e.g. If you were fired for an embarrassing reason that would torpedo your chances in an interview, say that your position was eliminated. 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. As others have noted, it probably isnt anything especially exciting. You didn't accidentally email the material to yourself, you did it on purpose. If we receive confidential information, there are very specific and non-flexible procedures we have to follow to handle those documents/information. They might push the company to reverse your termination. I just think it serves OP to choose a more benign explanation because it will help OP deal with the fall out of the situation going forward. When it came up during her interview, the candidate said it was complex and that shed learned from it. Its unfortunate that LW lost her job over it but the coworker isnt to blame for LWs decision to disclose information they werent supposed to. The misrepresentation of what happened is my concern. Also, no matter how good a friend someone is, if they are a journalist you need to zip your lips. Given how much we have learned about foreign intelligence operations in American social media in the last few years, this is yet another reason why information security of all levels is taken so seriously. Thats also real life. 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.. My father worked on defense contracts for a large portion of his professional career. The OP was not entitled to be making calls on who outside the org could be trusted with this information. Please keep us updated and let us know how things work out for you. We received a staff email that shared that they were going to release some BIG news about positive new office changes and remodeling and that there was going to be a BIG press conference in 2 days at our office with a lot of high-up political bigwigs and asked everyone to show up for support. This. That would likely lead to your manager also getting fired (for not firing you in the first place) and also make your entire department/agency look bad to the public (whod be wondering who else still working there has done something similar without getting fired). She cut a guys LVAD wires so that hed be bumped up to the top of the heart transplant donor list? 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. A recent Harvard Business Review article indicated widespread use in the workplace, with over one third of the US . There isnt really such thing as a rat in the workplace. LW used Slack at work (and was not supposed to) Email Sent in Error? What CFOs Should Do Next - Finance Monthly 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. Can you get fired for a PERSONSAL email accidentally sent to a coworker 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. One piece of information I learned (that has since been announced publicly, but hadnt been at the time) was SO EXCITING that in a weak moment, I texted one friend about it in celebration. I have a whole bunch of very personal medical information swimming around my memory and I while some of it Ive wished I could share with my spouse, I never have. While it clearly appears LW would not have done any of this, the regulations and policies are written to protect the employer and coworker from any potential negative actions. And that is a hard pill to swallow, for sure. Good luck! This will sound very, VERY strange, but if you have the urge to share things youre not supposed to, theres a trick you can try: telling a fictional character in an imaginary conversation. All journalists are human and many of us have spouses/friends who do things that are news, and this is a situation where good boundaries can protect everyone. The latter looks more like something that could repeat under similar circumstances. Absolutely this. All the meanwhile you're still trying to run a successful business and handling other things that are coming up. Which is so far beyond the truth Im honestly wondering if this coworker had it out for me the whole time. 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. Coworker Dorcus, who used to write down what time the rest of us got in each morning so she could report to our supervisor when the rest of us were late, even though he hadnt asked her to, even though Dorcus had no idea when wed left the night before, how late we were working that day, or what arrangement we had with our supervisor? . And the young comment. For the purposes of VIWI, a confidential client shall be able to establish a mutually authenticated TLS channel with the auth server and resource service, providing a trusted identity, usually in the form of a certificate signed by . Request a personalized demo to see how Egress Prevent will help you prevent data breaches over email. And there was no social media then, so 100+++ times that now. Yes and thats the consequence they now have to live with. Wouldnt you ask why the govt didnt fire them the first time? I dont know, I think thats overstating. I dont mean to sound harsh but you really need to break out of this frame of mind. When I was a journalist I did not appreciate people giving me tips I couldnt use! Completely unrelated to the topic at hand, love the username! OP if I was part of an interview for you, and you brought up this situation the way its phrased here, Im sorry to say it would be an immediate pass. Your coworker was not at all in the wrong here, OP. You just seem to still want an answer and I picked up on this as a possible avenue to reflect on in your letter. Same here. I agree. Nah, I think the odds of whats super exciting to a government agency being equally exciting to me are pretty slim. Non-Disclosure Agreements - Workplace Fairness I imagine there are a lot like that in government but he learned from working with a non apologetic, scandal plagued politician that consequences of what seems little to you may not be to the tabloids. What video game is Charlie playing in Poker Face S01E07? Instead, the employees found out by reading the news instead, which hurts morale. Yeah, seconding this. Mandatory reporting is a thing that exists. 27 April 2021. 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. 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. If you want to work in comms, you need to be crystal clear that the TIMING of disclosure is a crucial issue. This friend understood the gravity of the information I told her, and I 100% trusted her to not leak it. I used to work at a public Zoo that was owned by the state, and so we were all state government employees. You would never want someone to find out from the news media that they no longer have a job, for example. Everyone makes mistakes at all points in our careers. Instead, youre better off with something like, The truth is, I was fired. All we can do is learn, rest, and go on another day. There is a greater issue here regarding judgement. The reason all this info is locked down tightly is so that they can control the message when it goes out. Yeah, wouldnt it be possible to prove (or rather disprove) that you leaked to a slack channel full of journalists? However, it is unlikely that the circumstances of your firing will be able to be overlooked by an employer who needs to trust your judgment with sensitive data, definitely for the foreseeable future, possibly for many years into your career. Yeah, if the LW is in the US or things operate the same way in their country, theres no point in trying to lie or even waffle about what happened. 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. You seriously violated your privileged access to confidential information. There are people who would refuse to acknowledge their error and go about their lives being bitter and blaming others. 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.. OP, there is another thing to keep in mind. If it hasnt worked out yet, it isnt the end. Accidents do happen, we are all human but what rights you have if you share private company information by mistake really depends on a few things: the type of information that was accidentally distributed, how this impacted your company, and what the consequences were for you. If something like this would help, maybe try it. Privacy Policy and Affiliate Disclosures. (Also the NASA leaker didnt get fired. My guess is that the LW was fired for a first offense because they refused to take responsibility for their breach. So. The joker on the other hand was running off at the mouth. Before someone decides to do that, I encourage them to get legal representation. When you are genuinely accept the error, analyze why you made it and address how to alter yourself to not be vulnerable to this kind of mistake again, it will naturally come across when you talk about it in interviews because youll be genuine and not trying to find a strategic angle and that genuine quality will land well with other mature professionals who have made their own mistakes. The government takes this stuff very very seriously. Resist the temptation to gossip about fellow employees and don't express your disdain for your. I dont know that I agree she should have thought twice (since going to a mentor is a good thing to do when youre in a difficult situation), but I think thats absolutely the lesson some people will take away!