Postman smashing on door and shouting

[OttilieStonelady]

I live in a house with other people. Someone else had something sent to them by a family member so neither of us knew it was arriving. He's not in. Postman came to door to drop off. Saw me upstairs and I swear was banging on my door for 5 minutes so hard it sounded like he was going to break in. Rang the door over and over and over banging in-between. He disappeared, I guess delivered neighbours post then came back and banged on my door again, then next again, then back to me again. He even shouted 'i can see you'. I can't leave when I'm in the middle of presenting to people, especially not senior management, presenting extremely sensitive data. It's not a big house so he would've known I'd have heard him. WIBU not to open the door? Was he BU to keep banging aggressively on my door? All round a weird experience.

It depends on what work it is.
I can't believe some people are defending the postman's behaviour. Surely you don't knock that aggressively and shout at someone's house??

I'm sure there would still be some MNers on this thread who, when reminded that they're both busy and very much at work, would still insist "But she was delivering the epic monologue, with the spotlight full on her - would it really have hurt Derek to just pop backstage to take in the parcel - and stop the postman from hollering in through the ticket hatch?!"

If someone was disrupting the performance, they would absolutely stop.

Would your managers, clients, colleagues find it acceptable for someone to stop a presentation midway and leave a meeting to answer the door?

Mine would be fine with it. Far more professional than having someone banging on the door for five minutes.

No the postie was out of order. Odd behaviour

The flat mate wasnt to blame and neither were you.

Why wouldn't he have just taken the parcel away? They used to put a slip through the door and you had to collect from the sorting office

@BoredZelda

Would your managers, clients, colleagues find it acceptable for someone to stop a presentation midway and leave a meeting to answer the door?

Mine would be fine with it. Far more professional than having someone banging on the door for five minutes.

But the point is the postman wasn't being professional. Not the OP.

That is obvious surely?

Guess not
Some people must be used to rude post men/women.

@BoredZelda

Would your managers, clients, colleagues find it acceptable for someone to stop a presentation midway and leave a meeting to answer the door?

Mine would be fine with it. Far more professional than having someone banging on the door for five minutes.

Very variable.

In some cases, yes I could go and open the door.
In other cases, fuck no. My clients would find it extremely unprofessional.
And they would find the postman banging at door the unreasonable one too, with very good reasons.

@gamerchick

A sign on the door when you're doing an important thing and can't answer would probably be easier.

Yes but that's too simple.

Postman was being completely unreasonable.

I had something similar with an Amazon delivery . This one guy was banging on the door over and over and then popped his head into my window , saw me on couch and started banging on the window . I was nursing my newborn 🙄

@outofservice

So your job is more important than the postie trying to do theirs??

Yeah, course it is. Postie won’t lose his job for taking a parcel vac on to his depot. I used to be one, it’s laziness. Anything that doesn’t fit in a postbox needs to be dropped off at the counter or, if your delivery office is still open, taken back there. They want an empty bag at days end. It’s job and finish for them. I now have an office based job so WFH; I’m not putting my clients or boss on hold because there’s a parcel being delivered.

Yes, postie was unreasonable.

I can get a parcel if I'm just on a meeting etc, but if I'm presenting (sometimes I present to the whole company) I can't so I put a note on the door saying "I am home but can't come to the door due to work".

If someone was disrupting the performance, they would absolutely stop.

And do you think they'd stop the performance, go to investigate the noise and be most apologetic to the postman for holding him up doing his work - or do you think they'd be just a little bit angry with him?

I still think that some people on here are interpreting WFH as 'catching up with a bit of paperwork or answering some emails. Sometimes, it may be that, but many, many people work 'live' (as it were) as if they were in the office. You may be calling your bank, get put through to somebody in their 'call centre', but that advisor is actually at a desk in their own home - a virtual call centre, really.

I'm one of the more fortunate ones in this respect - I always WFH and only usually receive/make calls to/from my boss, who is also a very good friend. It's no issue at all if one of us says "Oh, can I call you back in a few minutes - there's somebody at the door" (which does happen on occasion) - but a great many people do a great many jobs (and other things) where it simply is not possible to break off for an unscheduled stop, unless your house is on fire or something.

Incidentally, those suggesting dropping everything important and seeing to the postman's demands: you do realise, don't you, that in so doing, you are validating his behaviour and giving him the confirmation that it's what he needs to do every time he wants to demand somebody's attention - bash your door down and shout threatening-sounding things at you in your own home? Acting very similarly to how you'd expect a violent intruder/aggressor to do so when trying to break in to come and assault you? You still really think HE is being the reasonable one???

@PearlyShamps

If you were presenting, and were (I presume) not muted, did the others in the meeting not hear the extremely loud commotion going on, and suggest to you that you go to see to it?

Possibly! No suggestions to deal with it though.

YANBU!! This happened to me yesterday! I was also presenting highly, highly confidential information via Zoom and because no one was answering their buzzers (I live in a block of flats), the postman buzzed and buzzed and buzzed (it’s very loud) until I had to pause and press the button to let him in. He then knocked on my door with 4 different parcels for me to distribute to my neighbours! How is that ok?

As someone who has just sat through an hour and a half presentation, along with 200+ other people, I can’t imagine our instructor just walking off to answer the door in the middle of it. Someone suggested that they wouldn’t imagine a ‘man ignoring the door’ why on earth not?

‘Being in a meeting’ is very different to being the person everyone’s attention is focused on, ie, presenting.

Also the idea of that person just opening the window and bellowing out of it (as was also suggested upthread) is genuinely hilarious yet extremely unprofessional.

There’s a lot of people who seem to believe that working from home isn’t actual work.

(Also my father is a retired postman and I’m usually first to defend them. Banging on a door aggressively for 5 minutes and coming back to do it again is just insane, and I’d be reporting that behaviour. Glad to see you’re going to put a sign up though; I hope that helps!)

@theDudesmummy

I have ignored two parcel knocks in the last couple of weeks. For one I was in the middle of hearing a man describe having been raped as a teenager. For the other I was delivering teaching to a group of about 50 colleagues. Not at all possible to go "oops, hold that thought, just popping to get the door". Please people, think about the fact that there are many situations in which people who are AT WORK cannot immediately deal with a personal matter. It is not "insane" and it is not "selfish"!

Can you see this is the case now you've read through the thread @outofservice and @Viviennemary? That sometimes people working from home, whether visible to people knocking or not, simply cannot interrupt their work to 'pop' to the door? Simply cannot interrupt their work to shout out to the postie / delivery person that they can't answer the door?

It doesn't feel like it's getting through to you, despite the fact people have shared numerous examples of the reasons why in some roles people cannot answer the door during working hours.

I often apologise to people on calls/meetings etc about background noise at home (mainly my neighbors who have been renovating for a year) and they say they can't hear it. So people may well not have heard the postman banging.

Just an example of meetings where I can't just pop to the door: redundancy consultation with a large group of people; disciplinary hearing; interview; presenting to the board; presenting a project update to the steering committee; presenting a departmental update to the whole company; meeting with government ministers, delivering training; employment tribunal hearing .........
There really are loads.

If you were presenting, and were (I presume) not muted, did the others in the meeting not hear the extremely loud commotion going on, and suggest to you that you go to see to it?

My setup has background noise suppression.

@outofservice

Weird not to answer the door to somebody who is busy trying to do their job. Am sure a quick excuse me to your very important colleagues would have been less distracting than listening to someone aggressively banging on your door for 5 whole minutes.

???

This happened to me during a presentation as well, I just excused myself and answered the door, appollised again and continued. It took less than a minute, what's the problem? The people I was presenting to also know I'm at home, these things happen. I would have been more stressed out and agitated by someone knocking the door for 5 minutes.

@Jiggyjigsaw

This happened to me during a presentation as well, I just excused myself and answered the door, appollised again and continued. It took less than a minute, what's the problem? The people I was presenting to also know I'm at home, these things happen. I would have been more stressed out and agitated by someone knocking the door for 5 minutes.

People on this thread have provided numerous examples of work situations / job roles in which this simply isn't possible. The fact it is for your own role doesn't make them any less valid.

@Jiggyjigsaw

This happened to me during a presentation as well, I just excused myself and answered the door, appollised again and continued. It took less than a minute, what's the problem? The people I was presenting to also know I'm at home, these things happen. I would have been more stressed out and agitated by someone knocking the door for 5 minutes.

This may surprise you, but what is acceptable in your workplace might not be for others. Hard to comprehend I realise.

I have a note I stick on my door when I'm in video calls asking deliveries to be left on door step and not to knock. After call I remove note and bring in any parcels. My postie is great at respecting this. I put the note up whether I'm expecting parcels or not (never know when my daughter orders anything)

The employer would have heard the constant banging. She should have said her apologies, muted, opened window and told him to leave on the door step. A 30 second interuption is better than people trying to hear a presentation when someone is banging and ringing doorbells for 5 minutes

But the difference is the postie saw her through the window so knew someone was in. The postie (especially a floater) would not know she was WFH or whether she was a SAHM or someone on unemployment.

The responsible thing to do is a note on the door before an uninteruptable meeting starts with instructions where to leave things.

If I was listening to my team make a presentation with 5 minutes of banging going on, I would have actually paused the meeting and told them to deal with the issue. I wouldn't be able to concentrate an the information presented due to the background noise.

I would then also, after sitting in that scenario, tell my team via an email update to manage these situations by for example placing a do not disturb note on the door (which, I'm sorry, should be an obvious thing to do if you are 'genuinely' doing a presentation to senior management that can't be interrupted

But you knew it was the postie and not the ex, you saw him from your window.

As for a parcel being left outside, yes your door might open outwards, all that would do is shove the parcel along a bit as you opened the door, it wouldn't prevent you from opening the door (parcels the postie's deliver are usually not overly heavy, heavy parcels tend to come by 2 men couriers)