Don?t tell me what I need to be doing

OK, seeing it?s like 70 degrees outside, feeling more like swimming weather than the yuletide season, and seeing everyone else is likely writing a column about Christmas, I won?t saddle you with another of my soap box sermons on how Christmas has been perverted by commercialism.

Instead, I?m going to write about one of my worst habits, something that I hate other people doing yet I do it myself on a daily basis, that being, telling other people how they should do their jobs. Everyone hates that, especially when it comes from someone who is nearly a total idiot themselves.

If you want to ensure your event does not get covered or has less than stellar placement in the paper, never, and I mean never, call a reporter up and say the words ?what you NEED to do is …?

If you do this then you?ve pretty well soiled the nest when it comes to news coverage because you?ve told someone how to do their job, something no one wants to hear, even if it comes from their boss, let alone some total stranger with no idea what they are talking about. Telling a reporter ?what they NEED to do? is just about as bad as calling us the ?Southern Slander? before asking us to cover something for you. Actually, folks who refer to the paper by that name in my presence will never get any positive coverage from me, so think about that next time before you try to be Mr. Funnyman in front of your friends because I?ve got a list and I?m checking it twice for jerks.

With that being said, I?m just as bad as you are when it comes to telling other people how to do their jobs. Any given week you can read my column and I?m telling a business how to treat its customers or I?m telling an elected official how to do his or her job.

I?d tell Santa how to better deliver his presents on Christmas if I could, even though I haven?t the slightest idea of the logistics of delivering toys to all good girls and boys in the brief time window Santa has to do his job. I wouldn?t even know how to get the reindeer to fly, but that wouldn?t stop me from telling Santa he needs to drop a few pounds and update that sleigh.

We all love to tell other people how to do their jobs. Why? Because we are generally ignorant of what another person?s job entails. We tend to oversimplify our understanding of what other people do and pick various details that are significant to us yet are only a small part of what they do. Then we nitpick those surface details, blowing our chests all out like we?re some kind of enlightened geniuses.

Sure, some people are just lousy at their jobs and probably do deserve all the criticism that can be heaped on them, but I believe that is the exception rather than the rule. Most people do care about what they are doing and the nitpicking is not constructive but is instead a distraction. There?s probably a very good reason why things have been done the same way for 20 years, even if I don?t know what that reason is. Very few people learn from nitpickers, they just end up resenting them.

So, does this fact prevent us from telling other people how to do their jobs? Not in the slightest. Folks are always going to tell me how I need to write something or what I need to cover and I?m going to keep telling them how to make my burger and how to run the county.

When folks tell me how to do my job I?ll just continue rolling my eyes and thinking how they don?t know what they?re talking about. I?ll expect those whom I tell how to do their jobs to extend me the same courtesy.

Duane Sherrill is a reporter for the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].