best be sure youre actually anonymizing what you have to say. Its not the end of the world as long as you adjust your thinking going forward and really try to understand why confidentiality policies exist. Alisons given you great words to say now its to you to live out your learning with sincerity and build trust with a new employer. I love telling people things! The obligation to report a security breach doesnt include warning the violator. Re-evaluating my original comment, Id still consider lying if attempts to explain the firing in interviews end up in disaster. And calling this victimless isnt a helpful framing; if you do something thats clearly forbidden and could result in real harm, thats a problem even if no harm resulted this time. Not because my coworker ratted me out, but because I came to her for guidance and instead of being straight with me, she made me think it would be OK only to be questioned hours later. What exactly do you want her to do so you feel satisfied that shes recognizing and acknowledging the seriousness of what happened? Im sorry but it would definitely be a good idea to recognise that this is a really big deal and learn from it. So I guess maybe it is a generational thing? It's hard to answer this question without specifics, but it strikes me as very important to differentiate between an accident or mistake in the sense of "oops, I did that by unintentionally" versus misconduct, as in "this was against policy and I deliberately did it anyways" regardless of whether you knew about the policy or had a good reason to do it or not. 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. FOIA and open records requests are really big deals. How exciting! and I started reading the details from the email out loud to him. Firing you was probably not what they wanted to do, and Im sorry. The 2nd chance is just too much risk as far as theyre concerned. Its not possible to catch every mistake or typo over the course of a whole career. And all you learned was to avoid freshly mopped floors? (Plus, were not sure how much of the inflation came from the coworker and how much came from their superiors. Im sorry it happened to you, though, and it definitely stinks. At some workplaces, the hiring process includes security checks that even go into your social media profile, blogs, etc, to see whether your personal communications display a suitable level of discretion. Changing how you feel (as opposed to what you say or do or think) is not something you need to do to solve the problem. If the policy says people who tell information to non authorized individuals must be fired they could have been fired for not firing you. This is important both in terms of owning your mistake and not blaming the person who reported it. If youre excited about a new, increased source of funding, that shows your agency has money to spend. I made a similar dumb mistake in my first professional job by sharing something that wasnt sensitive but was nonetheless governed by a broad company-wide confidentiality policy a complaint email sent to our companys contact us address by a customer whose name and address I had omitted. Even when it doesnt rise to the level of legal shenanigans might happen, it can be pretty serious. Don't say "I was escorted out by armed guards" where you can say "My manager was disappointed enough to let me go". LW best of luck! A recent Harvard Business Review article indicated widespread use in the workplace, with over one third of the US . Please banish the phrase ratted out from your vocabulary and thinking. you can include that in there too, not as a way to cast doubt on their decision but as a way to indicate this was a fluke, not a pattern of bad judgment. Spek raised a good point- find out what your HR policy is so you know what to be prepared for in an interview. This reminds me of people whose response to hearing no is well, how do we get to a yes? LWs response to this was unacceptable and we cannot have a person on our staff who would do this, was Oh, okay, well, next time I have a similar opportunity here I wont do this.. Almost every situation I know of where someone was fired for cause was presented publically as a position elimination.. Its always easier, at least to me, to close your mouth than open it. These policies are sometimes written down in employee handbooks. What happened is reputation-ruining for such jobs so re-assessing what is realistic in terms of job expectations after this is important to moving on successfully It can feel like the end of the world but I promise you it isnt. Im so paranoid about it, that I only talk about what the company has already shared publicly. You could say that, but itd be a lie, which would be an automatic dealbreaker for many potential employers, and theres no guarantee that the previous employer would keep the cause for firing secret. The person you wronged is not obligated to give you that second chance with them. The fact that you were surprised and angry (to the point of calling her a rat, essentially) speaks to the fact that you actually do NOT know who you can expect to keep things secret, at least not as well as you think. You will find another employer who will trust you and will give you that chance to shine for them. 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. Yes of course it feels bad that you were fired. What if another journalist saw the email over your friends shoulder? Or you mistyped her email by one letter and it went to a colleague who had no reason to respect the embargo? Maybe OPs workplace does the same? But what you were effectively asking your employer to do is trust a totally unknown (to them) journalist not to publish something that was apparently such exciting news that you, bound by confidentiality, simply couldnt keep quiet about it. LW, we are all human. As a fellow human being, I absolutely get the impulse to tell someone about something! Was the friend a journalist, or is there something else that would explain why she said that? The reply: Yes, the friend I texted happened to be a journalist but doesnt cover the area that I was working in. I dont mean to sound harsh but you really need to break out of this frame of mind. 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. Lack of the maturity to keep exciting news to onesself. Yes, you can get fired for opening a phishing email. and the agency lost control of the information. Life is full of these weird potholes we find ourselves in at times. The initial complaint filed against Google is currently under seal because the judge has asked the bank to redact the Gmail account from its filings. But I had a boss who always used to try to cover his ass 110%. OP, there is another thing to keep in mind. I feel like this misses the overall lesson Allison is trying to impart here. Im a fed and we have annual mandatory training out the wazoo on these kinds of rules, as well as frequent reminder emails from the ethics folks and/or the IGs office. It seems like LW has had time to process and isnt being combative. OP: Well, this is both unkind and off-base. How to handle a hobby that makes income in US. Animaniactoo is right that folks who have to manage confidential information begin to cultivate the skill of sharing without making an unauthorized disclosure. (For the record, I always told people I was interviewing as a source that there was no such thing as off the record with me its not a requirement of our field, theres no law saying we have to follow that request if asked, so if the subject didnt want me to print something, they shouldnt tell me. For the other 2 questions, I would simply urge you to remove the phrase ratted out from your professional vocabulary. You need to be ready to show that you understand that you have responsibility to understand and comply with policy, and that you're willing to do that. Id had excellent feedback up until then (if this is true), but I mistakenly shared some non-public information with a friend outside the agency, and they let me go as a result. Whether or not you knew about the policy upfront, you need to be ready to discuss steps you take to stay informed about policies and ensure you're following them. Contact the unintended recipient It's a good idea to contact the unintended recipient as soon as you realize the error. I consider it my greatest ethical obligation in my job, because I have been entrusted with sensitive information and I treat it like Id want mine to be treated. Also ratty. 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. I would go through the channels to fire someone immediately over this, because it would make me lose all trust in them and if I can no longer be confident in their abilities to do their job effectively without spillage, theyre of no use to my team. Draft your UI forms and pre-write your objection to his unemployment on the grounds of "good cause" firing for willful misconduct- Then after all that you can fire him. According to Tessian research, over half (58%) of employees say they've sent an email to the wrong person. You are allowed to feel your feels about things, so long as you understand the reality. You are almost certainly an at-will employee so you can be discharged at anytime and for any reason or even no reason at all. Im also a public affairs officer for a government agency- one that almost exclusively deals with highly classified information. I gossip too much, including at work. If you werent human, you wouldnt make mistakes. It makes me so happy that I had to tell someone is a reason to text them, OMG, huge news that I cant tell you, but you will be SOOOOO happy when its in the papers in a few days! Not to actually, yknow, tell them the private information. And youre a risk, on top of having done a fireable offense. As I read it, LWs friend couldnt pass the information along at all. 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. While it's not always easy to identify the cause for leakage of information, it's important to try to find the security vulnerabilities that make your information less secure. Agreed. He was very good about keeping track of his boundaries, and we got very used to finding ways of being politely interested in how his work was going for him without putting pressure on him about the details. Youll get another job. On Monday, I was called into a fact-finding meeting with HR. I always appreciate your combination of kindness and firm clarity. It doesnt matter if your friend is a journalist or not; thats a total red herring. We wont tell anyone. someone in another department saw the post, reached out to the person who made it and asked for information about the person they had heard it from. I agree with Alisons response. While I dont think the LW should be endlessly flagellating herself, this was her fault, not the co-worker. Just wanted to point out that OP said they worked in the government, so while yours might be the public understanding of confidential, it wouldnt apply to anything their job considered confidential. 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. This is what I wanted to say but you said it better. I do not believe in using it for personal gain, even the minor personal gain of sharing juicy secrets with someone. It would have been nice- but Im sure the coworker was also pooping masonry. I understand the issue had to be reported, but why this way ? Instead, you gossiped about it and risked an announcement before things were ready. 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. Once info is out in the community, you have no control over where it goes and any and all ramifications.

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