Walking a tightrope with our FB fans - when can I block?

[kitten]

I work in a public-facing job, where part of the job is keeping in touch with the fans of the radio station I work for. Mostly it's been fun to post things to our page and get nice comments and respond back. Communicating with people in a positive way is one of the refreshing things about this job. Sometimes I feel like I get along with our fans better than I do with my own co-workers.

Anyway, occasionally this will turn sour when I'll start to be hounded by some weird dude (it's usually a guy) for months on end, either on Facebook or via email. One man told me (interspersed with installments of his life story over many messages) that our radio show was the only thing keeping him alive. After four or five further communications where he emphasized his depression and suicidal thoughts, I looked up what to tell people in these situations. I told the guy to 1) tell someone he actually knows that he's having the thoughts, and 2) contact a therapist or call a center where the staff are trained to deal with suicide-related issues. This guy had also become critical and hostile to me, so I signed and off and let him know that I would no longer be responding to his messages. I blocked him on Outlook, and haven't heard from him since. I do have lingering feelings of guilt which are pretty much unexplainable, other than that I somehow feel I failed the guy or let him down. (Which is just what he wanted me to think, probably...)

Variations of this kind of message harassment have continued, and I know that part of it is just being in a public-facing job. But I'm wondering whether I could do better at handling people who won't stop messaging me with demands, criticisms, complaints, etc.

Right now I'm receiving daily messages on Facebook from a guy named Mars. He's a listener and a contributor, which he constantly stresses. His holy grail is apparently the chance to go to happy hour with me and my husband. I've let him know that I'm in a busy time in my life, and I won't be able to do this. He responds with, "That's okay, let me know when you're available." Every day he sails in with, "Love your voice, it's so sultry." Pretty creepy. As my responses have gotten shorter, he has gotten annoyed - has now upped his strategy to criticism. "My friend thinks you sound breathy." I told him that after fifteen years in broadcasting I didn't give a crap what his friend thinks, and realized that I had done something unprofessional and got sucked into something I should have extricated myself from long ago.

This morning the guy messages me and says, "I think I saw your husband walking on 4th and Wall." This freaked me the hell out, because I've NEVER met this guy. My hubby is on Facebook and works for another radio station, so large swathes of his life are an open book. But this just sqwicked me out. What is he, driving by where we work all the time to get glimpses of us? And why?

So - I want to block this guy. I've blocked a couple people in the past, and nobody firebombed my house. I'm at the point where I want to do this, but I'm worried. And I don't even know why. I guess I'm afraid of retaliation.

When I stopped responding to a previous frequent emailer a few months ago, the guy freaked out and sent a five-page letter to the owner of the station, complaining about my behavior. The letter just proved the guy was a whackjob, and nobody told me I should be nicer to these freaks or anything like that. But I'm worried about blowback at work when I stand up for myself, or make a move like blocking someone. People always know when you do this, because they can't message you on FB anymore.

(sigh) I know I just have to block this guy. But as a person whose every move is measured by my employers in terms of our brand, I've been reluctant to do this. I guess I could just use some encouragement around this. Feeling a bit weak and discouraged lately, not at all capable of fighting the good fight right now...

[KayLR]

Can you simply "hide" the person? That way, you don't see their posts, but they don't know you can't. I imagine he would just think you're ignoring him. Your employer didn't tell you to be nice to him anyway before.

[SteveinMN]

No decent workplace would allow one of your coworkers to make you feel this uncomfortable. "Customers" (listeners/supporters/whatever) should be treated no differently. Where my wife works (government office), if someone becomes abusive or suggestive on the phone, they have carte blanche to ask the caller to stop and then -- if they don't stop -- to announce that they're willing to continue the conversation only if it stays on the topic of the call and that they are hanging up and the caller is welcome to call back when they are ready to stay on topic.

A Facebook post (or a tweet, etc.) is a conversation as well and the same rules should apply. If you can document that this guy has made several comments which make you uncomfortable, then I would package the comments in an email, announce that you are blocking this guy on Fb, email all that to your supervisor, and block him. No need to wait for management approval. This person has earned that treatment, financial supporter or no. There should be no blowback at work for that as long as you're not off the rails at the slightest thing (and it does not sound like that's the case here).

[kitten]

Hi Kay, yes, I've hidden the guy, so I don't see his feed. I have to post as myself to our company FB page, so as soon as I do my 8:00 am post on the station page, he sees that - and runs over to message me on my personal page. I actually removed my personal page at one point, but it was tied to my admin status for some of our company pages, so taking it down took the other pages down too (fortunately I was able to restore them). Is it possible to block message capability for certain people?

Steve - good advice, thanks. Up to now my employers haven't at all behaved as if it was their duty to keep me safe on their premises. Of course they can't prevent someone coming in and shooting up the station, but they could make a gesture. They don't seem to have any sort of policy around issues of employee security, which is odd. This became clear when I did an appearance at a fair during a time when I was being harassed by one of our listeners. I requested a security person for the day of the fair, but they nixed it - said they couldn't afford it.

Maybe it's time for me to take the lead and just insist on their protection. Keeping documentation is a great idea.

Oh - and thanks for the vote of confidence re: whether or not I'm hair-trigger offended at the least little thing. In fact I probably gave the current guy way too much slack and let the conversations go on too long. Need to fix this stuff way earlier. The point at which to do this it tough to determine, because people who end up becoming creepily persistent don't advertise themselves at first. Their initial comments are usually normal-sounding.

Document, document, document!

[Dhiana]

I second what Steve said.

Recommend your company have a specific policy in place on what steps should be taken in these cases. I know all this social marketing is a bit new but not so new that there may already be policies in place at other companies that you could do a google search for one that already exists. Present it to your boss to get the ball rolling.

Regarding those that threaten suicide, it may help you to call a suicide hotline yourself to get the reassurance you need that you've done the right thing. They may also be able to assist you with suggestions for the company policy in these situations.

[SteveinMN]

Steve - good advice, thanks. I didn't want to have to drag my employers into yet another listener imbroglio - they've already tweaked me a bit about being "too nice" on the air, sounding "too feminine" on the air (whatever that is), and basically showing a lack of understanding of how to deal with these things. But could be it's time for me to take the lead and just insist on their protection.
Understandable. But I think the world is a little different now. How much more would it take for this guy to come to your office building some day and just hang around until you go home for the day? Or go even further into stalking mode? Not to sound paranoid, but it seems many times after someone commits some heinous act in public, a litany of odd or predictive behaviors are recalled by people who had other encounters with that person. Better safe than sorry, especially since this is you posting on behalf of the radio station.

It also might not hurt to draft a brief statement of conduct that you could put on the Facebook page that reiterates Fb policy that crude language/hate speech/harrassment (whatever your organization dislikes) from Fb followers is inappropriate and can result in censure or blocking. Get management to sign off on it and add it to the page somewhere.

[KayLR]

+1 what Steve said.

[kitten]

Dhiana - exactly! Social marketing is NOT NEW! Our company has had a Facebook presence for five and a half years now. And whackjobs who call into radio stations are also as old as time! The guy who ran the station before had a policy of cutting off what he called "jock-baiters" at the knees. He was wonderful, and his employees knew he had their backs. (sigh)

Yes, Steve, this guy's message to me regarding "I just happened to see your husband walking on 4th and Wall this morning" totally creeped me out. We're in a big city. I don't EVEN believe this was accidental. This is already stalking in my book. I will document and forward this to my employers, thanks for the reminder.

And I'll float your idea about putting some language on our Facebook page about what kinds of comments are permitted. So far the station page isn't too much of a problem. We do get occasional negative comments, but if the stuff is really bad, we just delete it.

The issue for me is that there are three forums for interaction - my work email account (published on our web site and sometimes mentioned on the air), my company FB page, and my personal FB page. I've set my FB status to OFFLINE, but people message me anyway.

I've played with the idea of posting something to my personal page along the lines of: Hey, I'm super busy during the day so I'm not able to respond to personal messages during work hours. Please email us at radio@blahradio.org if you have a question for the station." But it sounds so haughty. And this is my personal page where I'd be posting this. This is not how I want to come off on my own FB page. I'm not just my job, you know? It's like those people who have a legal disclaimer in their email signatures. That always pisses me off for some reason ;)

One thing I have done - I've added a signature to my work email, which says that messages will be copied to our station's public file if they reference our station (it's an FCC requirement to copy all station-related mail to the public file). I'm hoping I'll get fewer weirdos getting personal in an email, if they know they're going on file.

Thanks for these good tips, guys!