New job 'buddy' putting mistakes into my work

[Creams0da]

Recently started a new job in civil service and I'm tediously being 'trained' by a mansplainer, 20 years my senior, about how to use the internet . Of course he's super experienced and knowledgeable about what he does and I respect that. But he just won't let me progress quicker or ask questions, and seems to think because he's been in his job for 10+ years that there's no way I could possibly understand these very simple processes which I could do standing on my head with my eyes closed, and are very common, standard practices for digital teams everywhere.

I'm now certain he's putting mistakes in my work that he's reviewing so he can correct me. I know he won't be training me forever but it's driving me nuts. Ultimately he totally doesn't want to be training me and has made that quite obvious.

Do I just cooperate and nod politely for the next few weeks or say something?

Track changes on the document, made obvious

Why can’t you send it as a pdf?

Word's Track Changes shows when a change was made, and by whom. If he has deleted paragraphs, hover your cursor over a deleted para and his initials/name should come up.

Don’t be me. I caught superiors in four lies- one is a “mistale” I am told, one “I shouldn’t mind because they don’t mind so that’s OK then, one is my fault because I should have known something they hadn’t taught me and one- we both know they were lying but I can’t specifically prove it, which along with the verbal abuse of the nasty kind which was definitely said but I can’t prove (it was a technical fault which conveniently meant I couldn’t prove something else I was trying to prove) meant my eventual loss of temper was my fault and actually I was the person in the wrong. I had then to apologise (I wasn’t sorry, I was right) for accusing them of things we both knew they did but I can’t prove and suck up to people who had been deliberately making life hard.

Get evidence. Stay calm. I would recommend a “no blame” approach. You don’t want this guy as an enemy. All the best OP

You can turn off track changes though. I'd go for inserting file location and file name and date in the footer and saving as a PDF as well. Send him both versions - he'll have to amend both and piss about changing the footer to continue with his mind games and he'll know you have a record in the pdf of what you sent him.

Are you certain he's changing your work though? What kinds of changes is he making?

@TurquoiseDragon happens all the time where I work, which is a publisher. We have to format people’s Word documents to create books etc. A quick Google will show numerous other people with the same problem. Some people have different fonts installed, for instance. Or they have an older version of Word and send it to someone with a newer version.

Track changes is all well and good, but like a previous poster mentioned - it can be turned off.

Version History (again, previously mentioned) is how you prove that someone else has edited a document (File > Info >Version History)
The INFO page has some really good options - including limiting what the edits can be.

I don't suspect any more "errors" will be found to be honest, not now he has been caught out.

Just co-operate. You will get nowhere by being a know-all at this stage.

@Viviennemary

Just co-operate. You will get nowhere by being a know-all at this stage.

OP in case you are irritated by Viviennemary's post, have a look at her posting history, it seems she enjoys expressing an alternative viewpoint, ideally with a hint of superiority.

Be careful of this man, people who behave like this are not rational beings. I hope you find a way to deal with him as he deserves, but which doesn't cause you any trouble down the line.

The INFO page has some really good options - including limiting what the edits can be

^

Sorry - is this an info tab in Word?

Sorry for the derail

@dipdye

The INFO page has some really good options - including limiting what the edits can be

^

Sorry - is this an info tab in Word?

Sorry for the derail

The info Tab is on the same page as "new" "open" " Save" etc I have attached a snip, but I dont know if it will load

Its a bad sign and he will have form for doing this. Keep records, don't confront, and get out from working with him as soon as possible as every other person clearly has for the last million years. Trust me, your colleagues absolutely know - they just want you to take him out. Make no mistake though, he's a real problem because otherwise they would have done it already.

Track changes will blow his tiny, puerile mind. Be careful there, op, or you could be up on a charge of GBH.

@TurquoiseDragon Word is terrible for messing with formatting actually, although ime this tends to happen when you dare to include a table or image in your document. You'd think Microsoft would've sorted it by now, but solving those sorts of issues isn't their MO.

Just co-operate. You will get nowhere by being a know-all at this stage.

Yes, because not wanting a colleague to sabotage your work by putting mistakes in it is definitely 'being a know-all'.

@Eightiesfan

A PDF can be edited if you have the full version of Adobe, so don’t rely on this alone.

Have you used the edit feature in Adobe? All it's really good for is editing single words to fix typos. You couldn't delete sections from it and end up with a document that looks like the Word version.