Oh, this is all interesting, and I appreciate all the responses. People find new jobs after being fired all the time. Im still pretty upset that I had no second chance, but I suppose I just lost their trust. Its a huge risk that if discovered by the employer would likely result in being blacklisted from the company and if the LW is employed there immediate termination. I dont work for the government but I do work with what are technically health records, although theyre not full patient charts or anything. I am really jaw-on-the-floor stunned at people taking aim at the coworker. Although paragraph (b) (2) does not require the lawyer to reveal the client's misconduct, the lawyer may not counsel or assist the client in conduct the lawyer knows is criminal or fraudulent. Mostly, Im saying this to you so that you understand that you should never have trusted that co-worker to keep that kind of information to herself, no matter how much of a mentor shed been to you I do think that she should have told you that this was serious enough that she couldnt not report it. We dont even know where the LW is; Alison has gotten letters from outside of the United States before. She just needs to learn discretion. As I read it, LWs friend couldnt pass the information along at all. I was kinda thinking that an otherwise level headed and calm employee wouldnt punch a colleague unless the other guy had been doing something truly egregious. For example, a lot of insider trading is based on the TIMING of someone finding out information. I hope you find something good soon and can put this behind you. (Obviously dont tell any potential employer that but its my personal opinion). I would have been fired if I did any one of the things OP did when I worked for the feds (e.g., using Slack, speaking to a journalist without authorization even if they were a long-time friend, disclosing soon-to-be-public information before it was publicly available). If that puts it in perspective. I want to push back hard on this, the coworker is not a rat. Both of those would merit a reprimand, separately or together, but somehow in the telling it got turned into that the latter happened with the former as the method. I see it a lot and I wonder sometimes if its not sending the wrong message that its okay to break confidentiality because Friendship/Family Conquers All or something. Another point: you didnt just accidently tell about it. No, no, no, no, no. I come across soooo much incidental information about people I know in the course of this job. That being said, it doesnt change the fact that OP shouldnt have done it anyway, so harboring ill will towards this coworker is pointless. 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. I dont know the OPs financial status but if she needed the $$$ its not that easy to look at it as a kindness in the moment. Can I get fired for . Ive been thinking a lot about apologies in general lately, and one of the most thought-provoking pieces of advice Ive seen is to always err on the side of assuming that whatever you did was a bigger deal than you think. Im still pretty upset that I had no second chance, but I suppose I just lost their trust.. (The fact that your friend is a journalist makes it particularly egregious.) But how do I explain this to show I learnt from my mistake and get a new job ? One day its pre-public FOUO information; what next? I understand that you get that what you did was a very big deal as a single event, but I think you might need to spend some more time examining for yourself why you would describe this as a victimless crime. The fact that your friend didnt as far as you know tell anyone else about your bombshell doesnt meant that nothing happened. So while the OP can feel what the OP feels, the sooner she can get rid of any hostile feelings about the coworker, the better it will be for the OP. OP doesnt sound naive or too young, either. Your understanding of confidential is not mine. In the US, sexual harassment wont merit a police response. One of the things your field requires is to be able to think and act dispassionately about the information you have custody over. 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.. No matter how small the company, they trust you to safeguard the data, and you didnt do that. I know that I messed up and I shouldnt have told anyone; in a moment of weakness I texted one of my best friends. This was a Friday. Lose that part of the defense completely, OP. If you were fired for an embarrassing reason that would torpedo your chances in an interview, say that your position was eliminated. update: how can I turn down training requests from my clients? Why is it so hard for people to just keep their (figurative) mouth shut? After all, nobody wants to tell their manager that they might (however accidentally) be responsible for a data breach. My guess is that the LW was fired for a first offense because they refused to take responsibility for their breach. 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. Oh yeah, my response wasnt to you it was just to continue what Alanna said. If not, that would be an additional reason for your bosses to take the maximum option to respond. Communications professionals are privy to so many deals and information that cant be divulged to even spouses until they become public. The employer has a policy against this and everyone working there has signed that they read the policy. No, no, no, no, no. A majority of those who work from home would use their own personal digital devices such as laptop, tablet or mobile to perform their daily work tasks and it is also convenient for employees to. My 2cents, LW if something was so exciting you couldnt keep it in, you were in the wrong field. It could be that the info you leaked was especially confidential, or that theyve been concerned about other leaks and are taking a hard-line stance. An example: That said, if this was going to be public anyways, your boss may have been inclined to write you up rather than fire you if you were sufficiently remorseful/petrified/mortified. PRSA is an excellent suggestion! 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. By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. But at the end of the day, the reputational risk to my company, versus the relatively low-level risk of having to replace someone entry-level, was just too great to bear. If its a marketing message, spam, or something that looks entirely unimportant simply delete and move on. Leaking anything that could put those things at risk is an insta-fire offense. I got defensive and young from OPs response. You cant let yourself act out of emotion. We all make stupid mistakes. Log the incident in an 'cyber accident book'. If you talk about sensitive stuff in public you best be sure youre actually anonymizing what you have to say. Life is full of these weird potholes we find ourselves in at times. Not just confidential, but confidential from *journalists*!! These policies are sometimes written down in employee handbooks. She already acknowledged that its 100% her fault. When we accidentally receive a confidential email from people outside our own organisations, things are a little trickier. Im glad that youve had time to think about it and can own the mistake, thats the most important part when we mess up. I was fired from a job and when I started interviewing for following ones, I kept trying to spin it and it did not work at it. Having worked in communications and journalism for the past 15 years, I think this ishonestly really bad. First coworker punched second coworker. The anger I hold for my coworker is something I will deal with over time. (Also the NASA leaker didnt get fired. Ive heard complaints from folks who arent allowed to give positive references to former coworkers who earned them. You know thats not how that works. Your failure to understand the gravity of your actions is alarming. In other words, this whole line of discussion is moot. 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. Maybe OPs workplace does the same? This is so well said. It doesnt matter if theyd trust this person with their firstborn child. Every hospital Ive worked at requires yearly HIPAA compliance training. But that was the right response to what you did. "I made a dumb mistake and misjudged the sensitivity of some data" is both more accurate and less severe. And I dont think it helps the OP to say that she doesnt have the right to have feelings of resentment toward the coworker. and that person did what they were told to do and reported it. I am very sure they didnt want to fire him. The financial firm I worked for had mandatory quarterly compliance meetings with examples of Dont Be This Guy Because He Doesnt Work Here Anymore. 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. This is 100% on you. 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. 2. And then there are things you cannot even hint at under any circumstances. Good points, and good advice for anyone whos apologizing for anything. Then the stories died down and the pressure with it even though there were still occasional leaks. 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.. This was not the coworker telling the boss that OP left 5 minutes early, took a personal call during work hours but OP violating a strict rule even if they trusted the friend. 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. True, but youre talking more about deciding to become a whistleblower over something potentially dangerous to the public. I accidentally sent the email about the female coworker to this other female coworker. 4. First, you need to be able to frame what you did for yourself. Sure but I think its highly unlikely that someone at OPs level would have access to that. Perhaps over official lines it could be interpreted by the journalist as on the record comments. Since its a government agency, I have to wonder if there are regulations in place about this kind of leak as well, most places that deal with confidentiality clauses arent messing around with them. A person who is aware of a breach is required to report it. The secretary is going to be featured at [cool upcoming event]! 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): The mistake may not have been trusting the friend with that information, but it was definitely telling her. This kind of reaction from the company screams 'serious laws broken' and there aren't many other possibilities on what these laws maybe. Shes never even heard any of the names of our clients, except for a couple she met once at an adjunct social function. This is a very important life lesson, both for your professional and personal life. You still have to go through the same information request as someone who doesnt work there. 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. To be fair Jules, I was making the assumption that it had been, in effect, sexual assault, which may not have been the case. If theres anything else you can say about your work there to put this in context like that you had received a glowing performance review, were taking on increasing levels of responsibility, etc. Maybe the information was a big deal to the agency but not externally (say getting a big grant funded), but if it was something that was legitimately important news, her friend would have been at least a little torn between loyalty to her friend and loyalty to her job. This incident was a huge violation of trust. And the young comment. Agreed. I constantly have journalist friends asking for confidential tips, and there is no way I would ever give up any information. Not so here because what she did was wrong, just not quite as bad as the misunderstood version. Heres what to do. Best wishes! In my experience, a FOIA request can come from anywhere. Its also important to note that OP called it non-public and Alison was the person who called it confidential. Lack of integrity. I say dont lie during any part of the job application. In some cases, those policies . Businesses have a term for that kind of behaviour, and that is 'data leakage'. 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). You are fortunate to get the opportunity to learn it early when it hasnt resulted in severe long term consequences. (For example, my BFF works at the Pentagon. Im not understanding how OPs update comment reads as defensiveit shows significant progression from deflection to ownership, to me. It would have been better if she had told you first that she was going to tell someone, but whether she warns you first has no bearing on whether she was obligated to disclose. 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. OP is in a pickle for sure. I get that people can learn from their mistakes, but this could be an indicator of a lack of proper framework, and perhaps a boss wouldnt want to risk it. Whilst Im sure the OP is a perfectly nice person, theres a reason that there are office shootings and other awful things, some people are not. I understand your irritation with your former coworker. My worry, OP, is that you dont see this as sufficiently serious to warrant a firing but I promise you that in most communications positions, it really likely would be. Nothing dangerous, and while I was there it honestly wasnt even anything that would be a big scoop or exciting dinner party story. But I cant talk about the specifics of that scene. Now I just leave and cry and deal with the long-term consequences, like never moving up. I had the same thoughtthat was very unwise. Animaniactoo is right that folks who have to manage confidential information begin to cultivate the skill of sharing without making an unauthorized disclosure. Pay secrecy is a workplace policy that prohibits employees from discussing how much money they make. 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. They might tell superiors accidentally, out of frustration (e.g. Good luck! End of story. This is an issue in most fields. Agreed. No! I was new to the field and had no idea how dysfunctional that workplace was. Unfortunately there are certain positions where you dont get a second chance when the error knowingly breaking a rule. Im also a supervisor. If you werent human, you wouldnt make mistakes. TootsNYC is talking about this latter case. We can think things without saying them out loud. If you say, My coworker ratted me out, an interviewer hears, My coworker reported my misconduct. Youre the one who comes off looking poorly there, not the coworker. How do I politely turn down the call for an interview by another employer? Fired for gross misconduct because I sent confidential information to personal mailbox - how do I get another job? This is a solvable problem. I tell the character and imagine their response, and the urge to share subsides. Im so paranoid about it, that I only talk about what the company has already shared publicly. They thought it was funny and shared it with a couple more. 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. Thats real life. Thats a horrendously burdensome thing to ask! Its a common occurrence, especially within a large business where autocorrect can incorrectly select people with similar names. As a fellow human being, I absolutely get the impulse to tell someone about something! 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? My only other advice is to consider if there were any conversations on slack that were inappropriate. And even worse when it can have legal implications like for insider trading or government secrecy. How to answer question on moving to another country for job? 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.