Should I fess up to a mistake I made over a year ago?

Asked by chelle21689 (7907) September 25th, 2017 from iPhone

So, I just discovered I made a pretty big mistake last year when I first started working. Another employee in another building works as our HR liaison between that division and mine and we exchange information quite frequently and we are pretty close compared to other coworkers and even attend classes together as students for our master degree.

Anyway, she requested salary information for all the people in her division which means hundreds of employees. I just learned how to pull the information and I was new so I sent her the salary for all the people in her division only it sent out salary information from the whole organization.

Granted, she is the “Hr” person for their division, she didn’t need all of that other information for the other employees. I didn’t realize this until over a year later when she requested today the same report as I sent her over a year ago.

I saw that there were hidden tabs with that personal information and immediately called her and asked her if she had saved it anywhere else and if she could delete it. She said she deleted the tabs and assured me everything will be fine.

I can’t believe I made that mistake, I feel sick to my stomach! I’m pretty sure this is something that could probably get me fired since she wasn’t suppose to see it. I feel so guilty and hate myself. I was a new employee learning new tools. I feel like if I bring this up after over a year that it’s kind of dumb to do it now especially when I open myself up for getting fired or disciplined.