Getting Into Trouble at Work

Many jobs allow people access to information that is considered sensitive. Wasn't it just recently that some hospital workers at UCLA Medical Center took a peak at a celebrity's medical records? Now comes news that an IRS worker in Kentucky illegally accessed a database to get information about 200 celebrities. It turns out the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) kept on eye on suspicious employee access to an IRS database containing sensitive, personal and tax information. That's how this employee, John Snyder, got caught. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and may spend up to six months in jail. He will, at the minimum, be sentenced to probation.

We tend to think that what we do at work is private. No one can see what we're doing unless they are physically looking over our shoulders. That is so far from the truth. Your employer can track your key strokes, access your email and see a list of every Web Site you visit. Just the other day I received an email from a woman who is unhappy with her job (that was the subject of her email). She needed advice on what to do about it. That's not an unusual email for me to receive. A huge potential problem for her was that not only did she send the email from work, she sent it from her work email account. I had to write back to her to tell her to send her question again, but this time to do it from a personal account. You just don't know if your boss is watching your every move. Assume he or she is.

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