Accounting and Finance Foundations

Unit 1

Accounting and Finance Foundations Unit 1: Accounting Careers 72

Accounting Careers Student Guide

Sharing confidential business information with unauthorized individuals can result in some pretty harsh

consequences. Regardless of whether you do it by accident or intentionally, you can damage your profes-

sional reputation, lose your job, or even get in trouble with the law by sharing a company’s confidential

information. If you’re unsure about whether it’s okay to share a piece of business information or not, err

on the safe side—keep the information a secret.

You know that you have an obligation to maintain the confidentiality of your employer’s secret information,

but is your employer required to show you the same respect? Probably not. Many businesses monitor

their employees’ company e-mail accounts and Internet usage to insure that workers are using company

resources wisely. After all, when you’re at work, you should be working, not accessing your personal Face-

book account or sending e-mails to friends. In fact, your supervisor and/or manager may be permitted to

read e-mails that you send or receive via your work e-mail account. So, make sure that everything that you

write or get via company e-mail is information that you’d be willing to share with your boss!

Answer the following questions:

5. Why shouldn’t you share information that you hear at work with your friends or anyone else?


6. Does the same idea apply to information that you share at school?

Next, read the three parts of the article Too Much Information (http://careerplanning.about.com/cs/

personalissues/a/personal_info.htm). The article discusses how much information is appropriate to share

with coworkers. This advice also applies to dealing with classmates. Answer the following questions after

reading the article:

7. Are you confident that everything you share with a friend always remains private?


8. Does the part about “exposing your belly” make sense to you? Do you agree or disagree with it?


9. What is the most important idea you are taking away from reading the article?

Chapter 3