You've Got to Be Kidding!: How to Keep Your Job Without Losing Your Integrity

Where Do the Threats to Confidentiality Come From?

Your position makes you a de facto clearinghouse for all sorts of information. If you are paying attention at all, you probably know quite a bit about your company, your customers, and your coworkers. Common sense tells you that most of this information is no one else’s business and is therefore off limits.

But everyone wants you to bend the rules for them, don’t they? I suspect you have experienced confidentiality dilemmas similar to these:

• The boss. She wants you to be her “eyes and ears” on both the plant floor and in the office. Any problem you hear about, she wants to hear about as well. She also wants to know what other managers are saying about her. So what do you do? Is “snitch” in your job description? How can you reply when your boss asks—or orders—you to keep a company secret about illegal or immoral acts? And how are you expected to handle private information about your boss’s personal problems or secrets about his mistakes? How long, and under what circumstances, are you obligated to be a loyal team player who “knows how to keep your mouth shut”? Are you still bound by your implied or explicit oaths of confidentiality if you transfer to another department or your boss leaves the company? Do you pretend you never knew or even forgot certain information—even if it affects the company’s overall well-being?
• Coworkers. Staying mum about a coworker’s long breaks and bogus reports is the highest form of loyalty in some organizations. ...