THORN IN MY SIDE

There is a thorn in my side and it just won’t go away!

A few years ago I was asked to take over the administration of an Aquafit FaceBook page.  At first I hesitated as I had no knowledge of what that actually meant and have never easily enjoyed learning new techno things. But, since nobody else volunteered, up went my hand.

At that point in time, our City communication strategy lacked public confidence because relevant information was rarely forthcoming and all too often last minute. Aquafitters would arrive at the pool  wondering things like why is the pool closed or why an anticipated instructor was someone else or why the location of the class had changed. Rumours would flap around by people who said they talked to a lifeguard and found out this or that, only to find out that the lifeguard spoke out of turn and was completely wrong. There was a whole bunch of he said, she said, they said — don’t you just love the line ‘they’ said …?  When you ask them who ‘they’ is, suddenly they don’t remember!  Certain people were striving to be seen as the person with the inside scoop — all the while they were most often misinformed, causing widespread confusion and frustration.

So then I came to the plate and immediately dug into the problem. I developed a close working relationship with the official management team and communication director.  I got head’s up on almost all alerts and longterm plans. I carefully presented them accurately and clearly so no rumours could form.  I built the membership of the group from 32 to 83 assuring everyone the only information I would post or allow others to post would be confirmed accurate and only things specific to aquafit. In other words, no lost pet notices, garage sales, craft events, funerals, marriages, holiday photos etc. 

Everything was marching along swimmingly, until a disgruntled person decided to adjust aspects of her Facebook settings and, as a result, lost the ability to view posts.  I worked tirelessly to find out what could have happened. I paid an IT person to help me understand and explain how to go back and reverse her actions. She had moved her ‘availability’ toggle from ‘available’ to ‘not available’ for postings.  As a result, she was not seeing posts.

I offered to assist her one to one if the recommendations were hard to follow and no matter what I did, she decided she had made no adjustments to anything and that her problem was all my doing. 

Occasionally she would go public and post an accusatory message implicating me. Each and every time I took the highroad and calmly explained the way to resolve her problem. I even suggested a specific learned person in the group could be immensely helpful to her in confidence.

It got to a point whereby other members of the group asked me to remove her because of her ad hominem attacks on my integrity. I dismissed the suggestion because she is clearly troubled, and needs an outlet.  Some would say it’s a form of grieving and others would say it is jealousy or envy driving that behaviour. I would say she needs a new mirror to figure it out herself.

Whatever the actual explanation might be, it’s now over the top with repetitive accusatory postings, or irrelevant postings, and I have suspended her from posting for 30 days. 

One good thing about all of this is that there is only one thorn in a beautiful appreciative collection of diverse flora, and my hope can be that one day that thorn will listen to the mirror, transform and fit right back in to live happily ever after with the rest of us.