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

[Sb74]

Limited - I’m not a cf. What is your problem? Why are you obessed with making this irrelevant point? Teachers are counted as a profession in this country. What you’re saying doesn’t make sense. Again, ‘unprofessional’ is recognised as a term for someone not doing a good job or behaving appropriately. I think if you asked 99% of people how they would describe someone not living up to standards expected of thei job, whether it be skills or customer service etc, they would say unprofessional. Why are you so hung up on this? It really doesn’t matter which jobs are counted as professionals for this post. You’re missing the point. You are incorrect. And talking crap. I hope your journalism makes more sense.

[Sb74]

• behaving inappropriately.

[Ellisandra]

Right, so now you’ve gone had a little whine and a moan to the lady who has been there 26 years?
So professional.

You don’t seem to be clear on the structure of this company at all, so I’m surprised you’re saying what work you should or shouldn’t be doing. Rude Guy might report to your Project Manager, or the Director. And he’s now replaced the finance or accountant person. Well - which?

If he was doing finance admin before and now he’s an accountant, then he was most likely studying whilst doing a junior role and is most definitely more senior to you in an office admin role. Are you really sure you’re not supposed to do his typing? You don’t work for the builders but type things for them.

You seem to think that you’re doing that as a favour, and that you only have to do it for your line manager. I suspect that as you’re in a small company and are under worked, typing up for everyone is part of your job.

Still laughing at you actually feeling your blood boil.

[limitedperiodonly]

Limited - I’m not a cf. What is your problem? Why are you obessed with making this irrelevant point?

Because I find it interesting Sb74. You don't have to take any notice of my musings. It's not as if I pay any attention to yours.

[Sb74]

Well, why don’t you go and write an article on it then people can choose to read your musings if they so wish rather than putting irrelevant comments on MN posts.

[HeronLanyon]

I use ‘professional’ when describing how someone behave in a job, as a description of standards not as a description of the job itself. If someone working at a till in a shop is eg chewing gum, chatting on their Mobile, throwing items into bags etc I would definitely use the word unprofessional.
I belong to a profession which imputes a duty ‘to do nothing to bring the profession into disrepute’ in every aspect of my life - work and personal. I could choose with some justification to feel we all use the word only in relation to professions but that would be bizarre I think.
Other words like incompetent or unbusinesslike for my till example just don’t work as well I think.

[Alexaaaa]

If they haven't got a policy regarding phone use in work time you're not doing anything wrong. End of.

Check your employee handbook.

[JeanPagett]

Alexa that's terrible advice. OP has been employed for less than two years so can be sacked for any non-discriminatory reason (with limited exceptions for union activity etc). The fact that there is no policy re phone use would offer her no protection in the slightest.

[PurpleTrilby]

I've had this in a different way, people, usually men, trying to make me their assistant when I'm bloody well not their assistant. Suddenly I don't know anything and am in a terrible hurry so can't possibly be at their beck and call, which is what they want. It's a power trip, they think they can second me to work for them cos they're The Man and they think little woman here will do what she's told. Heheh, no chance mate, I'm a lot tougher than you think. As for phones and personal use of time, it happens everywhere, can't believe people had a go at the OP because she was on her phone. It was him who's the CF.

[HeavyLoad]

I started writing a response to this a couple of days ago then my phone died so I haven't caught up on the whole thread

But I was pretty surprised by all the people so hung up on using your phone at work. I've never worked in an office where using your phone isn't commonplace. It just depends on the culture of your office and the nature of your job. I wouldn't get hung up on the phone thing because you will no what's normal for YOUR office. I'm use to drinking wine at my desk and everyone singing along loudly to the radio so these uptight MNers would be horrified at the level of unprofessionalism at my workplace

When I was in my first entry level role, people from other teams would often ask me to do things for them and when my manager got wind of this she made sure if anyone wanted my help, they go through her so my workload didn't become unmanageable. Sounds like your colleague was taking advantage of the new girl in trying to get you to do his work for him and seems he thought he had some power over you and the right to tell you how to behave. You are not at school so even if you were in the wrong, he has no right to tell you off like that, there are more appropriate ways to flag up an issue qithout belittling someone. In future, I would be careful of saying yes to helping people you don't report to directly, or they might just start asking for your help all the time and taking advantage of you.

I would check with your manager whether you should be agreeing to do work for other people and ask that your manager tells people to send her any requests for your help so she can delegate accordingly. This will probably deter the colleague in question from sending more requests.

I would also ignore the people who say you have an attitude problem by slamming the door. I interpreted that as a bit of a jokey way of saying you left in a bit of a huff, which, although not particularly proffessional, I think is quite normal when you've had a bad day at work. I also appreciate it's not easy to have difficult, upfront conversations with colleagues when you are in an entry-level role and new to a company. While it might be the right thing to do, it can often make the issue bigger rather than resolve it and can make the other person become very deffensive, especially when they feel they are 'above' you.

Also, proofreading is integral to my work and my friends will tell you my texts are the most poorly written of anyone they know, but my collegues will tell you I'm an excellent proofreader. You don't need to proof read your posts on a forum.

[Gabilan]

Also, proofreading is integral to my work and my friends will tell you my texts are the most poorly written of anyone they know, but my collegues will tell you I'm an excellent proofreader. You don't need to proof read your posts on a forum.

Good job really because professional only has one "f". (Proofreading also is often used to mean something other than comparing the author's copy with the proof, but that's a whole other matter).

[HauntedPencil]

As a grown adult not a school child I would be mightily pissed off to get a ticking off for looking at my phone!

[User1736271537]

Agree with everythingonceandneverhas said andneedsanewname.

Sweet baby Jesus and the orphans. Never seen such a gathering of jobsworths in one place.

Maybe companies should start introducing a sliding deduction scale for bathroom breaks?!

Op, I don't think you were unreasonable except for slamming the door. You should have conducted yourself more maturely or just avoided confrontation and gone straight to your manager.

[limitedperiodonly]

Thanks for your link Gwenhwyfar. It's interesting, well to me, anyway, I don't know about anyone else. That list you've posted of people who can countersign your passport application has changed.

In the 1980s my editor countersigned his secretary's application and it was rejected because he wasn't on the approved list. It was very narrow then. He was furious, which made us all snigger. He was even angrier when my colleague, who had a PhD in Philosophy so was a doctor, just not a medical one, signed it and it went through.

I guess the list has expanded because it was too restricted and elitist. How many people know a magistrate, solicitor or police officer officer well enough to be vouched for unless they are a habitual criminal, which would kind of rule it out?

The idea that a 'professional' person has to vouch for you before you can do something as simple as going abroad is insulting, not to say ridiculous given the number of doctors, accountants, solicitors and the rest who have criminal convictions including murder.

I suppose the change came because GPs got fed up with being bombarded with these requests as the only professional that many people knew.

The reason for my insistence that journalism is a trade, not a profession, goes back to my earliest days on the job. If you were a tradesperson you could claim overtime. If you were a professional, you couldn't. So that's why we all insisted it was a trade and I'm sticking with that.

Plus, you don't need any qualifications to do the job, you can't be struck off even if you've been in prison and like others have said, you don't swear an oath. But as I've said, you should do whatever job you have to the best of your abilities. A twat like the OP is talking about deserves short shrift though.

[proseccoandbooks]

This is so going to classics

[woodhill]

Exactly Heron

[HeavyLoad]

Well if I were being pedantic @Gabilan, I could pull you up on your improper use of brackets but this is why I don't comment on other people's spelling and grammar - everyone makes mistakes. It's rude and unecessary to point them out.

OP was clearly qualified for her job, otherwise she wouldn't have gotten it. People who are commenting on her spelling and grammar mistakes are just being nasty. As long as posts online/texts can be understood, that's all that matters.

Lots of people struggle with spelling and grammar. I've seen MNers ridicule someone for their improper writing style before, when it was completely unrelated to the post. It usually happens when someone doesn't have a good argument so they find another way to belittle someone.

I

[Gabilan]

HeavyLoad - I used parentheses to add extra material as an aside to the main point. This is commonly accepted usage. You could have argued that the full stop should have been contained within the parentheses although that is in part more about house style than grammar.

I appreciate that some people struggle with spelling and grammar so I tend to avoid mentioning them. However, if someone is claiming proficiency whilst making obvious errors, that is another matter.

[storm11111]

i'd wait until he has a personal phone call and be like, 'i'd appreciate if you could save personal phone calls for outside the office' and if he's like umm your not my manager just be like 'neither are you mine but that didn't stop you did it?' and then skip gaily back to your desk.

[selepele]

update, nothing happened in fact he has been beggy with me since. He also got told off by a project manager when we went to a training course which was funny to watch.

I know i'm a little devil but hey karma! lol

[selepele]

Ellisandra so happy i could make you laugh!

[selepele]

i also felt my blood un-boil when i won some money the day after

[SalemBlackCat4]

"he has been beggy with me"

What does that mean?

[Aridane]

Geggy?

Urban Dictionary

“TOP DEFINITION
beggy
Adj(beggy): A word used to describe a person or animal who is so cute that the word cute just doesn't cut it.
Noun(beggy, pl. beggies): A very cute, youthful individual or animal. However, even an elderly person can be beggy. A "fat beg" refers to someone who is acting fat and/or gluttonous amongst food(but not necessarily fat) and is also very cute.
Verb(beggy, beggied, beggies, beggying): To squeeze someone's cheeks to display and praise their begginess, especially if they are beggy. This is often done by a grandma to a child to exaggerate beggy youth and their begginess demands to be praised.
Adj: With her cute red hair and big eyes, Lana is looking very beggy today.

Noun: I just entered the monkey exhibit in a zoo and am delighted to be in an environment full of nimble beggies.

Verb: Grandma Theresa greeted her baby grandson and beggied him, saying "koochie-koochie-koo".”

[Aridane]

(suspect that’s not what OP means ...)