I was told off by a work colleague

[selepele]

i have been at my current job since June, the person concerned has been there longer than me. He is the accounts guy, not my manager and I do not need to answer to him at all.

He works downstairs and me upstairs but you can see my desk if you walk round the corner from downstairs as I'm at the top of the stairs.

I work as admin so people sometimes ask me to type up stuff for them ect, which is no issues. I was hired to do the project manager and ICT persons admin.

so this particular person I have never had issues with and had a good relationship with until today.

He ask me to type up some stuff and I ask when does he need it by which he says "its not urgent, like 2-3 days I don't need it today" he gave me this work around 3pm

so everyone has left the office and it is just me and him (we are a small team of around 8) he walks pass the stairs (at the bottom of the stairs) once and sees me on my phone, he then does it again to go loo then when he is back turns around and says to me...

"I will appreciate if you do what I told you to do and not play on your phone"
I said I am doing it which he said "no youre not" and I said you told me it wasn't urgent which he said "that's not the point you don't just sit there on your phone"

I was very shocked by his attitude, as stated he is NOT my manager or of any authority to me.

He didn't even come upstairs to see if I had done anything since giving it to me so I made a point to finish it all and put it on his desk before the end of the day at 5pm.

I then left and I did slam the door and ignore him when he said bye to me.

do you think I am wrong at all?

He asked me to type up some stuff for him, which was fine

Drip drop

*Jeepers some MNers would recoil in horror in my workplace.

People use their phones. Go on Facebook. Play games. Book holidays. Get personal packages delivered. Use the it support team for personal work (and they will fix your home laptop on work time), take longest than the allotted 1hr of breaks in a day...

We don’t police it, because they get the job done*

This...
We also work from home when need, are allowed to go to a doctor during work hours etc.

If some jerk told me I'm not allowed to be on my phone I would tell him to get lost. It IS about getting the job done.

On the other side of a coin in my team we travel a fair amount and sometimes at short notice. And if needed we do unpaid overtime. Flexibility goes both ways.

I would have a chat with the arsehole himself if you feel brave enough.
'I know you've been here longer than me but I don't appreciate being talked to like that, please don't misunderstand me I am keen on doing my job & don't mind taking on extra chores outside this now & again. I hope we can put it behind us now'
Have your say. Cheeky bastard

I’m still trying to get my head around people asking for typing to be done in this day and age. And that they have employed somebody full time to do it.

Project admin is more than typing and if the OP isnt being asked to do anything more than typing then she should definitely have a conversation with her manager.

Project work is very different from business as usual roles. Time is critical and they are always looking to save time. If you can bring forward a task then you do, especially during less busy and pressurised times.

Like it or not OP, if someone more senior asks you do something you should do it. Especially when you're just through the door.

And he is more senior regardless if he's your line manager or not. He's been there longer and gets paid more.

Like it or not OP, if someone more senior asks you do something you should do it. Especially when you're just through the door.

No.

If somebody outside of your team wants to give you extra work the discuss it with your manager first. Your manager will check with you if you have enough time to help out and if yes THEY will ask you to help that person.

I can’t decide whether I wish I had a job where I had to make the work stretch out because otherwise there wouldn’t be enough of it or not. There is barely room to breathe, never mind go to the loo or use my phone, in my working day but at the same time, I never get bored.

Slighhtly off the point, but is anyone else depressd by the fact that nowadays, everyone’s default downtime activity is to “go on their phone”?

And I think I take for granted the high standards of literacy that our school admin has - I just assumed that accurate spelling, grammar and punctuation would be a requirement of the job!

Yes to EVERYTHING you've said Living boy

Good luck with your new job. I hope you manage better than in your current role.

Our workplace encourages staff societies. We have chess, reading group, walking on mon,weds,fri. A group play dnd. There’s a french conversation group and a “bake off society”

These are all done in company time.

It’s nice.

I'm a contractor and work in lots of offices in a professional role. Lots of people use their phones during the day. Lots of people work flexibly coming in late or early, going home late or early, working from home. No one particularly cares what other people do as long as the work gets done to a high standard. Some people have very old fashioned views of the workplace on here.

Op, speak to your manager and clarify your role. Ask if you doing this guy's typing falls under your remit. You have to be very careful with Admin roles as they have a habit of morphing into unwieldy beasts where everyone expects you to help them with their crap tasks.

Wow - genuinely shocked at some of the responses on here. Sounds like this guy was bit officious and probably overstepping the mark.

However, the workplaces where people are on their phones all day and have - allegedly - not much to do!

No wonder our productivity in the UK is appalling compared to most other developed nations.

Oh, and are lax employers who tolerate this kind of stuff doing their staff any favours - heard of technology addiction, anyone?

Where did the op say she 'was on her phone all day'?

@Adnerb95 in some jobs though if there is nothing to do for 15-20 mins you can't create something to do

"However, the workplaces where people are on their phones all day and have - allegedly - not much to do! "

I'd say I've had more slow jobs than I've had busy jobs and I've been doing admin for nearly 20 years (and not just in the UK). Slow jobs are very common. Basically, an organisation will see the need for a member of staff to do certain things even if that person is not busy 100% of the time. It's more cost effective to have us there all the time than have another arrangement - you can't really outsource these things to a self-employed person on a task basis.

There are plenty of jobs where people have to be there even in the down time. Imagine being at reception on a quiet day. There might be some tidying up you can do or some help for other people, but it's probably limited and there's a lot of waiting around. IT people do work that sometimes means the computer is 'working' by itself and they have nothing to do while waiting for it.

You're very naive if you'd never realised this before.

In most work places phone use is restricted to break times or your lunch hour

I agree, particularly financial services, pharma and defence, all of which have tight security regs due to sensitive personal identifiable information being part and parcel of doing business.

In those organisations, it is policy for people to restrict phone usage to restroom areas eg the lunchroom, and away from desks/laptops.

Tapping away on social media or texting may not be the crime of the century but it does give a negative image of someone who has time on their hands and not that bovvered. People make judgements based on appearance, and you'd get marked out in our place as someone who isn't that committed.

Maybe that manager was doing you a favour OP, but it doesn't sound like you're receptive to those kind of messages, if you strop out without saying goodbye just to make a point.

"No they won't, but if you are on your phone alot and you havd admitted there is generally not enough work for you, you could be talking yoursrlf out if a job."

Not really. Never been made redundant from any of my quiet jobs.

IT people do work that sometimes means the computer is 'working' by itself and they have nothing to do while waiting for it

That sounds like IT was 25 years ago. I've never been in an
IT role where you have to wait for a process to complete eg a batch file or file transfer protocol, where there's literally nothing else to do! Most processes are scheduled to automatically run eg on an overnight batch job or nightly FTP at 3am precisely to avoid humans from needing to stand around with nothing else to do.

"He was the senior member of staff on the premises with a junior, it is accepted practice that he will assume responsibility."

No, it really isn't normal in every workplace for someone to criticise anyone who's below them. Can you imagine the kind of atmosphere that makes for anyone at the bottom? Most people report to their line managers and they are the ones who criticise their work, if necessary.
Obviously, extreme situations are different e.g. someone is seen lighting a fire in the middle of the room or stealing.
In your office, do you really go around criticising anyone below you in the hierarchy who you think is not working hard enough?

I’ve worked in banking and defence and had my mobile phone on my desk all day and occasionally replied to messages and emails. That’s what most people do and no manager has ever had a problem with it!

Most of my jobs have had lots of downtime. In my current job, I have lots of time where no students have queries and I’m in a room on my own. It’s either go on my phone or stare into space!

A lot of jobs are like this. Probably millions of workers in largely pointless jobs - but it keeps people in jobs and off unemployment statistics.

"In most work places phone use is restricted to break times or your lunch hour

I agree, "

You agree because it's the case in YOUR workplace. You really can't say it's like that in MOST workplaces, particularly offices.
I've only had that rule once and that was in a call centre, which is in many ways closer to a factory than an office.

"People make judgements based on appearance, and you'd get marked out in our place as someone who isn't that committed. "

Maybe in YOUR place, but in places where texting is normal, you wouldn't get a bad reputation.

"It sounds like you have a massive problem with authority."

Oh, I missed this.
No problem with authority at all, which is a good things as I'm always at the bottom of the hierarchy.

I definitely wouldn't work somewhere where anyone who's not admin (which is basically what this accounts guy is as OP has said he's not a manager) walking past me could tell me off though. Where I work now that would theoretically include a 19 year old boy!
I also work with people with very high public profiles. No way would they waste their time telling me not to look at my phone. If I did something really bad, they'd tell my line manager to talk to me I suppose.

There's a lot of 'you work in admin' suck it up style comments on here. It infuriates me that people in admin are subjected to this mentality. Guy sounds like an arse, op didn't respond well, it's true but that tends to happen when put on the defence like that.

In other jobs, I’ve also used my phone to text managers and other staff about work. Or I’ve had a Blackberry for work purposes. To random people I suppose it would look like I’m not doing work when I’ve been messaging my boss back!

IdblowJonSnow - very true. Admin workers are often seen as the lowest of the low. Maybe above the cleaner and retail staff but still lowly in some people’s eyes!