In World War 2, United States and United Kingdom authorities created war slogans like “Loose lips might sink ships” and “Careless talk costs lives.” You never knew who might be interested in troop deployments or other military information.
Sharing confidential information today might not reveal troop deployments, but it can wreak havoc just the same. British jeweller Gerald Ratner did just that in 1991 by dissing his company’s sherry decanter set (then selling for about $8) as total crap during a public speech and joking that a pair of their earrings wouldn’t last as long as a prawn sandwich. The result was a $1 billion loss in market capitalization!
Here are a few more things you should always be mindful of.
Posting Online
Even if you say only nice things, be cautious when posting anything about your employer. Other employees may see things differently; for example, they might bear a grudge against your employer, and that could change how they perceive you and negatively impact work dynamics. Never post anything negative about your employer, unless you want to risk get fired. Even on websites like Glassdoor, there’s a slight risk that your anonymity could be unmasked, either by legal subpoenas or accidentally including something that may identify you.
Companies are sensitive about their brand’s public exposure and often monitor or use third parties to see what’s posted about them online. If your firm has a social media policy, make sure you’ve read it before you post.
Another reason to be careful posting about your employer is to avoid providing information that could be useful to hackers and social engineers. Not the obvious stuff like usernames or passwords but things as simple as identifying your manager. When I was a software engineer at a bank, we were warned not to give out any information by phone as social engineers would phone up and pretend to be someone who had forgotten their login details and would mention a name to try and persuade us to give them other information. Gradually they’d build up a fuller picture, thus making their task easier with the eventual aim of getting login credentials or a password reset etc.
Likewise, it’s not a good idea to post too much personal stuff at work, at least be circumspect in what you post. You never know who reads what you’ve posted, and if they read that you’re stressed, or are wondering if it’s time to look elsewhere, then your departure may come sooner than expected. AI has made it easy to detect sentiment, and many corporations use software such as natural language processing (NLP) Sentiment Analysis to grade text on positive, neutral or negative scales. If they’re looking for a headcount reduction, guess who might be high on the list.
Engaging with AI chatbots
Some companies are very strict about who you can email and will flag outgoing email to non-company addresses if they think you are sending confidential documents. I received several automatically generated slaps on the wrist by for sending PDFs of my salary taxation records to my personal email.
When it comes to AI it’s also quite easy for confidential information to be used, and you have no control where it might end up. To mitigate this, one of my prior employers forbade the use of any AIs except the for the ones that they had a contract with. That was a commercial plan which guaranteed no leaking, but if you use consumer-grade AI plans expect that anything you ask or say could end up being used for training.
An example of this is the more than 370,000 user conversations with the Grok AI chatbot that appeared directly in Google search results after users clicked the "share" button to generate links. The exposed chats included private passwords, medical conditions and instructions for making controlled substances.
Workplace Discussion
Climate change, religion, immigration and politics are contentious subjects, many people have strong feelings on them and can get easily offended. Work is definitely not the place to air them. Not only does it distract from work, but it can affect how colleagues think of and choose to interact (or not) with you. Although religious beliefs are protected at work by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, if the conversation crosses the line into harassment, disruption or unwelcome proselytizing, you can be fired. Jokes can also get you fired if someone finds them offensive and complains to HR. Always remember that HR is there to protect the company first and the individual second!
Conclusion
Unless you work in Montana, have a written employment contract, or are covered by a union collective bargaining agreement, you can lose your job at any time for any legal reason because employers follow the “at-will” employment doctrine. Note that race, gender, religion, age, or disability are not legal reasons!
In my last job, I was with the same team for over five years; we all knew each other well, so we could get away with a lot of the stuff I’ve mentioned. However, unless you really know your colleagues, being a bit wary about what you post is a good habit to cultivate.
