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

Why - would you prefer I fidgeted all the way through? Or rustled sweet papers? It doesn’t make any noise

I would prefer you to do none of those things!! Is there not a clicking noise when you knit? Or are you completely silent? I would be aware of the constant movement out of the corner of my eye and find it really irritating.

Accounts guy sounds like a total bell end. Next time he asks you to do something tell him he has to go through your manager.
Don't bother saying anything he'll probably cover himself and say you were sitting there chatting away.

what is this alternate universe where people seems to be tied to their desk and not make coffee, chat, look at their phone whilst at work?! YANBU I would hate to be spoken like this by somebody who is not my boss!

Yes, I cannot understand these workplaces where everybody is meant to sit robot like at their desks, working non stop, from the minute they enter the building until the minute they leave.

I have never worked anywhere like that.

LOLOLOL at this thread

CLASSIC MN.

OP, YANBU. Just don’t slam any more doors though.

Just move on from it, it's not a big deal at all in the grand scheme of things.

Let us know how it goes today

Knitting in concerts. Hmmm. I would have to leave I can’t actually imagine someone knitting next to me !!! I’m not at all suggesting you don’t have a great reason for doing so but I would definitely leave pronto !!

OP, YANBU. I was actually in a situation where I was the prick. I was stressed because of deadline and I snapped at a lower level colleague, to my shame. She was shaken, and asked her manager if she did a mistake. The manager came back to me and I apologized to her, then took tge colleague in a meeting room to personnaly apologize for my truly bad behaviour, and to reassure her she was doing a good job. It taught me to never again react rather than cool down. She was not responsible for my stress, she deserved respect, and she and her manager did well on pulling me on this.
Also, we are all competent adults, and personap phone use is completely ok as long as it does not impede you work.

Knitting in concerts. Hmmm. I would have to leave I can’t actually imagine someone knitting next to me !!!

I'm surprised that one would even be allowed in with something that could so easily be used as a weapon (unless the needles are made of rubber!)

Don't people get bagged checked? I have never been to a concert so have no idea how these things work.

I haven’t said anything to anyone besides another lady who said she was fuming to hear he spoke to me like that and nobody has ever had issues with people being on their phone she has been here 26years

I’m not going to make an issue out of it though but will just keep my distance. Only talk about work related things but the lady also said I should of gave it to him then and there

Good luck op and hope things sort themselves out. Remember if you are ever unhappy you can and should speak to your own line manager. I know you know this but it’s good to remember for all of us ! I am self- employed thanks goodness although do employ others.

I’m only telling you guys what I do on my phone but work doesn’t know I’m messaging clients but they know I do hairdressing on the side

Re bag searches etc. I am in London and use most often royal opera house ( used to be bag search at entry but since the summer ‘open up’ completion this has oddly changed to very sporadic searches. Absolutely no one would be allowed to knit during a performance. They would be asked/required to leave as distracting). Royal festival hall very seldom any bag search. Roundhouse in Camden for gigs the most thorough searches imaginable to do with drugs and alcohol not knitting needles I suspect but they would for sure be taken until end of gig. I have never been to antheatre where knitting could conceivably be permitted for distraction again. I was at a cinema last night where saw loads of ads for autistic friendly screenings and silent screenings (sound low etc). Royal opera house
Do signed performances and student special performances and schools performances but never anything where knitting or similar would be accommodated. Mulling . . .

Oh I've just realised Ethel may mean pop concerts. We go to the RFH a lot and I had visions of everyone being able to hear the gentle click clack of needles during quiet movements......

I go to cinema screenings for work and about 20 years ago they would vigorously search. They were much more interested in piracy than violence. You had to hand in your phone and then queue for ages at the end to get it back even though most people didn't have a recording facility on their phone in those days.

The film would always be preceded by an announcement that the big scary security men were patrolling with X-ray eyes and would turf out any miscreant attempting to make one of those cheap DVD copies featuring the backs of people's heads. It was a bloody pain in the arse and I'm glad they don't do it any more.

My top tip for a DVD pirate or terrorist in those days would have been to take an elderly lady as your +1. I used to go with my mum and her overnight bag. She was always waved through after a cursory poke around. She could have smuggled a dirty bomb into the Odeon, Leicester Square, because young men are squeamish about rifling through a bag containing an 80-year-old woman's pants and possibly worse.

She never knitted but those Werther's Originals used to rustle. I miss that sound

Are some posters thick? Mobile phone use is accepted in ops office. That's not to say it's acceptable or unacceptable anywhere else, so posters saying it's unacceptable, let's break it down. It depends wholly upon where you work and in ops office, it is acceptable. The accounts guy was being a dick but since you have only been there 4 months I probably wouldn't say anything. But keep his attitude in mind when dealing with him and if it escalates tjen perhaps take it further.

I actually felt my blood boil

No - you actually didn't

🤣🤣

Some of the people on this thread are not thick, Randomusername01 they are just obstinate and possessed of a mindset that I cannot understand.

Most of us have jobs that involve down time. This is a good thing. Do we want to be slaving away all day, afraid to talk to the person who sits next to us or scared to spend too much time doing a wee?

If we work for reasonable people it makes it possible for us to come in late for a dental or GP appointment or leave early because our child has become unwell, rather than taking the whole day off as holiday. Or make personal phone calls without an officious little prick monitoring it.

This makes for a good working environment. I repay that leniency to my line managers by working hard for them and being utterly reliable. All in all, the company gets a much better deal out of all of us than we do out of it.

Lots of people are using this thread to say how busy and important they are. They are deluded. Lots of us are busy but unfortunately, most companies don't regard us as important. We are expendable, as proved by the recent round of savage redundancies that I have been lucky to survive.

That's one of the reasons why I explore other work opportunities in my work time. I'd be a fool not to.

Some of us get it, but not everyone does.

I understand your reasons why but it really is not a good idea to be on your mobile when at work, whether you answer to him or not.

You are paid to do admin, type, etc and this is what you should be doing and 'seen to be doing' when at your desk. Save this for break time.

Playing on your phone looks unprofessional and does you no favours.

There are often threads here asking what are the words or phrases you hate.

The prim 'unprofessional' is right up there. What does it mean in the context of most people's jobs?

I have genuinely never worked in an office that forbids phone use. We were adults, we could be trusted!

You are paid to do admin, type, etc and this is what you should be doing and 'seen to be doing' when at your desk. Save this for break time. Playing on your phone looks unprofessional and does you no favours.

Admin and typing are not professions. Neither is my job or a host of others. Of course we should all fulfill our work to the best of our abilities but there is an awful lot of claptrap talked about 'professionalism'.

I don’t think you need to be a lawyer to talk about being professional. Being professional is generally accepted as a person displaying behavioural expectations and skills within different types of job and if they deviate from these expectations in a negative way they are unprofessional. If a receptionist was rude to a client that would be unprofessional.