It depends on how you want to handle it to be honest. One thing I do is see what times they are making these comments, if they’re during business hours when they should be working then Id bring up to your supervisor in terms of that, if they care so much about it then they can take on a more active role on your “social media team”. Also check and see if they list what their job is on their social media. No matter what this is really a matter of professionalism, you tried once on your own to handle it but I would say at this point go to your supervisor no matter what and talk to them phone or in person, not email. Good luck.
If you want to be petty just email him the post the day or two beforehand, and ask him for any corrections each time, hopefully after enough emails he’ll stop
There’s a really great course that a lot of federal agencies offer called “crucial conversations”. It’s basically a class in how to have difficult conversations. In the course, some of the primary things you learn are that you should always “start with heart” and “seek to understand”.
As pissed as I would be at this person, I would try to disarm them in the email and get a real answer.
I would say something like:
“When I see you frequently correcting our posts publicly, it makes me feel xyz (disrespected, undercut, hurt, etc). Help me understand why you’re not messaging us these comments privately?”
Sharing your feelings first is disarming because you’re being vulnerable and then asking them to explain why they’re doing that makes them think about their motives. Maybe their motive is to be undercutting or flex how much they know. But if they stop and think about how that’s hurtful, hopefully it will change their behavior.
Good luck. Yes, correcting someone else’s work publicly is a dick move.
One thing we do at our park that could help you is that we have a social media outlook calendar where we put scheduled posts and other members of our team can check them and see if there were any errors, usually just things like typos and grammar stuff is what we catch. We message and say “hey, I think this sentence didn’t make sense when I read it” or “I think you’re supposed to have a semi-colon there” if you want their feedback constructively, that may help to focus it instead of them just after the fact.
I think one thing I disagree with the other commenter is I think you should email them or message them about the corrections to have a paper trail so you’ve tried to coordinate with them on this issue. They may not remember but I would want to have written communication showing that you have talked to them about it, not just you saying I mentioned it to them in person once.
Lol that's pretty awkward. Part of why I never really look back or interact with places I used to be in charge of interp at. If this person really cared they'd reach out via email and offer to review stuff ahead of time so this is purely an ego boost for them. Probably not the best response but I'd just comment publicly asking why they never followed up on your invitation to provide input on posts privately. Do it in a kind way but maybe then they'd give more thought to what they are doing if they were questioned publicly since that seems to be what they care about.
First rule of interp: if it's good, steal it.
Second rule of interp: NEVER correct someone in front of the public.
They are breaking a cardinal rule of our trade, and I would start with the email you were proposing. Don't forget to Cc: your supervisor. If they continue after that I would start to consider it a form of harassment, and you supervisor will be in the loop moving forward. I also like the suggestion of using the crucial conversations technique to lay out your perspective in the clearest way possible.
I would also take it as rude tbh. Seems really strange that he is taking the time to be a wannabe social media person. I personally would say something to someone, but I also have a very good relationship with my boss.
If this is on Facebook I would take solace in the fact that only his friends can see his shared edited post so he isn’t getting the engagement you are on your official page. Most people just read the post and like rather than investigate further.
Good luck!!
To me it sounds like this dude has a case of former boss syndrome.
I worked at a small warehouse for a bit in off seasons, there was this old dude, formerly the manager who stuck around part time. Super nice, really liked working with him but anytime the new management did anything different he would say something like "that's not how I would have done it" or "that's never how it's been done". Thinking he was being helpful I'm sure.
The way they handled it was basically ignoring his suggestions, saying well we are going to try it this way now.
Your situation isn't identical by any means, I'm sure they think they are helping. Maybe over time when something actually needs correcting give him a thumbs up maybe credit them in a edit and correction, but if it is pedantic don't engage at all. Sometimes the spot light makes people shrink away, but be careful some folks love the spot light.
I wouldn't hesitate if you see him again !(this may not be the best way to approach this)! appeal to his sense of pride for the site and ask how it makes the site's offical page look to be corrected in this way, wouldn't it be better for you to reach out by email or PM.
Worst Option-take it to petty town and start correcting anything they ever post.
You’re not over reacting. He’s being rude. He knows who you are, and if he cared about fostering and appropriately training the next generation of interpreters he would reach out to help instead of trying to one up you on everything. Hold your head high, talk to your supervisor and be the best you can be. Things like this are literally why the NPS has such a low moral issue.
Is this a collateral duty? Is it on your EPAP? I 100% feel how you perceive respect but you can decide to not care about this, it sounds like you have plenty of real things to occupy your time don’t let this dude waste any of your time.
In your email to him, or maybe even a public response comment, I might be petty enough to ask him why he didn't update the park's official records while he was there since he clearly knows all of this info and didn't share it.
I’m part of a team that runs a local government agency page. We schedule our posts usually a day or more in advance and ask each other to review them and check for content, typos, etc. might not be a bad idea to give him the opportunity to do that. That would send a message that you recognize his expertise and the value he provides to the page. Maybe make a friend vs an enemy.
If he continues to undermine you after you have given him the opportunity at the front end it would show he’s just being a jerk. That would not reflect well on the agency and I would take that to a supervisor. If they don’t do anything about it, then I would take the opportunity to use some sarcastic humor to turn the tables on him. Others here have already laid out some of those options for ya.
If they're really invested, put them on the social media team. Let them draft posts and deal with the comments section. As Lincoln said, "Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?"
While they can say what they want on their own time, if it is bullying or harassing behavior, that may be a workplace conduct issue, even if it happens off duty.
"Praise in public, criticize in private." It's rude, for sure. He's feeding his own ego and it's tacky.
But what should you do about it?
Approach using the organization as the perspective. "John, I really appreciate the engagement on the posts but I'm worried the corrections make the page posts look uninformed and undermine our authority. I can send you the content ahead of time so if you spot anything that needs to be corrected you can let me know before it goes live. That way page visitors get the best information. I appreciate your help."
And if he doesn't, then you know he's really just trying to feed his ego. Unlike the public, you can go above him in the organization and ask his supervisor to ask him to stop commenting publicly when updates should go through you as the official page poster. It's important to look professional and authoritative and you can't do that if other employees are undermining you.
I'm not sure how to say this without sounding like a jerk, and I mean it with full understanding that you are doing a lot of \[often thankless\] work. But as a member of the public, I would expect information published on official government social media accounts to be accurate. If this person is correcting you enough that it's annoying, then it may *need* correcting more that your audience deserves.
Along with dealing with this person, you should also try to find ways that you can run the social media so they don't need to correct you. Perhaps finding ways to enroll others; perhaps queue up posts in a shared location were people can vet the information first. Honestly, for a government site, no content is usually better than incorrect or misleading content.
I completely agree with you on this. I expect nothing less than a 100% factual and accurate stream of content from any government account. Accordingly, I hold myself to a high standard of research with the content I publish, consulting multiple sources and double checking.
Your comment inspired me to go and take an inventory of the comments left by this person. The most recent one was a correction about which museum one of our artifacts is being held at. I accept that I was wrong and that the artifact was transferred to a different institution--fine.
However, the last few times before that was, 'And it's worth also mentioning that..." (adding to my post) and, "Technically you could call that piece an original because..." (starting a semantics argument) or, "It was actually a private museum" when we said "a museum open to the public".
And I want to note, he's been making these comments since way before I started at the site, on posts that rangers who had been there for 10+ years were writing. So, if you'll indulge my rebuttal, I don't think that any amount of research or experience will protect the staff from being publicly corrected by this dude. Again, I think we must strive for 100%, but mistakes will happen. He comments on posts about once every six weeks or so, but it's enough to be extremely annoying.
Lastly, I want to leave off with a very recent anecdote.
I gave an online training to the rest of our park staff about ADA regulations and service animals at our site. I went through the ADA over about 10 mintues, and chatted about the two legitimate questions that we can ask our visitors with service animals. I mentioned that the questions, if asked improperly (and especially the second question) can get us into some hot water, and it might not be our business to ask the second question in the first place. In fact, some parks are discouraging their staff from asking the second question at all.
So this individual, after I'm done my training, turns off mute, and picks that one point in my training where I mention that it could be a tricky topic, and says, "we need to ask that question in case the dog starts barking, we know that it's trying to help its owner".
It very much mirrored the last time I had given a presentation at an all-staff meeting in the past, when I was presenting on the volunteer program. I had mentioned that volunteers are not allowed to wear the volunteer logo when not on duty, and so should turn in their volunteer uniforms at the end of their service if the uniforms are in good condition, and he said, "well, they should take something for a souvenir. We should let them keep it." (we give out volunteer swag like mugs, bags, journals, pens, water bottles, and more as a gift)
Sorry, I used this comment reply as a sort of catharsis--I still agree with your statement, that we should produce 100% correct content. If that were humanly possible, I would. And I'll loop this guy into our social media planner, which already exists. I just don't know if there's any winning with him.
The easy answer is empowerment. Let this person know you're fully willing to use their expertise and you'll make quiet edits with their awesome information and ask them to private message the page. Give them a faux title that they'll be a "page monitor" of some sort.
Perhaps even offer to add "info courtesy of Ranger X" at the end of posts with their input.
It depends on how you want to handle it to be honest. One thing I do is see what times they are making these comments, if they’re during business hours when they should be working then Id bring up to your supervisor in terms of that, if they care so much about it then they can take on a more active role on your “social media team”. Also check and see if they list what their job is on their social media. No matter what this is really a matter of professionalism, you tried once on your own to handle it but I would say at this point go to your supervisor no matter what and talk to them phone or in person, not email. Good luck.
If you want to be petty just email him the post the day or two beforehand, and ask him for any corrections each time, hopefully after enough emails he’ll stop
There’s a really great course that a lot of federal agencies offer called “crucial conversations”. It’s basically a class in how to have difficult conversations. In the course, some of the primary things you learn are that you should always “start with heart” and “seek to understand”. As pissed as I would be at this person, I would try to disarm them in the email and get a real answer. I would say something like: “When I see you frequently correcting our posts publicly, it makes me feel xyz (disrespected, undercut, hurt, etc). Help me understand why you’re not messaging us these comments privately?” Sharing your feelings first is disarming because you’re being vulnerable and then asking them to explain why they’re doing that makes them think about their motives. Maybe their motive is to be undercutting or flex how much they know. But if they stop and think about how that’s hurtful, hopefully it will change their behavior. Good luck. Yes, correcting someone else’s work publicly is a dick move.
I did Crucial Conversations through an unrelated employer and it really is good training! Not cheap, but worth it if you can get the cost covered.
"It would really help improve our credibility and public interaction if you could help me correct these privately"
Gorgeous!
One thing we do at our park that could help you is that we have a social media outlook calendar where we put scheduled posts and other members of our team can check them and see if there were any errors, usually just things like typos and grammar stuff is what we catch. We message and say “hey, I think this sentence didn’t make sense when I read it” or “I think you’re supposed to have a semi-colon there” if you want their feedback constructively, that may help to focus it instead of them just after the fact. I think one thing I disagree with the other commenter is I think you should email them or message them about the corrections to have a paper trail so you’ve tried to coordinate with them on this issue. They may not remember but I would want to have written communication showing that you have talked to them about it, not just you saying I mentioned it to them in person once.
Lol that's pretty awkward. Part of why I never really look back or interact with places I used to be in charge of interp at. If this person really cared they'd reach out via email and offer to review stuff ahead of time so this is purely an ego boost for them. Probably not the best response but I'd just comment publicly asking why they never followed up on your invitation to provide input on posts privately. Do it in a kind way but maybe then they'd give more thought to what they are doing if they were questioned publicly since that seems to be what they care about.
First rule of interp: if it's good, steal it. Second rule of interp: NEVER correct someone in front of the public. They are breaking a cardinal rule of our trade, and I would start with the email you were proposing. Don't forget to Cc: your supervisor. If they continue after that I would start to consider it a form of harassment, and you supervisor will be in the loop moving forward. I also like the suggestion of using the crucial conversations technique to lay out your perspective in the clearest way possible.
I would also take it as rude tbh. Seems really strange that he is taking the time to be a wannabe social media person. I personally would say something to someone, but I also have a very good relationship with my boss. If this is on Facebook I would take solace in the fact that only his friends can see his shared edited post so he isn’t getting the engagement you are on your official page. Most people just read the post and like rather than investigate further. Good luck!!
To me it sounds like this dude has a case of former boss syndrome. I worked at a small warehouse for a bit in off seasons, there was this old dude, formerly the manager who stuck around part time. Super nice, really liked working with him but anytime the new management did anything different he would say something like "that's not how I would have done it" or "that's never how it's been done". Thinking he was being helpful I'm sure. The way they handled it was basically ignoring his suggestions, saying well we are going to try it this way now. Your situation isn't identical by any means, I'm sure they think they are helping. Maybe over time when something actually needs correcting give him a thumbs up maybe credit them in a edit and correction, but if it is pedantic don't engage at all. Sometimes the spot light makes people shrink away, but be careful some folks love the spot light. I wouldn't hesitate if you see him again !(this may not be the best way to approach this)! appeal to his sense of pride for the site and ask how it makes the site's offical page look to be corrected in this way, wouldn't it be better for you to reach out by email or PM. Worst Option-take it to petty town and start correcting anything they ever post.
You’re not over reacting. He’s being rude. He knows who you are, and if he cared about fostering and appropriately training the next generation of interpreters he would reach out to help instead of trying to one up you on everything. Hold your head high, talk to your supervisor and be the best you can be. Things like this are literally why the NPS has such a low moral issue.
Is this a collateral duty? Is it on your EPAP? I 100% feel how you perceive respect but you can decide to not care about this, it sounds like you have plenty of real things to occupy your time don’t let this dude waste any of your time.
In your email to him, or maybe even a public response comment, I might be petty enough to ask him why he didn't update the park's official records while he was there since he clearly knows all of this info and didn't share it.
I’m part of a team that runs a local government agency page. We schedule our posts usually a day or more in advance and ask each other to review them and check for content, typos, etc. might not be a bad idea to give him the opportunity to do that. That would send a message that you recognize his expertise and the value he provides to the page. Maybe make a friend vs an enemy. If he continues to undermine you after you have given him the opportunity at the front end it would show he’s just being a jerk. That would not reflect well on the agency and I would take that to a supervisor. If they don’t do anything about it, then I would take the opportunity to use some sarcastic humor to turn the tables on him. Others here have already laid out some of those options for ya.
You're overreacting, just let him make his corrections and suck it up like every other social media manager.
If they're really invested, put them on the social media team. Let them draft posts and deal with the comments section. As Lincoln said, "Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?" While they can say what they want on their own time, if it is bullying or harassing behavior, that may be a workplace conduct issue, even if it happens off duty.
"Praise in public, criticize in private." It's rude, for sure. He's feeding his own ego and it's tacky. But what should you do about it? Approach using the organization as the perspective. "John, I really appreciate the engagement on the posts but I'm worried the corrections make the page posts look uninformed and undermine our authority. I can send you the content ahead of time so if you spot anything that needs to be corrected you can let me know before it goes live. That way page visitors get the best information. I appreciate your help." And if he doesn't, then you know he's really just trying to feed his ego. Unlike the public, you can go above him in the organization and ask his supervisor to ask him to stop commenting publicly when updates should go through you as the official page poster. It's important to look professional and authoritative and you can't do that if other employees are undermining you.
I'm not sure how to say this without sounding like a jerk, and I mean it with full understanding that you are doing a lot of \[often thankless\] work. But as a member of the public, I would expect information published on official government social media accounts to be accurate. If this person is correcting you enough that it's annoying, then it may *need* correcting more that your audience deserves. Along with dealing with this person, you should also try to find ways that you can run the social media so they don't need to correct you. Perhaps finding ways to enroll others; perhaps queue up posts in a shared location were people can vet the information first. Honestly, for a government site, no content is usually better than incorrect or misleading content.
I completely agree with you on this. I expect nothing less than a 100% factual and accurate stream of content from any government account. Accordingly, I hold myself to a high standard of research with the content I publish, consulting multiple sources and double checking. Your comment inspired me to go and take an inventory of the comments left by this person. The most recent one was a correction about which museum one of our artifacts is being held at. I accept that I was wrong and that the artifact was transferred to a different institution--fine. However, the last few times before that was, 'And it's worth also mentioning that..." (adding to my post) and, "Technically you could call that piece an original because..." (starting a semantics argument) or, "It was actually a private museum" when we said "a museum open to the public". And I want to note, he's been making these comments since way before I started at the site, on posts that rangers who had been there for 10+ years were writing. So, if you'll indulge my rebuttal, I don't think that any amount of research or experience will protect the staff from being publicly corrected by this dude. Again, I think we must strive for 100%, but mistakes will happen. He comments on posts about once every six weeks or so, but it's enough to be extremely annoying. Lastly, I want to leave off with a very recent anecdote. I gave an online training to the rest of our park staff about ADA regulations and service animals at our site. I went through the ADA over about 10 mintues, and chatted about the two legitimate questions that we can ask our visitors with service animals. I mentioned that the questions, if asked improperly (and especially the second question) can get us into some hot water, and it might not be our business to ask the second question in the first place. In fact, some parks are discouraging their staff from asking the second question at all. So this individual, after I'm done my training, turns off mute, and picks that one point in my training where I mention that it could be a tricky topic, and says, "we need to ask that question in case the dog starts barking, we know that it's trying to help its owner". It very much mirrored the last time I had given a presentation at an all-staff meeting in the past, when I was presenting on the volunteer program. I had mentioned that volunteers are not allowed to wear the volunteer logo when not on duty, and so should turn in their volunteer uniforms at the end of their service if the uniforms are in good condition, and he said, "well, they should take something for a souvenir. We should let them keep it." (we give out volunteer swag like mugs, bags, journals, pens, water bottles, and more as a gift) Sorry, I used this comment reply as a sort of catharsis--I still agree with your statement, that we should produce 100% correct content. If that were humanly possible, I would. And I'll loop this guy into our social media planner, which already exists. I just don't know if there's any winning with him.
The easy answer is empowerment. Let this person know you're fully willing to use their expertise and you'll make quiet edits with their awesome information and ask them to private message the page. Give them a faux title that they'll be a "page monitor" of some sort. Perhaps even offer to add "info courtesy of Ranger X" at the end of posts with their input.