Please help!!
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Maybe you are right, but don't cry about it when you are caught.
I don't see this as being self righteous, the guy has accessed something he shouldn't have done, and then he has told his mates. This could have a serious implication on staff morale at his company. Have you considered that?
What he has done is completely unprofessional.
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So what should he do instead of looking for a way out of this mess? Perhaps he should just hand his notice in, sign-on to benefits, let his mortgage payments default and generally just give up on life.
Is that what you would do?
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Maybe an over the top reaction?
My point was that the guy has clearly done wrong here, and quite a few people seem to be trivialising what has happened.
Maybe he should have thought about the implications before he accessed confidential data. Have any of you actually considered the implications that this will have had within the guys office?
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Unless he manages to invent a time machine over the weekend he won't be going back to undo what he did anytime soon. My question was what would you do now?
As for the effect on morale of his colleagues, we don't actually know the specifics of what was contained in the skills matrix. This also doesn't change the fact that the folder was so easily accessible in the first place. How much damage will that do to employee confidence if this kind of information is just left lying around unsecured? Swings and round-abouts.
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You mean like Ministers who leak confidential papers to the press (how many of them lost their jobs) confidential data concerning the security of the Nation being left on trains or in taxis for anyone to read!
Come on, you cannot lump people as either 'good or bad' we ALL make mistakes.
Have you never had a mate or a member of your family, who has never let you down. done something silly - in some way or another - have you stopped trusting and speaking to them.
Things in life are not black and white - sure, they are when we are kids, but not as adults.
Poppy xx
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Assumptions again.
I read the post. Unless I read it wrong however you decided not to make your findings public BECAUSE of the effect it would have on morale.
And for these making comments about time machines, and the guy living on the streets etc... get real. This is a business forum and I am only expressing my view.
It's very black and white in the sense that the guy has done wrong.
What should he do now? It's quite simple. Damage limitation. If the company have made it quite clear that they want him gone then he should attempt tp take a compromise agreement. I would imagine from what I have have read (Yes bdw i have read the thread), that he is unlikely to stay with this employer, and that if the company are asking him to leave with a "good reference", then he would be able to get at least a months salary in which to find a new job.
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Poppy I'm not saying that the OP is a bad person. I appreciate that he has made a mistake.
However as an employer I can fully understand why they would no longer want to employ someone who not only accesses confidential info, but then tells other's all about it!
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My own view is, the lesson to be learnt here is, DO NOT leave confidential information - to what amounts to (basically laying around) people do snoop, so put in safeguards to protect the company and the staff, I think it is the company who have been naive!.
I have no idea why the OP did what he did, maybe he bragged, panicked and felt telling others lessened the secret - hard to know without being there, and knowing, him!
Maybe the company has lax standards right across the board, and things like this happen often - how do we know?
How the company deals with him, is down to them.
Yes, he did do wrong - he is not a villian - he did not make anything from this, the very opposite in fact.
We, all do silly silly things in our lives, how many times have you said 'if only I could turn the clock back', some people continue doing them, let us hope the OP has learnt from this.
Only the OP knows if this is the first time he has ever done this before.
If yes, then I do not agree he is not to be trusted - maybe take a while to get that back.
If everyone was hung drawn and quarted for silly mistakes there would be no one left walking the streets.
Poppy xx
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It doesn't take a genuis to see that the OP's action was far more serious than first meets the eye. Ths wasn't just a case of the OP uncovering a file which revealed that senior managers were plotting to pay themselves huge bonus payments while at the same time asking employees to take a pay cut. I can't see the case is in any way similar to the one presented by BDW.
This wasn't a case of the OP just being curious. He himself admitted that he knew about the security lapse for 6 months. Why then did he not inform his manager all that time. You can draw your own conclusion. Mine is that he frequented that data bank many times looking perhaps for even more juicier information that he could brag about to his mates until he got caught and therein lies another possibly the greatest sign of disloyalty to the company.
However lightly he viewed this misconduct personally perhaps believing he personally meant no harm he nevertheless was totally irresponsible in sharing it with others. One of them could have been a disrunted employee planning to leave the company and take the confidential info with them.
Who knows how damaging that could be to the company. A best they might have been hit with a hefty fine under the data protection act.
All in all then I don't see this as a case of curiousity gone a bit too far. Confidential data is the lifeblood of many a company these days. For a good many others it is what generates their revenue stream and puts money in the bank.
The way I see it then the OP saw a cahiers check for £500,000 fall out of his managers back pocket and slip down ythe side of the filing cabinet. Did he tell him. No. Instead he kept going back month after month for 6 months telling his friends where it was too until he finally got caught bending down to pick the cheque up.
You guys can trust him all you want. I would have grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and thrown him out as a warning to others.
This wasn't a case of the OP just being curious. He himself admitted that he knew about the security lapse for 6 months. Why then did he not inform his manager all that time. You can draw your own conclusion. Mine is that he frequented that data bank many times looking perhaps for even more juicier information that he could brag about to his mates until he got caught and therein lies another possibly the greatest sign of disloyalty to the company.
However lightly he viewed this misconduct personally perhaps believing he personally meant no harm he nevertheless was totally irresponsible in sharing it with others. One of them could have been a disrunted employee planning to leave the company and take the confidential info with them.
Who knows how damaging that could be to the company. A best they might have been hit with a hefty fine under the data protection act.
All in all then I don't see this as a case of curiousity gone a bit too far. Confidential data is the lifeblood of many a company these days. For a good many others it is what generates their revenue stream and puts money in the bank.
The way I see it then the OP saw a cahiers check for £500,000 fall out of his managers back pocket and slip down ythe side of the filing cabinet. Did he tell him. No. Instead he kept going back month after month for 6 months telling his friends where it was too until he finally got caught bending down to pick the cheque up.
You guys can trust him all you want. I would have grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and thrown him out as a warning to others.
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The way I read it BDW did share the iformation with his colleagues, and together they decided not to confront the management team about it.
Congratulations, you have now caught up with the original question posed by the OP, it only took you how many pages?
Ok so there was always going to be a difference of opinion on this one. In a lot of businesses (particularly smaller ones) there stills exists this system of 'them' and 'us'. Management styles vary wildly and what one person deems to be worthy of dismissal is just a slap on the wrist for others.
I take a much more tempered approach, it is a lot easier to just sack someone than it is to try and work through the issues and get to the other side and yet I prefer the latter. It can take a long time to introduce a new starter to a role and can be very costly.
Any old fool in a suit can hire and fire someone, retention is where it gets difficult and the amateurs show themselves up.
Just a note, I am not referring to anyone on this forum, I don't know diddly about any of you to make those kind of assumptions.
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To return to the matter in hand - and not the rights and wrongs of it - im thinking, what happens if OP just plays dumb and says he did not know he did anything wrong ?
The file was not password protected, so the thought it was public access - and by it being so open, he assumed the info was not of any great relevance either.
Yes, I know that's not true - but how would HR handle this ?
What if they sacked him and he went to a tribunal with it.
Just food for thought really
All the best
Steve
The file was not password protected, so the thought it was public access - and by it being so open, he assumed the info was not of any great relevance either.
Yes, I know that's not true - but how would HR handle this ?
What if they sacked him and he went to a tribunal with it.
Just food for thought really
All the best
Steve
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Then if this is the case, why where the company so lax in their security measures.
Poppy xx
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Poppy.
Yes this manager was at fault too in that he was lapse. That is not the same as mis-condust in acessing private files for 6 months. Furthermore managers are there to delegate respnsibility and should be able to rely on the integrity of everyone on the team.. The OP broke all the rules.
LTT. I repeat what I said earlier. Employees now already enjoy a great deal of protection. Most of it heavily wieghted against the employer. You can't just go around hiring and firing willy nilly. You would be tied up in litigation for years.
The way I see it then the OP has 2 options.
The first to announce that they are pregnant and go sick. That will ensure that the employer is stuck with paying out at least a years salary for no work. Not possible. No problem.
The Op has a union official. Unions now aint they great. The railways go on strike at the drop of a hat disrupting all out lives and businesses. BA which offers the highest pay in the world and the most favourable working conditions plagued by strikes ruining our precious leisure time. Setting fire to our pensioner pension funds as the share price dives..
Make no miake. The OP will walk out of this with a clean slate.
With few jobs out there maybe he might even start his own business. I guarantee you then that if that does happen he will take an entirely different view and think just how lucky he was to have an employer whose trust he betrayed.
Yes this manager was at fault too in that he was lapse. That is not the same as mis-condust in acessing private files for 6 months. Furthermore managers are there to delegate respnsibility and should be able to rely on the integrity of everyone on the team.. The OP broke all the rules.
LTT. I repeat what I said earlier. Employees now already enjoy a great deal of protection. Most of it heavily wieghted against the employer. You can't just go around hiring and firing willy nilly. You would be tied up in litigation for years.
The way I see it then the OP has 2 options.
The first to announce that they are pregnant and go sick. That will ensure that the employer is stuck with paying out at least a years salary for no work. Not possible. No problem.
The Op has a union official. Unions now aint they great. The railways go on strike at the drop of a hat disrupting all out lives and businesses. BA which offers the highest pay in the world and the most favourable working conditions plagued by strikes ruining our precious leisure time. Setting fire to our pensioner pension funds as the share price dives..
Make no miake. The OP will walk out of this with a clean slate.
With few jobs out there maybe he might even start his own business. I guarantee you then that if that does happen he will take an entirely different view and think just how lucky he was to have an employer whose trust he betrayed.
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What I do not understand - if this employee did blantantly broke all of the rules, ethics or whatever else, why did the company not make an example of them (always assuming that they are allowed to)!
From what we have been told, it seems as if the company want to 'back door' this person - keeping what happened under wraps.
The OP poster writes that the company have offered them a reference, again why, if what they did is a sackable offence (although the company has asked them to resign) so we are told.
I am completely confused here as to what the company is about and why (if we take what has been written as true) they are acting in this manner.
Poppy xx
From what we have been told, it seems as if the company want to 'back door' this person - keeping what happened under wraps.
The OP poster writes that the company have offered them a reference, again why, if what they did is a sackable offence (although the company has asked them to resign) so we are told.
I am completely confused here as to what the company is about and why (if we take what has been written as true) they are acting in this manner.
Poppy xx
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Read the end of my last post Poppy
UNION
As I said earlier. It is the employee that has all thr rights these days and the employer who is squeezed between government legislation and the unions.
What really gets me about this case however is that the OP already had a generous offer on the table before coming to this forum - resign and get a reference but then he comes here talks of sqealing on the manager in the hope of doing even better deal.
Lack of of professional integrity and moral charactor in my opinion and I for one and not going to waste any more of my time on this thread.
LTT. Me Theatrical. You stick to your Fantasy stocks mate. I live in the real world.
Hang the guy out to dry.
Rob
UNION
As I said earlier. It is the employee that has all thr rights these days and the employer who is squeezed between government legislation and the unions.
What really gets me about this case however is that the OP already had a generous offer on the table before coming to this forum - resign and get a reference but then he comes here talks of sqealing on the manager in the hope of doing even better deal.
Lack of of professional integrity and moral charactor in my opinion and I for one and not going to waste any more of my time on this thread.
LTT. Me Theatrical. You stick to your Fantasy stocks mate. I live in the real world.
Hang the guy out to dry.
Rob
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WHO said anything about be 'hung drawn and quartered'. Only the early Roman Catholic Church indulged in such bruelty.
I said hang out to dry. Like dirty washing on a line or shamed in front of his mates.
Actually a little lesson in history guys. All those old movies about the Romans and the arena. The thumbs down signal actually meant the guy was saved. It was a thumb up that got him killed.
Pity those Hollywood producers never had me to advise them - ain't it
I said hang out to dry. Like dirty washing on a line or shamed in front of his mates.
Actually a little lesson in history guys. All those old movies about the Romans and the arena. The thumbs down signal actually meant the guy was saved. It was a thumb up that got him killed.
Pity those Hollywood producers never had me to advise them - ain't it
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B
bdw
No need to be confused. I would say that the company knows full well that they were very wrong not to properly protect this sensitive data and that they would by no means be guaranteed to win their case at a tribunal. If the OP was sacked and took this to a tribunal I would say that there is a good chance that they would find in his favour. I think that the least there would be is an apportioning of blame and hence compensation because there are two parties at fault here.
Incidentally, I find it incredibally naive of anyone to think that employees would not actively seek information related to their employment position even to the extent of taking a peek where they they should not be looking.
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B
bdw
Then perhaps you did not properly read my post. As far as I can see it is more or less exactly the same apart from the fact that we did not get rumbled. I did not discover this information myself by the way. It was a colleague who found it and alerted us to it. A total of about eight of us shared it and it was there for a number of weeks. We even took printouts in case they removed it and we needed evidence.
Now had any of us been sacked for this I can assure you that the brown stuff would really have hit the fan because we would not have sat back and accepted it and I believe we would have had a good case because (as in this case) the info was found in an unprotected public area on the LAN, which we were all entitled to access.
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B
Bri
Interesting views, my 2p.
The points about the employees on the forum,if he came on stating that he'd found it and before something happens I need advice on who I should speak to before it gets leaked to the world we would have patted him on the back and pointed the way.
In respect to what he's admitting to, he was put in a position of trust by his boss, so why should his boss have to password protect his files if no one else is accessing them.Not all companies know about protecting their files like we do.Then theres the question of the employees who are always trying to crack our passwords too, they exist. Employees are creatures of habit.That trust has been abused.
Should he be dismissed, IMO yes, it does come under gross misconduct.
Should he remain with the company, yes, and if it was my company he would be outside with a sweeping brush emptying the bins, cleaning the car park and other menial duties with a reduction in pay that do not involve having any access to a computer and looking in on all the colleagues and managers he decide to get information on.
On the other note, it still transpires that the employees that come on here asking for such advice take the pin out of the grenade and disappear.
The points about the employees on the forum,if he came on stating that he'd found it and before something happens I need advice on who I should speak to before it gets leaked to the world we would have patted him on the back and pointed the way.
In respect to what he's admitting to, he was put in a position of trust by his boss, so why should his boss have to password protect his files if no one else is accessing them.Not all companies know about protecting their files like we do.Then theres the question of the employees who are always trying to crack our passwords too, they exist. Employees are creatures of habit.That trust has been abused.
Should he be dismissed, IMO yes, it does come under gross misconduct.
Should he remain with the company, yes, and if it was my company he would be outside with a sweeping brush emptying the bins, cleaning the car park and other menial duties with a reduction in pay that do not involve having any access to a computer and looking in on all the colleagues and managers he decide to get information on.
On the other note, it still transpires that the employees that come on here asking for such advice take the pin out of the grenade and disappear.
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Look at it from a different angle then.
If you had someone working for you who managed to bypass an encrypted file and then discussed the confidential information with other members of your team would you still have the same opinion?
I doubt very much that you would. I am amazed at how many people on this forum seem to think that it is perfectly acceptable to do what the OP did.
The issue here is not that the file wasn't protcted, it's the fact that this guy DELIBERATELY accessed it, and then shared the information.
Again, think of the impact that this will have had on staff morale within the company.
I really don't understand why on earth so many of you think that this is acceptable behaviour.
Oh, and after what you admitted in post 68 I don't think many of the contributors to this thread will be rushing out to head hunt you.
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No, it was not pointless......what I was getting at - is, if this person did something so terribly wrong why the company did not just sack him end of, union or no union!
Here is another pointless question (as you like to call them) what charm school did you escape from!
We all know what view point you take, and are incapable of seeing any other.
Poppy xx
w
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Two things I refuse to tolerate in my staff. Lying and stealing.
If they cannot step up and admit to a mistake and feel the need fabricate a story then they need to be lying to another employer. One who doesn't mind not knowing whether his back is covered or not.
Anyone who lies to me is managed out of the business.
If they steal, then their feet don't touch the floor. They spend the time until they are legally dismissed at home.
The OP wouldn't be someone I would be continuing to employ.
Poppy, the fact he didn't tell the employer there WAS an unsecure file for 6 months but continued to view it to check it's contents implies lack of trustworthiness.
Also I think that some of the posts demostrate very clearly whether the posters are employers or not
If they cannot step up and admit to a mistake and feel the need fabricate a story then they need to be lying to another employer. One who doesn't mind not knowing whether his back is covered or not.
Anyone who lies to me is managed out of the business.
If they steal, then their feet don't touch the floor. They spend the time until they are legally dismissed at home.
The OP wouldn't be someone I would be continuing to employ.
Poppy, the fact he didn't tell the employer there WAS an unsecure file for 6 months but continued to view it to check it's contents implies lack of trustworthiness.
Also I think that some of the posts demostrate very clearly whether the posters are employers or not
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S
saxondale
working as a security "expert" I am only ever going to take one view on theft - yes.
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B
bdw
I don't employ any staff but until I went self employed in 2001 I worked in industry for about 35 years in mostly supervisory roles. I have had (as they say here in Scotland) a good look aboot!
Well I think that has to be considered in the big picture.
No one (including the OP) is saying that it this is acceptable behaviour. What some of us are saying is that it is understandable behavour. I accept that what the OP did was wrong. It's the penalty we are discussing in view of the employers failure to properly protect his data. I have to say that I would not like to work for an employer who was so careless with my personal information.
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Also I think that some of the posts demostrate very clearly whether the posters are employers or not
I was thinking the same about you and your posts, but you already alluded to the fact you are an employer. Words couldn't describe how surprised I was to find that anyone would work for you for more than a week.
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