I crept downstairs to my TV-room, and left the lights off. I sat on my couch and folded my legs underneath me, and reached for the remote. Thank goodness Mom and Dad are too tired from their Thanksgiving travels to stay up with me and watch this, I thought. This is going to be harrowing enough as it is.
Outside, the traffic rushed by on one of Las Vegas’s main highways. When I bought my house a few months prior, I wasn’t bothered by the constant noise and reflecting headlights. Now I wasn’t so sure.
I turned up the volume as the local news began. After a few moments, I felt more at ease — at least the newscast didn’t lead with the exposé on the company I worked for, and my position in particular. But, the news anchor did “tease” the story for a later segment in the show. I would have to wait through two more commercial breaks.
I watched several reports on shocking crimes and accidents with a growing sense of dread. I wondered how many people, my co-workers included, were watching. It was Thanksgiving weekend and everyone was at home with their families. Would viewers see that compared to the aforementioned offenders, I wasn’t that bad?
The pit of my stomach told me otherwise. I’d worked for a news station long enough, several years before, to know how much an audience loved to see a local entity (whether it be a person or group) fall from grace, and then to revel in righteous outrage. The best news reports stoked that outrage enough that the public had no choice but to act — not unlike the bold villager that spoke out against the monster in the castle on the hill, and passed round the torches and pitchforks. Did the monster feel like the facts were misrepresented as the mob approached?
Is it Public Criticism or Public Shaming?
I wasn’t a monster, I was a contract-worker — a public information specialist for a company that wasn’t a public utility by definition, but close enough. Yes, in a roundabout way, the public supported my salary and my position wasn’t essential to operations — I fielded calls from the public, created internal events to boost employee morale, and helped with public outreach at festivals and property-tours. Yes, eliminating my position would be fiscally prudent for a “city-affiliated” company that benefited from taxpayers. But theoretically, didn’t every company benefit from the tax-paying public?
Thankfully, the journalist didn’t mention me by name (that would be too pointed). But the story showed paperwork with my name next to the high amount that the company paid for my position — not my salary, but that’s how it appeared. I caught my breath at the sight of my name presented in such a negative context, and for everyone in Las Vegas to see.
Somewhere in the journalist’s past someone from the company had offended him – that’s what my co-workers told me. His reporting switched from Jekyll to Hyde overnight, and it didn’t help that he’d been awarded a Pulitzer Prize. In truth I didn’t mind his motivations, if they were in fact to hold an influential company publicly accountable. I minded his sarcastic and belittling delivery.
I turned the TV off, and sat in the dark. The traffic whooshed past, one car after another. He showed my name — does that mean that any crazy person can now find me? Doesn’t he care what influence he may have on my safety or that of my co-workers? How should I react to this, in a way that will preserve my sanity and my livelihood?
5 Ways to Face Public Criticism (in Hindsight)
I didn’t handle it well. I took the criticism to heart and convinced myself that soon the company would end my contract. I looked over my shoulder on my way to work each day, or at least it felt as though I should. Also, for weeks after the report aired I had trouble looking my co-workers in the eye. I updated my résumé and looked for other places to live.
My co-workers advised me, with a smile and a shrug, that I shouldn’t take the report personally. But I knew that if they were in my shoes, their shoulders wouldn’t feel so unburdened. They were right, however. The journalist didn’t know me. If he had, then things would have been different.
I should have sought advice from someone who had been through a similar situation. I could’ve asked them how they dealt with the negative attention and how it affected their work. Also, I would want to know how they took their mind off it, since I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Ten years later, public criticism is (as you know) more common than ever. If we put ourselves out there, via our jobs or on social media, our current culture dictates that we invite others’ critique. This is nothing new, despite this era’s advent of the online forum, as evidenced by the following quote from Elbert Hubbard (circa 1898):
“If you would escape moral and physical assassination, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing — court obscurity, for only in oblivion does safety lie.”
The same can be said of dealing with criticism, I think. We shouldn’t grow thick skins and wall ourselves off emotionally, or become like silent statues. In fact, the expectation of overt criticism will help us when we feel attacked in public. If we recognize the likelihood, and make a plan for how we will deal with it, we lessen the shock when it occurs.
When the story broke, I wanted to respond. I wanted to write an op-ed for a rival news group and express everything I knew about the journalist and the effects of his reporting. The journalist had also expressed his displeasure with my boss, a hard-working single mom, in a way that made her look like a fool. But I didn’t respond, and I’m glad that I didn’t. Any response would have provided more material which the journalist could’ve used to expand his following.
My final lesson-in-hindsight is that just because the journalist created the story about me, and used his platform to widely express his criticism of my job, it didn’t mean that I was doing anything wrong. That being said, this happened in the first years of the global financial crisis, which hit Las Vegas hard. Today, I can see the situation from the journalist’s perspective, or understand the drive to expose a large public-like company for “wasteful” spending. But at the time I was wracked with guilt and felt unjustly singled out.
To recap, here are the five lessons I would impart to anyone who faces public criticism today:
- Your reaction is the only thing under your control. You can’t control someone else’s perspective or what they deem offensive about your behavior. Keep in mind that you may not be doing anything wrong, even if your reflex response is guilt. However, have the courage to see the situation from the other’s perspective.
- Take a breath. Don’t respond right away or while in a reactive emotional state. Consider whether you want to add fuel to the fire.
- Remember that public criticism is not as unusual as you think. Public criticism of an individual is more common than you know. What’s more, it’ll soon be someone else’s turn. Thus, it’s better to expect public criticism and prepare for it, than to put up mental defenses which keep everyone out.
- Ask for guidance. Seek a mentor who has faced public criticism and survived it. Ask for their perspective and then be still and listen.
- In truth, it’s not really about YOU. Chances are the critic has their own agenda, and doesn’t know you personally. But even if the critic is someone close, keep in mind that they probably have no clue about your core motivations or challenges. Chances are their commentary is flippant and reactive, so try not to take it to heart.
That last lesson, the one about not taking biting public criticism to heart, is still the most difficult for me, followed by the lesson that someone’s displeasure with me may not equal my guilt. Also, I should have shared my first experience with public criticism with my inner circle, instead of trying to hide it and face it on my own. We should practice that type of open expression, the truly beneficial kind, more so than any other.