[Well-known bad person] is going to be fined/punished/arrested. Whether nor not anyone got fired might depend on context, but somebody would at the very least get a serious talking-to. It sucks this happened, and Im sorry that this was the way it all went down. But leadership has to know that if they share confidential material with us that it will stay confidential. This just wasnt the place for you in the end. The one time I filled a confidentiality-bound role (as a temp) the information I was given was specifically NOT to tell the person you were obligated to report. They might push the company to reverse your termination. Im not sure you can conclude that it was publically disclosable. Passing it off as a mistake, or trying to portray ignorance (in the sense of saying "oh, I didn't realize it was wrong when I did it") is just going to make it sound like you don't bother understanding or following policies. My philosophy is that it doesnt matter what city you live in, its a small town. That doesnt mean youre a horrible person who should never work again! Trying to understand how to get this basic Fourier Series, Linear regulator thermal information missing in datasheet. This is what I wanted to say but you said it better. Build sneaky protections into your life so you get away with violating important rules is NOT what LW needs to learn. 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. Practice talking about it until you can truly pull it off. 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. Im sure the OP will find a new job. Age doesnt matter here. (I think, I never worked in government communications so Im not positive of this.). 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 it does, you can explain calmly that in a moment of weakness, you broke a serious rule regarding sending information to someone outside the company, but youve learned a hard lesson you never intend to repeat. Or at least, I can. If you embezzle from the company and tell a coworker who then reports it, the mistake is embezzlement, not telling a coworker about it. 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. [important person 1] and [important person 2] are coming to my office for a press conference. Or well often hear from contacts on the Hill about something going on behind the scenes, like that a bill is about to be introduced. This is just an opportunity to choose words that allow for the most generous possible interpretation (similar to how you say with a friend rather than with a journalist). 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. But your processing of it has to be at one step removed. In addition to 100% needing to own it when asked about it, I think OP may also benefit from focusing the job search on jobs that dont involve handling sensitive or high profile information. I dont mean to sound harsh but you really need to break out of this frame of mind. Thats the wrong lesson to learn. In other words, this whole line of discussion is moot. 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. 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. (Even before learning it was to a reporter!) A 40 year old making the same mistake would be much harder to trust later. Those usually come out the morning of the speech. LW, you are too focused on using some incorrect details to mitigate the main point: you were a trusted professional who broke one of the most basic policies in the world of communications. You take this as a hideously painful lesson, and change your behavior across the board, and most people could see that as a learning moment, from which you learned. Im pretty sure the information wasnt actually confidential in the legal sense. The type of sanctions that Contract Killer is talking about would only apply to confidential records, not non-public records. According to Tessian research, over half (58%) of employees say they've sent an email to the wrong person. It doesnt matter if theyd trust this person with their firstborn child. It wasnt particularly kind to her friend, either. If yes, that is relevant to the question. This is mostly a matter of describing your motivation appropriately, and in this respect "At that time, I did not realize" does a better job of conveying that your basis of judgment has changed in the course of that experience than a mere "I did not realize" would. Likewise, LW needed to understand that you dont get a next time not to tell anyone confidential information just because you get it now that they meant it when they said the information was confidential. You didnt have a right to privileged information once you demonstrated that you werent trustworthy. Fired. Perhaps Archie neglected to mention it. Likewise, they would have fired you anyways regardless because they now feel that they cannot trust you with information. Really? Because she knows other journalists who do cover your area and one of them just might need a serious break right when she knows this information. As the other commenter noted, this could have been a very serious offence considering you were working for the government. To me, her wrong doesnt justify her mentor going behind her back. Its not a big career risk for her friend the way it is for her, but depending on what the information was, it could have put the friend in an awkward position. Every bit of what Ive said is probably hearsay. The LW actually had a responsibility to keep the info confidential, and the friend doesnt. In the worst cases though, businesses can lose clients and employees can lose jobs. I work in patents, and regularly see information that can definitely not be made public and has to be sent back and forth with extra security measures, but would also be tremendously boring to everyone but the IP team for a few specific rival companies in a very tiny field. I know there are cases where someone might fear retaliation etc, but with a higher up getting a subordinate into (deserved sorry OP!) 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. For what its worth, one thing I noticed from your letter is language that sounds very social, discussing your trust in your friend, being ratted out by your mentor, not being given a second chance, and so on. But, bald facts, they told you not to do the thing you turned around and did. I work for a state government agency and FOIA is a really big deal. Honestly, I might be more likely to dismiss (or not hire) someone who, like the LW, does not seem to understand what exactly they did, what it could have caused than someone who, for personal ethical reasons, deliberatly leaked information, but understands that this is Not OK. While that obviously wasnt the result Id have wanted, I learned an important lesson about confidentiality, and its not a mistake Ill ever repeat.. 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. But I had a boss who always used to try to cover his ass 110%. 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. journalists dont leak information, unless its something confidential about their own employers. The co-worker absolutely had a responsibility to bring this information forward. Shes assuming the friend has more self-control than she does, which is precarious at best. This is probably not a feasible strategy, unless the OP was at the job for only a few months. I had the same thoughtthat was very unwise. All this said, I think Alisons approach is the best one when youre applying for jobs. OP, take a deep breath. Had OP not made the initial mistake and then compounded it by telling the coworker, shed still be employed. when we had a high school shooting, a student I knew (10 y old) and who got into it (gladly uninjured) got a visit from his own uncle who was a journalist that very evening, who came to visit the parents and then proceeded to try to get his nephew to talk about the details. 3) The recipient was a journalist thats super relevant, even if its not in their area Also, legally email addresses themselves dont typically count as 'personal information' as they are contact addresses and are treated in similar ways to phone numbers legally, as opposed to, say, identifying information like full name, DOB and home address all in one document. 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. When they took the only course of action they could have taken and still kept their job and notified your employer of your actions, you became defensive of your actions. If we receive confidential information, there are very specific and non-flexible procedures we have to follow to handle those documents/information. There are offenses, especially regarding releasing items, that would be serious enough to warrant immediate dismissal. Its completely understandable that you were upset about it when you wrote in (and upset about it now). Messages like this can simply be ignored and deleted. 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. People have gotten jobs in their field after vastly more serious forkups, don't despair. And, to be fair, based on your language about technical leaks, victimless, and ratting out I dont think your organization could entirely trust that you understand the gravity of the situation and wouldnt repeat the mistake. End of story. LW, we are all human. I empathize I LOVE being a person who is in the know and I can be impulsive. This is especially true if the employee in question signed a confidentiality agreement prior to starting the job. 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. Oof this is so condescending! In fact, if I ever got a query from someone I knew, I was required to hand off the query to a colleague. 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. Once youve actually done the thing, its out there. I did something similar over 20 years ago. Also to prevent someone who might be a bit dangerous, from hurting you. Certainly not an electronic blog. Any tax or benefit records, any survey or census records if I access them without good reason its a firing offence. Or did you double down on not my fault, not a big deal, and co-worker shouldnt have said anything? 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. Some are minor, some are devastating. I feel like this misses the overall lesson Allison is trying to impart here. I dont feel like we need that caveat though, there of course will be exceptions, but this is kinda derailing. Never mind firing for leaks, they dont even hire people who appear to have poor judgement about confidential information. How does this make it any better or worse..? I agree that its ok to be upset with people, even if its irrational or illogical, as long as we ultimately let it go and refrain from mistreating someone because of our illogical emotional response. Maybe she had to report it for her job (as some people are speculating) but even still, its okay to be annoyed at someone even if its not 100% logical. 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. LW best of luck! And then there are things you cannot even hint at under any circumstances. Oh, I wish Id seen this before replying. Another engineer girl here, at a place where people have been fired for leaks and it hits the news when it happens: theres a warning during New Hire Orientation, and between that and our reputation, youre expected to know it.