Boss told me to get off my personal phone in a meeting

If someone wants treating like the adult they are, they can act like it, and not like a mobile-phone-addicted 13 year old.

Exactly. It's worrying tbh that "treating people like adults" means "letting them be rude" and "adults are now as phone addicted as children"

That’s made me really giggle

me: can some people not see beyond their own specific situation?

Briefencountersofthethirdkind: but, my mum, mum AND me….

I would never have done what you did in a meeting!

You “pulled [your] boss up on it” 😱

That sentence tells me everything …

I’ve literally never had this. Maybe it’s you?!

What the duck do you even mean by that?

You can tell people's job by their posts?

Or that because we don't work in offices then we aren't professional??

Neither does my mother. She can't take her phone with her at all

There are plenty of jobs where phones can't be used.

But someone upthread implied if you weren't surgically attached to your phone in case of school calls then you were a shit parent

I take all of my meeting notes on the laptop - makes it super easy to circulate or search for information later...

100 million per cent this. ^ The way some people can't stay off their phones for a single fecking minute is hugely depressing, and bloody pathetic..

I know a couple of people who I meet for coffee every month to six weeks, and they're the same. With me, chatting in Starbucks, with their phone on the table - and I'm saying something, and their eyes keep darting to their phone. Bong, a notification pops up, bong, another one. Their eyes are fixated on their phone.

I just stop talking and say 'do you wanna see what that is?' They say 'oooh may as well, and start fucking about on their phone, messaging someone back, typing back and forth - 'won't be a minute' they say - and occasionally even answering calls from someone - always their mum, their teen daughter, or their partner, asking 'what's for tea?' or 'can you pick up some bread on the way home?' NEVER AN EMERGENCY!

I'm so fucked off and borderline disgusted that they're so fucking rude, doing this while they're with me, that it's honestly putting me off seeing them.

@Cscs12

I would never dream of calling out a brief lapse of concentration from anyone in my team in a meeting to look at a phone, especially if they had children. I treat them like the adults they are…

If someone wants treating like the adult they are, they can act like it, and not like a mobile-phone-addicted 13 year old. I would tell someone to get the fuck off their phone to, when they're working for me and in a works meeting. It's ridiculous, entitled, teenage behaviour.

Oh you think only office jobs are proper adult jobs
OK then

But the op doesn’t work in an environment with a high risk of terrorism where she can’t use her phone…🫤 Can people really not think beyond their own specific situation…

"Decent office jobs"

🤣🤣🤣

So you think only women get calls for children/sick parents/etc??

And how do you think those of us who can't use our phones at work cope?

My mother can't, when we were at school she had it down that on her work days that they contacted my dad, my nan and failing that they rang her work phone

We work in a high risk for terrorism environment, we are allowed to have our phones with us for "Run, Hide, Tell" purposes. We can occasionally check our phones if we are very, very discreet (as in, we shouldn't but we know the places we can do it where no one can see) and if we have something urgent come up we know about then we can let the managers know for their discretion to check if it goes off. But calls should come through to the main line (and urgent calls, sadly, have done this).

Check it is one thing, answer it and pay it attention in a meeting?

Massively unreasonable. Your personal phone should not be out in meetings. And you certainly shouldn't be answering it.

In our work we have a policy where emergency number given to employees' kids' schools has to be the office reception - who would come and get you if there was a genuine emergency. No use of personal phones allowed at all.

Fucking hell, you’re an adult, not in a prison. Your boss was incredibly inappropriate, don’t listen to the people on here who likely don’t work in decent office jobs

How sad even adults can't just leave their phones alone for an hour or two in a meeting

This is why schools have multiple contacts. If there is a problem, they will try more than one. They'll also likely try the same more than once - if you are phone goes off multiple times in a row then you excuse yourself and check if it is urgent

(And that applies to things behind kids. Just because you don't have kids doesn't mean you don't have urgent calls...)

Disagree with a lot of what is being said. We don’t live in the 80s - your life doesn’t stop when you walk into work (just as work doesn’t stop when you walk out). The line is much less distinct and mums are breaking their backs to keep on top of it all and look after their children and all of the endless shite that comes with that. Neither of you were wrong, but it would make me think less of my boss for calling me out like that (especially doing it publicly). I’m completely done with the ‘it’s not professional’ bullshit - just another way to hold women to unrealistic standards in a world that men wouldn’t have a hope in hell of balancing. And yes I work, in a senior role - I’m clear with my teams that I expect a lot of them, but I don’t expect them to leave their parenting badge at the door.

I don’t think you’d be a good fit for my team.

Where I work this would be fine in an internal meeting.
however even if not, your boss should have mentioned it in private

I bet I bloody would. I honestly have no problem with my colleagues checking their phones briefly while I am speaking. But then I respect my colleagues, know they are good workers and people, and refuse to treat them like little children. You clearly don't work in a job that is at least 50% meetings.

Professional courtesy is not making such a fuss about a text from your child's school that you interrupt the person speaking to say you are going outside the room to read the message and then continuing to disturb everyone while you both leave and then re-enter. Honestly, if colleagues did that to me while I was speaking then I would be bloody pissed off at them for being so unprofessional.

I disagree with your conclusion and want to speak for the other side!
You're not a naughty child who needs disciplining and 'pulling back in line'. You're a professional who, by your own account, works hard and has probably done a lot for company over time and earned trust. I don't think your boss should have spoken to you like they did and if they had a problem, they should have addressed it with you in private. Workplaces should treat people like adults, not drones, especially those who have proved their worth (but really everyone - don't get me started on the shitty ways people get treated in all sorts of other jobs).
It would be different if your meeting involved customers but it sounds like this was internal (and even then a private critique would have been far more appropriate than a public call-out... actually if anything more so!).