Dear Naked:

If you work in the email and voice mail age, you're bound to see some spectacular breaches of confidentiality by some folks who are either not smart enough to master the technologies, or whose carelessness leaves an indelible mark they can't hide. If there is any mistake here, it's probably that you were copied on the email, not that it was intentionally sent to your colleagues. After all, entire emails aren't usually sent by mistake – they're usually only copied to the wrong people, which I'm guessing is what has happened here, and that's the assumption I'm operating under.

In this scenario, I think the real issue here is why your boss chose to send this sensitive information to your co-workers in the first place, and I guess I'm wondering if they are truly your peers. You state that they share the same job title and responsibilities, but can you be absolutely sure that they are not senior members of the team with some supervisory responsibility for you that you're not aware of? Today's workplace is full of fluidly managed project teams, and while these teams are often composed of equals, they also often contain some stratification of leadership.

You also stated that you've only been there two months, and I guess I wonder if the same is true of your peers. Sometimes seniority is authority. So to me, the real issue is whether these individuals are in a leadership role that you're not aware of. If they are, then it's probably or at least possibly appropriate that they know some more things about your role, and that may include your salary.

If I'm all wet here and this truly was a breach of what should have remained confidential information between equals, then I do think you should discuss this with your boss, and I think he owes you an explanation and an apology. HR should be also made aware of this slip-up. If you feel like he fouls up the explanation or the apology, consider a move elsewhere in the company or the job market – this boss might not respect his employees very much. If you find the HR response tepid as well, that may tell you some things about the organization as a whole.

In the mean time, I do encourage you to better understand your role in relation to your co-workers and to make sure what really happened here. You'll quickly find you don't enjoy as many rights as you might have expected, but you still need to find out if you were truly wronged in this situation.

Sincerely,

Mike

Veronica Says...

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