Question you have a phone on your desk do you answer it ?

[gettingolderandgrumpier]

Even if you’ve not been told to answer the phone . But you haven’t been told to ignore either . If nobody on your team is available and it rings would you ignore or answer ?.
Sounds a daft question but people that can’t or won’t answer a phone on their desk and say’ sorry gettingolderandgrumpier is not available can I take a message ‘ is really baffling .

It’s a good question , I’ve never been told on any job to answer or not answer the phone I just have . If I’m busy I don’t a colleague will but I’d not let it ring and ring just because I know it’s unlikely it’s not for me .
I mean what are they frightened of ? Hence my question I’m really puzzled.

Skype calls can be forwarded to an alternate number such as your mobile
If you don’t want to use the built in speakers then that’s an option

I do use a headset, but have my settings to dual ring on Skype and to my mobile.
You can set various rules, such as dual ring or if unanswered etc and set the timeframes.
Also whether to have the mobile number listed or not in your profile.

Mine is set to forward to my personal mobile, without listing the number and to only do so within specified office hours.
When at my laptop I can answer on that or my mobile, and when away can still choose to answer on my mobile.

Calls can also be flipped between the two during a conversation (though it does take a moment to switch over)

No. Even if it is my desk and my phone. If I have not arranged the call, I am not answering. I will listen to the message and ring back if I want to speak to the person.

Why ?

This...isn't normal.

It’s a bit odd to just sit and ignore a phone on your desk.
If you’re temporarily hot desking then that’s quite fair enough if you’re spending the day answering to tell the caller it’s not you

We have removed most phones since going to personal Skype numbers.
But when we had them the number belonged to the desk, which was your number if you were generally fixed there.

Teams could have groups and set a redirection, so if it didn’t get answered in a few rings it would forward to the next number in the team.
Someone else could hit a quick pickup code and receive a ringing phone in their group, or type in a longer code with the extension number to receive that specific number

If moving around or someone was out then you can set redirection and would be expected to leave a post it note saying the calls are redirected

Personal redirection numbers were held for some if you were regularly hot desking or out and about. When you arrive at a desk you would dial in your code and any calls would arrive at that desk

If people didn’t have a personal redirection number then some would announce the number that they are on today. Some would even put that in their email signature block.
This meant that on Tuesday you could be getting calls for Fred who was there on Monday, or keep getting calls because an email chain had that number at some point

Not a single person in our company will answer the phone unless I tell them to.

That sounds dramatic...there's only 4 of us.

If I'm on another call or meeting with someone or even in the loo, the phone will just ring and ring. Even when they do answer it's so unprofessional it's actually embarrassing.

I don't know why you'd assume they are "frightened" of anything?

It's more a question of what would they achieve by answering the phone that wouldn't be achieved by the caller leaving a voicemail or ringing back, with the added bonus that that option doesn't distract them from their own work - which is what they are actually employed to do, not to go around answering random phones and taking messages.

I used to have this type of set up in an old job & it was a fucking nightmare trying to explain to the younger ones that they had to answer the phone sometimes & I wasn't their personal secretary just there to answer the phone for them.

Now I have my own office so if the desk phone rings it's definitely for me.

So in historic times (maybe 3 or 4 years ago) me and my team used to answer each others phones and take a message etc, or pretend they were unavailable if they were hiding.
Then it became hot desking so you wouldn't answer random desk neighbours phone and they'd log out before moving away anyway.
Now we only get calls via MS teams even external ones so there's no such thing as a phone, my old desk number is now routed through my laptop so no one else would hear it ring.

Doctor here... sometimes sit at nurses station. If i am not busy (rarely) I answer. Otherwise its not for me, I usually cant even help and would waste time trying to find out how to help!

Answer it

This used to boil my piss when I worked for dhl. Any call into the depot rang through to every phone and my gormless colleagues would just ignore it.. I had to boot off in the end and escalate the situation cos they couldn’t work out that it was everyone’s job

I'll answer anything and do my best to deal with it.
Don't answer my mobile if I don't know them though.

If it’s their own desk phone, surely it’s someone ringing them? So they’re ignoring incoming calls from people trying to reach them? And what does their colleagues being busy have to do with all? A colleague would answer their phone for them?

I don’t understand this at all. You seem to be talking about a very specific, somewhat unusual setup. But you haven’t explained it.

I only answer my phone, I leave other's well alone

Not random a phone on the desk and what’s wrong with saying hello can I take a message ? I’m genuinely confused why you wouldn’t just pick up a ringing phone ?

Again I’m taking about their own phone that is ringing .

I explained the number will ring all phones on the team that have phones on the desk so for example more than one person can be on the line . So yes they are ignoring incoming calls that are ringing on their own phone .

Why though what’s wrong with people?

Pre-covid when we were in the office, our desk phones showed who was calling if it was an internal call. I'd answer my phone, my boss's phone and the others on my direct team if it was an internal caller. I wouldn't answer any external numbers because it was usually angry customers trying random numbers to avoid the call centre and I wasn't able to help them anyway.

Who is actually being rung, though? The team or a specific person/people?

E.g. there are five people in a team, incoming phone calls are only ever for two of you. If that the case, why have all five phones ring? If would be fairly easy to set it up so that only the relevant phones rang and if the two of you are already occupied (or not there), it can go to voicemail. What’s gained by having a third party answer the phone and take a message?

I don't think it's a yes or no question. It depends on so many factors - what your job is, what your other team members do, what types of calls you get, etc.

In my office there's just two of us, so...

• if it's a call from within our organisation :

- I will answer my own phone - I mostly won't answer my colleague's phone because by the time I've gone around my desk to his, the caller will have figured out that he isn't there and hung up to call me instead, leaving me to scramble back to my own desk to take the call. Makes more sense to just wait till my phone rings.

If it's a call from outside the organisation then I won't answer it because :

• most of the questions we get can be answered on Google faster than the time they spent looking for our number
• most of the time they will misunderstand or misremember the information we get
• we can't prioritise calls the same way we do emails. When I have a bunch of emails I can answer the urgent ones and leave the rest for later. When it's a call I have to wait for the caller to explain what they want, and then I have to either tell them to send an email anyway, or spend time answering their question - I can't leave the call for later.
• I can't send useful links or attachments on the phone
• the person can't refer back to an email and if they didn't understand or can't remember what we said they'll call back, wasting twice the time
• we can't use stock responses on the phone (or rather we can but it doesn't save any time, whereas on an email I can just use a saved template for the most common questions we receive)
• if any inaccurate information is given or if the person misunderstands what we've told them, it becomes a case of "he said she said" and we have no way of knowing if a mistake was actually made

People often complain we don't attend the phone but they actually get a much better service by email than they would on the phone - not to mention they'd have to queue or call back, whereas once they've sent an email they can just go do something else.

I used to work in a service role and all phones had to be answered, ideally in 5 rings. If someone else's phone rang and they weren't in the office you'd divert the call and answer it on your phone.
I'm now in a project role in the same organisation and there are no phones in the office at all. If you want to talk to someone you message or call on teams.

If there was a phone on my desk that rang then I would answer it, if i wasn’t supposed to then there would be no phone. If I was the only one answering the phone and everyone else was ignoring the phone then I would check with my manager what the protocol is.