Teams etiquette

If I was red and you called with no prior warning I'd not be happy. It's red for a reason funnily enough.

That is probably fair enough in a small group of people you work with daily and in my team we may call someone who is on green into a chat
This was ringing someone from another department who you dont routinely work with into large meetings and demanding answers with no warning. A message before to ask if you could join would have been polite.
I would never walk into another teams office, interrupt their own meeting to request someone leaves and joins my meeting which would be the face to face equivalent
It comes across very much like "our question is much more important, you may be on a call/busy but we want you to answer to us now"

It's people who type "Hello how are you?" and then spend 5 minutes tying out their actual question while you wait. It's drives me absolutely crazy.

No it bloody doesn't! I thought it auto-rejected calls but then I was in the middle of an interview (on Teams) for a new job in my organisation. I'd put myself on Do Not Disturb before the interview. A call came through from a person I'd never spoken to before from another department. I rejected it and the gobshite immediately tried to call me again so I had to reject it a second time. I got slightly flustered and had to explain to the panel what was going on. Luckily they were fine with it and I got the job anyway but it really took me by surprise

Thing is, back when we just had telephones you just rang, unless it was a very big cheese with a PA who you rang first.

Love that @InSpainTheRain but not sure my company would 😄

You're overcomplicating it. I pay no attention to the Teams colour dot or out of office message because it's rarely accurate and people expect you to be psychic-oh yes my out of office is on because I'm doing a thing but I'm actually in all day today so you could have called. If need to speak to someone I would just call. If they answer great if they don't also great I can tell my manager yes I called them at X but they didn't answer. They're just working like you are. If you don't want to answer it, just don't and change the settings so you don't even hear it. Mine is all fully muted and I just get missed calls pop up. I then message them and most of the time it's sorted by then anyway.

Now this seems totally normal to me - if you were in a meeting and everyone was in in the office, and you didn't have an answer but you thought someone else would, surely you wouldn't just sit there and go "well, they aren't in this meeting room, so we can't possibly answer that question", you'd go and find them?

I get this all the time but do it equally to just as many people in return. I would probably view it was good form to drop someone a message before I dragged them into a 5+ person meeting, but anything with just a couple of people would previously have been an at desk chat and you'd have spun round on your chair and gone "hey Abbie, can you help us with this?" And they would have come over.

Goodness, a lot of you would have had nervous breakdowns if you worked in an office back when the only way to contact someone would be by calling them on the phone!

Red doesn't necessarily mean you are in a meeting. If you put a block in your diary for something like "admin time" it will show as red on Teams. Hope that helps.

But why would I waste that second? I’ll know whether or not you can answer my call when you either do or don’t answer my call…

I think you’ve made up your own etiquette. I won’t ring if you’re showing “in a call”, but I will if red and “in a meeting” as usually this is just a call in my diary that has finished early so I am actually free for a call. Yellow I’m free for a call too as I’m usually at my desk just doing something paper based, or travelling to or from a meeting and perfectly contactable.

If I don’t want to take calls, I go on do not disturb and it diverts all calls straight to voicemail.

It’s not the case though that you are definitely busy when red. It just means something is in the diary. It says in a call
if in a call.
red and in a meeting usually actually means available as haven’t joined the meeting. Unless its a real life meeting and the
pwrson didn’t join it on teams of course !

@Shoxfordian there is a URL for that problem. https://nohello.net/en/ It used to happen to me all the time, someone says "hello" then I've been interrupted whilst they type in their question. Now I just put that URL in and it's stopped a lot of the problem.

You've been lucky. If I'm working to a deadline, then "Do not disturb" emphatically means what it says. Sometimes you don't have time to engage.

It's not about the products but your working relationship with the people using them.
Can't believe that needed explaining!

Really annoys me when people call on teams without checking first. It takes a second.

It was tough, but I got through it. Thanks for your concern 😉

Jeez what a nightmare if your submission to Teams is so deep that you’re actually losing your shit. Stop taking Microsoft products so seriously. It’s not real.

Lots of ridiculous over thinking here.
If you want to speak to someone,
heaven forbid, in person, call them. If they can’t or don’t want to answer they don’t answer. Both parties move on with their day. It’s unbelievably simple.

Shocking! How ever did you cope.

It’s a question of frequency and intent I think. In general if someone calls me on Teams I tend to assume its a) urgent or b) something that is too complex or requires too much explanation to type out. I’m fine with that.

But if someone calls repeatedly with no consideration of what else I might be doing and asks me trivial questions which they could have figured out the answer to on their own it pisses me off.

They are presuming that their time is more important than mine. Why does their need to offload about their personal life take precedence over my need to do my job?

'Do not disturb' should send calls straight to voicemail.

Worst etiquette I experienced was being dialled into meetings by someone from a different department. If you declined the call they would try again then go round the team. If you answered you were suddenly in a meeting with loads of people expecting an immediate answer about something with no context.
Imagine doing that in an office just dragging someone out their chair and into a meeting room 🙄

Depends in who i am ringing and why. If I need to escalate something urgently and someone is on red I tend to check their diary to see if its a meeting finishing soon and will message to ask if they can call when free
Yellow or green I would just ring
You need to uses your DND more

If someone calls me when I can't answer I just don't answer. I don't consider it rude for them to have tried.