I made a mistake at work that caused a senior employee to get fired. I feel horrible.

I’ve accidentally gotten someone fired too. I feel bad about it to this day.

On a large project that involved sensitive data, I noticed that one of the encrypted hard drives we’d received had some files that didn’t seem correct. The information appeared to be from another customer altogether. I mentioned it on the next project status call and it sent a chill through the virtual meeting room when I did so. I didn’t know why as I said that my team would just ignore the incorrect data and get on with business.

I didn’t call out anyone specifically and I just wanted to make sure that we weren’t supposed to do something with those files.

On the next call, I noticed that the very competent, personable and on top of things project manager we’d been dealing with was not in the meeting. I asked about it later and was told that she’d been fired for including that data.

Awww shit. If I’d had any idea, I wouldn’t have said a damn word about that stuff. It just would’ve gotten silently deleted. There was zero chance my job was or would’ve been at risk as the project could not have been completed on time without me.

But I didn’t know. Someone was probably gunning for her job anyway (this was a terrible org we were taking over for) and that accidental sensitive data inclusion gave them their shot.

I sent her a message on LinkedIn after but never heard back. Hope she’s doing ok; this was years ago now.