New manager keeps disturbing me with irrelevant things every time I’m on my phone :/

[Ghostpost]

I was employed before her, and have been here a couple of months. We’re in a research type environement and everything is really laid back with phones, work hours, days off etc. Everyone knows work gets done, deadlines are met so everyone is happy that the place is so flexible around family life.

She’s been here 3 days and has mentioned twice if I have enough work to keep me busy (😒).. I’m an adult and I know what I need to do. And although it would be really easy to take the piss here, I have been working incredibly hard to make a difference to our department.

I’ve noticed today she keeps coming and disturbing me every time I’m on my phone reading twitter or whatever. She’s making me feel like a school child not being allowed on my phone. She’s looked over at me a few times already whilst I’m typing this.

If I wasn’t working she would have a point to make, but I refuse to be micromanaged like this, as I’m not a child. It’s making me uncomfortable.

Everyone has their phone on their desk at my work, and yes, will glance at it, respond to texts, or whatever.

But come on, OP - have a little bit of cop on! You're not supposed to be whiling away time on Twitter and Mumsnet - and getting annoyed by your boss for interrupting you while doing it - on work time!

Nobody can be this mind-boggingly clueless.

As I said upthread, tell her to stop interrupting your Twitter time, if you think you're so in the right.

Look, you can tell from the responses here that your workplace is unusual in how relaxed it is. So it’s a fair assumption that it’s unusual to the new manager as well. Give her a bit of time to adjust?

Exchange a few minutes chat with colleagues? Share snacks around or talk about last nights must see tv? Do you not check the news/weather/read or send texts to your family and friends

I think there's a difference between chatting with colleagues during the working day and being on your phone - chatting to colleagues helps build working relationships, staring at your phone doesn't.

Would hate to work where some if you work my god.

OP if you think you're being reasonable then just set up a meeting and tell her you don't appreciate it she she disturbs you when you're on twitter 👍 if you can stay off you phone long enough to do that of course.

Maybe she’ been brought in to solve a problem in your workplace? Like a phone zapping enforcer!

Screaming

It's the same thing. Chatting with colleagues is not working nor is going for cigar breaks which non smokers dont do.

I had one job in the civil service that I resigned from. I had my own office and they all went on summer leave and left me alone for four weeks. I had nothing to do. It was great! I took two hour lunches and took my iPad in. Didn’t see anybody all day, think I was the only person in in my building all summer.

I’m sure that has made a few MNettter heads explode. 🤯

It's the same thing. Chatting with colleagues is not working nor is going for cigar breaks which non smokers dont do.

OK, so the OP should just tell her manager off for interrupting her Twitter time, then.

Problem solved.

Are you serious, OP?
You're being paid and expect to check your phone every ten minutes, I can't even do this and I'm a sahm.
You sound ridiculously entitled.
Also, you've been there a few months only and yuh think you have it all figured out?

Lvsel - I didn't mean to suggest that chatting with colleagues was working - what I was getting that is that some forms of 'not working' are seen as more acceptable in the office than others, usually with reason - generally those that are thought to contribute to a good atmosphere at work. An office full of people looking at their phones isn't going to feel very convivial.

Sounds like you're visibly taking the piss.

Use your phone on breaks. Not every single time your manager looks up and sees you.

I had a real problem with employees using phones and internet at work. We only needed WiFi for the credit card machine and uploading a small amount of data once or twice a month so had a basic broadband package. Staff were not allowed to log into personal email accounts since we hold a lot of confidential information and no downloading was allowed.
I had one employee who managed to download an almost catastrophic virus costing us a great deal of money to fix ( downtime meant we had to cancel a couple of days work). She ignored the ban on logging her phone into the WiFi and we spent months having trouble with the credit card machine, her phone was constantly refreshing apps and streaming taking up too much broadband width.
It was frustrating since I had made it clear in contracts. To cap it all she denied logging in, unfortunately for her the network identified her phone.

She was totally addicted to her phone and her work suffered, as a manager she would regularly offload tasks to other staff so she could monitor her phone. Eventually they got fed up, they didn’t feel they could complain about it without causing agro for themselves so stopped covering for her. She left under a cloud when I started querying why tasks were not being done.

OP, for some reason these threads tend to bring out the most ridiculous pro-employer responses I've ever seen

Agreed. As a manager measure output, not time spent working. Are you achieving your objectives, on time, to the requisite standard? Yes, then you can do what you want. If not, then things need to change.

But many managers are rubbish, unimaginative, and yes, they micro-manage because they can't manage people sensibly.

Why are you on Twitter your phone on company time? Lunch times are fine but any other time is not acceptible. Say you pay for a painter by the hour to do your house and watch him go on Twitter in that time...you ok with that?

Oh and I use Twitter for work, and have done for years, both in employed and self-employed roles. I need to look at it as I follow various courts, regulatory bodies etc to find out what's going on. I'd have thought that if you were in a research role, you'd need to follow people in your field, too.

you pay for a painter by the hour to do your house I pay for the job, not by the hour.

Studies have shown that the optimal amount of time to spend focusing on a task is 45 minutes- after that your concentration and accuracy start to drop. So it is actually better to take a little break at this point. But if you’re breaking every 10-15 minutes, you aren’t reaching this. Unless you’re working on very discrete tasks, like customer or support queries, you can’t possibly be working effectively. I think some responses on this thread are a bit silly, but I think you’ve gone too far as well.

If I was the manager of someone who still “got all the work done” whilst being on their phone every 15 minutes, I’d be bringing in more work for them to do. Sounds like none of you have enough to do.

This is different from a flexible working pattern where someone might leave early and catch up after kids are in bed. I’m not one to constantly look over a shoulder but if my staff have time to regularly be on twitter or Instagram or whatever, they need more work to do. And yes, I’d be interrupting them with things to give them to keep them busy. It’s not micromanaging. It’s managjng.

Exchange a few minutes chat with colleagues? Share snacks around or talk about last nights must see tv? Do you not check the news/weather/read or send texts to your family and friends

Not every 15 minutes I don’t.

OP, could I suggest you install one of those apps that tracks how much time you spend on your phone? If you're estimating that you spend "a few minutes" every 10/15 minutes, that could add up alarmingly. I very much appreciate a flexible work environment - keep my phone on my desk myself. I only check it 2 or 3 times a day though, usually only for long enough to notice that I've not had any important messages. If I need to reply I do, but it isn't an every day thing.

Also with regard to academia... I'd be worried about the frequency as well. It's not like checking it between customers - surely you need to get a good run of concentration to get good quality work done ? Some of the work I used to do I couldn't even complete one step in 15 minutes. Your field might be different of course.

I’ve had a skive with my new boss. That is the best way to slice! Seriously if you are in research i’d expect you to get on with it!

Meaning: manage your own workload!

OK here I go:How can you Manager's actions be more "irrelevant " than you stealing your employers' time by mucking about on Twitter,Facebook,Snapchat etc.
If you want to justify being on your phone, how about Googling the difference in meaning between "quiet" and quite".
Quite! Now I'll be quiet !

Thing is, though, if senior management think that employees are not doing enough work, or not doing their work well enough, and therefore they want to ban phone use during work hours, what they do it inform employees of this. To hire a new person and set that new person the job of monitoring all staff 'subtly' is really shitty practice. Firstly, because it makes employees resentful and unsettles the whole team, secondly because it's a bit rough on the new hire, who basically becomes the scapegoat and is disliked by all the underlings.

Yes, some senior management people will do this - but there is also the possibility that the OP's firm have accidentally hired a sneaky, nosy, nitpicking school sneak type, who they will have to get rid of or risk losing the majority of the rest of the staff.