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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to keep my mobile phone on at work

70 replies

crazedupmom · 01/02/2012 01:03

I work as bank staff so I could be at a number of establishments.
Its impossible to give one number for people to call me in a family emergency.
I therefore give everyone my mobile number.
I have a child at school who suffers from IBS and a number of occasions they have had to ring me because he hasn,t been well.
He is also making his own way to school in the mornings I need to know he can get me in a emergency.
The company I work for are not allowing them on the premises.
What are your thoughts on this.

OP posts:

hatesponge · 01/02/2012 22:44

oh, and to add, if my DS is sick, I am expected to collect him within an hour/1.5 hours max. I once took 2 hours and the HT was incandescent. Schools keeping children til we can collect them in a few hours? Ha, don't make me laugh!

ComposHat · 01/02/2012 23:23

I can promise you social services is an empty threat. I used to work for social services and if we got a phone to the duty desk saying 'x school here, we can't contact little johnny's mum because she's at work and he's got a poorly tummy.' The response would be gales of laughter followed by a request to 'kindly fuck off and stop wasting our time' in not so many words.

I would complain via the PTA/governors abiut this scaremongering policy.

ComposHat · 01/02/2012 23:24

I would complain via the PTA/governors abiut this scaremongering policy.

ComposHat · 01/02/2012 23:34

The more I think about it the more cross it has made me. The school shouldn't be using fellow professionals they rely on to safeguard the welfare of children as a bogeyman figure to parents who will snatch their children away from them if they don't do as the school say.

This is the adult equivalent of teachers saying 'the headteacher is outside the door listening to the noise you are making.' Take no heed.

IneedAbetterNicknameIn2012 · 01/02/2012 23:41

As a mother I would say yanbu
But, as a customer yabu. I hate it when I am in a shop and the staff members answer calls/texts. It is bad customer service imo. ( am aware that the OP doesn't work in a shop, but am just giving my opinion)

DS' school have 2 points of contact for my 2. Me, which is just a mobile number, DP who has a mobile and work number listed, and my Mum who has mobile and home phone. I assume that in an emergency they would work their way down the list until they got hold of one of us?

foreverondiet · 01/02/2012 23:59

Difficult one, I had a call from school last week, DS1 feel off chair hit head on radiator and split head open I had to take him to hospital. Would have been a problem if I wasn't contactable.

2rebecca · 02/02/2012 09:15

The school is supposed to act in loco parentis though. They coped with ill children in the days before mobile phones when parents still went shopping, played sport and didn't continually contact the school as to their whereabouts. The school had to arrange for an adult to escort the child to A&E if they had an accident or became seriously unwell. For more minor illness the school nurse looked after them until the parent returned or member of staff if no nurse available.

PattiMayor · 02/02/2012 09:31

2rebecca - many schools don't have school nurses permanently on site any more. When budgets are cut, that's the sort of service that is the first to go.

2rebecca · 02/02/2012 09:51

They will still have someone who can mind an unwell child until a parent gets there, or take a child to A&E. They will have to have a written down policy for what they do in this sort of case. Here is Scotland we have some schools that parents would have to get a ferry to get to. I think schools need a list of contacts for each child but they will also have a policy on what to do if no-one can come for a couple of hours.

Ragwort · 02/02/2012 10:07

Hatesponge that is ridiculous - what if you didn't have a mobile (yes, there are some people who don't have them) - I'd love to know which school insists on having a mobile number and as Compas says, there is no way that Social Services would take any notice.

Forever the school would have had to take your child to hospital or call an ambulance if they could not have contacted you, obviously I understand you want to be there for your child but they would hardly just leave him on the floor with a split head would they ? .

I know our expectations are different these days, but perhaps we all used a lot more initiative and common sense before everybody starting relying on mobile phones.

PattiMayor · 02/02/2012 10:41

Oh yes, I know they would take care of DS if they couldn't get hold of me, I very much doubt he'd end up in foster care! But if something happened to him and he needed to go to hospital, I would like to be there for both our sakes.

jellybeans · 02/02/2012 11:17

One of my DS's was very accident prone. Luckily I was a SAHM because they expected me to go in almost weekly at one point with head injuries/bumps. They never said could I make it, they just said come and collect him. The teacher had no idea whether I worked or not (she asked me once later on when we got chatting) so if i had worked, they would still have expected me to drop everything. Fair enough I guess as it isn't childcare but I feel for those at work who cannot get there quickly/at all.

cambridgeferret · 02/02/2012 11:23

Doesn't always happen at the other end of the age scale though.

Received a call once from the nursing home saying that MIL had fallen and broken ankle.......and could someone come to the home and take her to the hospital as there were no staff available to do it. They wouldn't even phone for an ambuulance.

Luckily I was home and took the call.......imagine if no-one had been around.
Great level of care for £600 a week.

hatesponge · 02/02/2012 11:30

I've had all this with the school for the last 6 years - thankfully DS is in Year 6 now so I only have a few more months to put up with it! I know it all sounds utterly ludicrous but it has been said to me many times by the SLT.

They do have a policy - their policy is to require landline/mobile nos for both parents, and if they cannot make contact with one or other within an hour, they phone social services, also if contact has been made but parent does not collect ill child from school within 2 hours.

They claim this is because there is nowhere for an ill child to sit other than on a chair in the corridor, and no member of staff who will watch them. The school staff have no common sense though - I was called once at 2.50 to collect an unwell DS (school finishes at 3.20...) and on another occasion to collect him as he'd had a nosebleed over his shirt and needed a change of clothes. I suggested using his PE kit - they hadn't thought of this.

I did have a whole thread under another name about this last year due to the whole contacting SS thing. turned out to be a storm in a teacup but as a LP with an Ex who would love some ammunition against me I can't take the risk.

2rebecca · 02/02/2012 11:46

That nursing home were appalling, I would be complaining about that. They should have phoned your mum's surgery, who would no doubt have told them to phone 999 ofr an ambulance. If an elderly person is unwell you don't phone a relative you phone a doctor. Mad. Some of their residents won't have easily available next of kin. They shouldn't be neglecting your mum's health whilst they chase you up, they should organise medical care first and phone you afterwards.

OlympicEater · 02/02/2012 17:23

Agree with 2rebecca, that is terrible, but not typical of a care / nursing home - at our place we would have phoned for an ambulance first.

If there was a member of staff spare (we have to maintain appropriate ratios to maintain care) then the member of staff would have gone with the resident in the ambulance, and we would have informed next of kin as well.

HoneyandHaycorns · 02/02/2012 17:45

As a boss, I can't imagine banning mobile phones, but I have staff who are generally well motivated and responsible, so they don't abuse this. If they were constantly texting, chatting or otherwise messing around on them instead of getting on with their work, then I guess I might have to think differently

cambridgeferret · 02/02/2012 19:04

2rebecca,Olympic, -we were shocked but I'm sure all homes aren't like that one- it was a complete tip.

MIL also had bedsores and Strep infection caused by lack of care.

SIL was incandescent and refused to pay the care bills. The couple who were the owners backed down when she produced a consultant letter backing up the findings.
Sadly despite being moved MIL passed away 3 months later. :(

Meanwhile, back to the topic...

cricketballs · 02/02/2012 19:26

on the other hand - what would you think about a teacher who stopped mid lesson to answer a call.......

LaurieFairyCake · 02/02/2012 19:38

Yes, I was going to say that further up when I said I couldn't take calls. Dh can't either as he's a teacher.

The school would phone SS in our case with foster dd just to check what to do about dd as she is under a full care order if they couldn't get hold of us.

But not in any judgemental way. And there is no way the school would call SS with normal parents, they would just make the decision themselves.

Anyone being threatened with SS should complain to the governors as that's very wrong.

It's also quite normal for people to have to commute so they can't get back for a couple of hours anyway. Of course the school has to call an ambulance and escort in these circs.

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