Aibu to be fed up with work ringing and sending messages

I agree with this - and when you do discover a number is a work colleague, block it on your phone or are the very least save it in your phone as 'work Dave' etc so you know to ignore it in future.

My son has a box that he puts his phone into. It locks and only releases after a preset time. I have no idea what it s called but it sounds like it could be perfect for you!

Put your out of office on and don’t answer your phone.

You will know the numbers of your family and friends. Don't answer any other calls for a period of time, let them leave a voicemail and call them back if they are genuine and not work colleagues. The ones you call back you can say you have had nuisance calls, which in a way the work colleagues are.

If that does not work, you need to be firmer and if you say to a colleague that they must not call you out of hours unless an emergency. If that fails, look at calling it harassment and be prepared to involve HR.

Change your personal phone number and don’t give it to them. If it’s a work phone then switch it off until you’re due to be working.

Some people in my work also put their hours in their email signatures.

I’d probably be looking for another job though as they sound awful.

They are taking the mickey!
I think you need to find out where people got your personal number from. They may not even know you have a separate work phone.

Can you put call screening on your personal phone? Then the caller has to announce who they are and you choose to reject their call.

Take work emails off your personal phone if you get them there.

I appreciate you need to be able to answer if school calls, but doesn't your phone display the name of the school when they ring? Can you make sure their number is saved in your phone so it does?

Then just stop answering calls from unknown numbers.

And each time someone does get through to you, save it in your phone as Work1, work2, work3 etc and next time you know not to answer from that number

Then this needs dealing with … they should NOT be contacting you on your personal phone and I would formally request this stop, do it in writing and copy in HR! Also ensure you put an out of office message in your email for the non working days and state when you are back to work and then able to respond.

OP,

You have literally bent over backwards for this organization who are absalutely taking advantage of you, rudely insulted you and turned a blind eye to your first and most important responsibility is your children, whose needs have to come first.

I suggest that you get into a union asap, a union rep will be armed with the info to defend you, as your work ethic is exemplary.

I think you go to HR explain all this and ask how people have got your private number. Ask how you stop colleagues phoning you on your private number. Put the onus on them to sort it for you. And then you switch your work phone off. Make a list for HR of who has phoned, contacted you and when. Agree with asking for their policies on this.

Its the shit part of working pt. It’s like you get paid less but are expected to be available ft hours. My boss was so bad at contacting people on their holidays - like a total control thing- that we all eventually had had enough. I told him that I was muting everything and if he needed me he’d have to come round to my house and ask me in person if it was that urgent. I work in a v small organisation though with no HR.

If you want to look like you are not being deliberately unhelpful I’d tell your boss that if there is an absolute emergency they can message you but no one else. It will filter out all the nonsense that people are being too lazy to work out themselves.

And this. Concise, clear and polite!

They shouldn't be ringing your personal phone and you need to stop answering when you know it's work. Can you change your number? Easier said than done I know. But you can block work numbers.

Hm. Changing to a new private number / email would seem to be indicated.

You should be raising several aspects of this with HR, however. Have you explicitly given permission for your private number to be shared for use outside working hours? If not I would ask HR why it has been given out, and to whom, and request that they deal with it (ie notify everyone who has it that they don’t have permission to use it.)

And I would ask for the company policy on out of hours working. Should there be anything useful in it, copy and paste the relevant part and add it to your out of hours email response to work emails.

“I’m not available outside of work hours, but I’m happy to discuss what you want when I’m next in”. Repeat every time they contact you forever

I think you simply stop answering any calls from a number you don’t recognise for a while. If it is something urgent - work or personal - the person will leave a message which you can listen to as soon as it has been left to work out if it’s school, something like the opticians or a car service or work. And then the work ones you ignore. It’s really tough but it will eventually work, or at least work most of the time. Alternatively, if you’re in a unique role and they are likely to need your expertise outside of your set hours, agree to work, say, three additional hours per week but, rather than them being specific hours, they are floating hours so that you can deal with these additional calls. The problem with this is that you are then accepting that you will deal with the calls

That sounds like a breach of gdpr.

It sounds like a very chaotic place to work. No wonder you burnt out.

Email nice to HR and line manager

Dear HR Team,
I am writing to request some clarification regarding the company’s policy on out-of-hours communication.
Currently, my working hours are Monday to Wednesday, 11:00 am – 4:00 pm. However, I have recently been contacted regarding work matters on my personal email and mobile phone outside of these scheduled times.
Could you please clarify the company’s expectations for responding to communications outside of core hours? Additionally, I don’t recall providing my personal mobile number for work purposes, so I would appreciate it if you could confirm how my contact details are being used and the specific circumstances under which I should expect to be reached externally.
Thank you for your help with this.
Best regards,
Claire

You need to bring this out as a GDPR then you haven’t given it out. Work phone and work iPad stay in your back. Out of office auto reply when you aren’t here. Email signature has your working days and hours on it- you have to be ruthless.

Don’t respond to any emails except in your working hours. Don’t answer your phone ditto if the call is from a number that could be a work number - if it is urgent, whoever it is will leave a message, which you can listen to to find out if it’s something non-work-related.

What was the response from your manager when you had that discussion? It's very different if it's them contacting you / your team, or other employees in the business.

The issue I can see is that you don't seem to have a work phone that you can turn off when you're not at work.

We have a few people working part-time, I honestly cannot tell you whether they work Monday morning or Wednesday afternoon, it's impossible to keep track. The only way I know is through their outlook auto-reply, and if I have emailed them outside their working hours then I either forward to someone else, or know I won't get a response until their next working day.

If you use phone calls a lot, then asking for a work phone would be reasonable.

Or - although you shouldn't have to - you could buy yourself a cheap SIM only phone that you only use for work.

I work set hours and there is zero expectation of any sort of contact outside these hours (many people work Flexi and keep very strange hours, but their emails state that response is not required outside our hours).

DH is paid a much higher salary and is often expected to work beyond usual hours, evenings, weekends, travel for weeks at a time etc. but he's getting big bucks and it is accepted that he is available for the big stuff outside the 9-5.

If you are in the former category op you need to log every single interaction and present this to your manager and HR. This is NOT acceptable at all

Set an out of office message noting your workimg days/emails and that you will not be available. Add a colleague to be contacted in your absence.

Ask for a work phone and if they say no, buy a cheapie.

I work three days too. Am flexible but within my boundaries.

If they continue to bother, note the time spent and request it in lieu.

I explained it all in my comment, you must of read that and not the rest? I had issues with boundaries and people pleasing / not wanting to upset others. I’ve been getting therapy and I’ve stopped.

Your workplace is behaving appallingly, YANBU.

Are you part of a union? If you aren’t then now would be a good time to join. Could you contact ACAS to have a chat about where you stand?

I’m assuming that there are also advantages to this job & that ideally you’d like to keep it - finding new PT roles is tough at the best of times. So-

Just because they send you messages/ emails etc doesn’t mean you have to read or answer them until you’re back on a work day.
It may be difficult to train your colleagues to realise that, but if you’re to stay in this job, you need to.
Can you tell colleagues when you’re on work? put Out of Office on? Respond to messages with “I’m not in the office until X & will reply then”
Take control of the situation to stop them taking the p—- out of you.