Contrary to what romantic comedies and daring relationship stories might lead you to believe, having a crush on someone doesn’t immediately make you into a plot-critical, above-the-law main character who “gets the girl despite adversity.”

In reality, if you do end up developing a crush on your coworker’s husband, then attaining his phone number through nefarious means and start driving a wedge into their relationship, all you’ll get is a meeting with the HR.

While having a crush is normal, letting that crush lead you into doing nefarious things is not

Image credits: Damir Kopezhanov / Unsplash (not the actual photo)

A woman recently asked the internet if she’d be too harsh for reporting a coworker to HR over a privacy violation

Image credits: Karolina Grabowska / Pexels (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Ruan Richard Rodrigues / Unsplash (not the actual photo)

Image credits: jadenicole_gardens

The ‘crush’ part didn’t bother the woman, but the breach of privacy did, and a report would’ve likely meant her coworker would be fired

A Redditor recently visited r/AITAH for some perspective on an issue she has. Long story short, she has a coworker who admitted to having a crush on her husband. OP didn’t think much of it—it’s a harmless crush.

Unfortunately, harmless turned inappropriate really quickly when OP learned her husband got a text from her coworker. A text that attempted to drive a wedge in their relationship.

And so OP wondered if it’s something that HR ought to hear about considering the harsh policies in the company. Spoiler: folks in the comment section were all in favor of her coworker being reported.

Folks emphasized the brevity of the privacy violation that the coworker caused—using company resources for personal gains in ways that breach people’s privacy. Not only is this a violation against OP, it’s also a potential source of a data leak, so the company wouldn’t be happy about it either.

Besides that, some commenters suggested that the coworker is “unbalanced” and is attempting to become a homewrecker with her crazy behavior.

The story received nearly 6,000 upvotes and generated a discussion with 2,400 comments.

Multiple issues arise from abusing the privileges of access to information, ranging from security risks to hurting people

Employees working in a company might be given certain privileges that would allow them to do their job, if not empower them to do it better. However, some might choose to abuse their privileges for personal gain, either maliciously or accidentally.

In any case, that is a huge problem as it can cause leaks of sensitive data and business intelligence and, if not done cautiously, might crash systems and apps essential for a business to run, thus hurting the bottom line.

This is besides things like damage to a company’s reputation, bad publicity, risk of lawsuits and penalties due to failure to comply with safety and security standards.

Based on Verizon’s Data Breach Investigation Report from 2017, privilege misuse was the second most common cause of security incidents and third most common for breaches. Needless to say, it’s only natural for companies to employ strict policies to make sure privilege misuse is nonexistent.

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And all of the same points apply on a personal level—privilege abuse such as access to personal data can empower employees to get personal gain from their coworkers, thus putting them in a situation where everything from their reputation to their financials might suffer.

So, what are your thoughts on any of this? Share your takes and stories in the comment section below!

The author of the story provide a bit of context in the form of responses to commenters

In any case, folks thought she wouldn’t be wrong to tell HR about the incident

The woman also provided a bit of an update to the original post

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Image credits: Anna Shvets / Pexels (not the actual photo)

Image credits: charlesdeluvio / Unsplash (not the actual photo)

Image credits: jadenicole_gardens

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