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

I personally think looking at your phone every 10 minutes is unprofessional and I deliberately keep mine on silent and out of arms reach until breaks. I only let it ring for emergency numbers like nursery and dh.
I think you will honestly look like a whining tool if you go to your manager with this. You WERE on your phone in work time. You did have work to get done. I don't see how your manager can respond to you positively. Have some empathy. If someone came to you with this, what advice would you give them as your employee? How can you defend an employee playing with their phone on work time. It's one thing to overlook you doing it but quite another to defend it actively.

He may well have done you a favour. Think of it as a warning to think of your priorities.
As previous posters have said, if it's quiet and you can get a job done in 10 minutes and have to stretch out your work, are you really needed at that workplace.....?

Oh Gwen get over yourself clearly I was quoting the sentence I was responding to and not your words 🙄

"As previous posters have said, if it's quiet and you can get a job done in 10 minutes and have to stretch out your work, are you really needed at that workplace.....?"

It's not her fault the job is quite and she shouldn't be afraid of being made redundant all the time. As other posters have pointed out, lots of jobs are quiet.

1. Nothing wrong with occasional phone use if you're getting the job done.

She wasn't getting the job done though. I've been in jobs where I was screamingly bored, and ended up re-organising filing systems, going through drawers, anything to keep the boredom at bay. It does sound as if the OP is on her phone a lot and it's been noticed - and maybe not just by the accounts guy.

A friend's desk had to be passed when anyone was going to the loo, and he was called in by his manager because there'd been several complaints that he was playing solitaire - even though he'd finished all his work. He made sure he wasn't ever seen playing solitaire again, because he didn't want to lose his job.

The OP should take this as a wake-up call, her on-the-phone habit has been noted.

Why are we all talking about downtime and slow times? The OP was given some work to do but chose to go on her phone instead. I bet the two occasions he caught her were just the tip of the iceberg.
OP - I would speak to your manager on Monday morning and just say that Accounts guy gave you some work to do, is that OK? That should give you some clarity and make you look willing to help out the team. The manager will tell you if they have different priorities. There's not much you can do if the Accounts guy spoke to your manager first though.

"There's a lot of 'you work in admin' suck it up style comments on here. "

Yes, and with the implication that anyone non-admin can tell you off for minor things and give you work.
It doesn't work like that.

"Why are we all talking about downtime and slow times? The OP was given some work to do but chose to go on her phone instead."

She had 2-3 days to do it in and it was a quick job!

Op you got caught on your phone twice by a member of staff texting about something that wasn’t urgent when he knew you had work you could be doing. When spoken to about this you slammed the door like a moody teenager. Do you really want to tell your manager all this? I’d be crossing my fingers that the other member of staff didn’t inform your manager tbh.
Just save your texting for when you’re fully up to date with your work in future and you won’t piss people off. I think it would also be wise to apologise to your colleague for your tantrum.

"She wasn't getting the job done though"

Yes, she was. She had plenty of time to deliver the job. If she'd delivered it earlier, she'd only have been twiddling her thumbs afterwards.
If I have a job to do, I don't do it straight away because I'll end up with too much down time as a block and get too bored, I ration it out. It's what you sometimes have to do in quiet jobs.

"'I've been in jobs where I was screamingly bored, and ended up re-organising filing systems, going through drawers, anything to keep the boredom at bay."

She may have done all this when she first started and there's nothing more she can be getting on with.

As for the guy playing Solitaire, a friend of mine was complaining that some of the staff she managed had been too 'obvious' about having nothing to do and that her own manager was pressuring her to give them silly jobs to do just so they looked busy. She reluctantly ended up doing this. I told her I was often just on the Internet or whatever and she said she had no problem with that - it was the people bringing in novels that were being too obvious.

There's a lot of 'you work in admin' suck it up style comments on here.

^ this

The admin staff are the glue that hold the place together usually. It's a very undervalued role. I see lots of admin staff put upon by other members of staff who assume it is an easy job.

The OP said he has replaced the Accountant who has left and previously he was admin for the accounts department- that suggests to me he's been promoted. If he is now the Accountant he is going to maybe have a perception and opinion on what is value for money.

Sitting there twiddling your thumbs after you have finished all your work is the time to do it though if you must not when you have stuff you could be doing.
Personally rather than ‘twiddling my thumbs’ I’d be asking people if there was anything I could help with or taking an early lunch if I thought we’d be busier later.
Let’s face it we all know the type of people in offices who sit there texting and ‘twiddling their thimbs’ waiting until someone spoonfeeds them something to do rather than being proactive and they are generally disliked by the others who work hard.

"If he is now the Accountant he is going to maybe have a perception and opinion on what is value for money."

That doesn't necessarily mean going around telling OP to get off her phone though.
If it's part of his job, I suppose he could talk to senior managers about potential better use of staff time if some staff have too much down time.

"Personally rather than ‘twiddling my thumbs’ I’d be asking people if there was anything I could help with or taking an early lunch if I thought we’d be busier later."

I don't think the lunch thing is relevant as there's no saying she'd be busier later. Also with a busybody like the accounts guy, he might complain about her 'irregular lunch time'.

As for asking people, I did once have an office junior job where I had to beg for work. I promised myself never again.

Now, if I have spare capacity, I talk to my line manager about it in a one-to-one and she looks to see if there are projects going on that I can help with. I think that's a much better way to do it.

"Let’s face it we all know the type of people in offices who sit there texting and ‘twiddling their thimbs’ waiting until someone spoonfeeds them something to do rather than being proactive and they are generally disliked by the others who work hard."

Some jobs in offices are busier than others. We have a whole range in my office, people who are busy all the time, people who have loads of work but with long deadlines so they don't appear as busy as the first type, people with much less work like me. I'm pretty sure my colleagues don't dislike me because my job is not the same as theirs.

Also, do you think OP that if you asked him when he wanted the work done by it suggests you have other stuff to do and you are asking so that you can prioritize your workload. Consequently, when he saw you on the phone he may have thought you have a 'workload' that you alluded to so why aren't you getting on with it.

In a previous job I managed to get most of my uni work done during working hours it was so quiet. In my current job I’m doing all my college assignments at work!

There’s a great book called Bullshit Jobs that summarises that around 50% of all jobs are just that...pointless www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B077T7HQM6/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1&tag=mumsnetforum-21

And this article: www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/25/bullshit-jobs-a-theory-by-david-graeber-review

In a previous job in banking, I had no work to do. I offered to help a colleague in a similar role to mine and her boss came over and asked me why on Earth I was offering to help and I should be focusing on my own role. After that I still had no work to do so spent the rest of my time in that role on the Internet before I resigned.

In another role I asked for more work as I had nothing to do and got given sacks of confidential waste to shred and the stationery cupboard to reorganise.

I keep my mouth shut now when I have no work!

Why wouldn't you want to get the task done earlier than the 2-3 days anyway if you could? You could have used the time you were on the phone to crack on with the task, delivered it early and then you would have had a supporter in the office (at whatever level he happens to be). This puts you in better stead in the convo with your manager about whether or not next time you should be doing his admin... ie 'this time I did it, but is this something I should be doing?'. sounds much more proactive I think. the guy then has nothing to complain about. Your manager also doesn't have to have a tricky convo with him- backing you (hopefully....)- but it weakens his / her position I think too and plants seeds of doubt about how you are perceived by other members in the company (is this what you want?). I have no idea about the political situation at your company, but maybe not the best play to make enemies / waves with someone when you are only 4 months in....

He was actually the admin for the previous finance/accountant then when she left he took her place

So was anyone appointed in his place? Or is he doing his own admin, plus the accountancy role? So have two roles been squashed into one? I would talk to your manager and clarify what is going on with regard to accounts admin. It may be he needs help with it but is going about asking for it in the wrong way.

If he is now the Accountant he is going to maybe have a perception and opinion on what is value for money

If he works where I do he needs to watch his back - they systematically make rude arse holes redundant, however senior or important they think they are. We are now at almost ZERO and it's bliss.

Always delay everything, to show how busy you are.

Also, OP if your line manager, the project manager is his line manager wouldn't his admin fall within your remit if he is working on accounts?

I don't think the OP's level of activity would concern me primarily if I worked with her.

Her attitude would though, at least in terms of the way she comes across on here. Petulant stroppy children rarely make a positive contribution to a team.

Personally I don't think you should bring it up to anyone else at work. You were on your phone, you did have work to do (even if not super urgent), you did slam a door which is pretty rude. The way he spoke to you was good and you were on your own - but that could be seen as a positive as you wouldn't want him to reprimand you if there were others present. I'd leave it for now, stay off your phone an concentrate at work and see how it goes in a few months. Plus as I read it you are still on probation and you don't want to put that in jeopardy and be seen as a "trouble maker" especially if this guy is more senior. (PS I also sometimes read a newspaper at my desk - mostly