To be fuming with DD

[Snowisallaround]

For ringing the switchboard to speak to me while I was at work today!! To ask if she could go to the cinema with her friends this afternoon! She’s 17 if that makes any difference. She did try to ring and text my mobile but I was in a meeting! I just feel she should have waited for me to see her message or missed call instead of calling the switchboard in an effort to reach me

You're being completely ridiculous OP. I suggest you look at meditation or something similar if an event so trivial results in your 'fuming'. 🙄

I once got in trouble with my parents when I couldn't contact them and had to travel somewhere without permission. I'd be grateful she let you know where she was going. You forgot to transfer her allowance so it was a financial emergency as you'd left her with no money. She did a sensible thing which inconvenienced you for one minute. The error was yours in the first place though.

I think that’s fair op. To us as adults it’s not an emergency but to a teenager, missing out on seeing friends is the most important thing in the world. I think you’ve done the right thing.

You're absolutely NOT being unreasonable. This is hardly an emergency to constantly ring you at work. A text will do and you will simply reply when you can....at your earliest convenience. The movie will always be in the theatre and she will simply have to wait. Otherwise, your daughter should ask for funds in advance or earn it like any other teenager. Best of luck!

I only I called my family when it was an emergency. (When I was a kid.

May I suggest: To put an extra like $20.- or $25.- in her account to
keep as extra money in case she feels that she really needs it.

IMO
Going to the movies is not an emergency.

Going to the movies is never an emergency. Happy this is resolved OP.

Sorry but in that situation I see absolutely no problem if a non work person rings very briefly because they haven’t been able to contact you otherwise, emergency or not. What’s the issue? Obviously having non work chats about this and that with somebody is out and unprofessional. But this didn’t even incur a phone cost to your work. If you worked for eg the ambulance service well obviously, but just head of department within a large company?

Er don’t see any reference to this “constantly” happening it was just once?

We don’t have her age. It was an emergency to her that’s how passionately you feel about these things when young, then you learn as you grow up. What is this Great Fearsome transgression ? God forbid a member of your work team discovers you aren’t a perfect robot and have a personal life, a child!!! Just like them. This to me is more the question than a silly phone call.

^www.newsweek.com/mother-angry-over-daughter-calling-her-work-1734403^

Did you even read the OP?

The OPs DD at no point claimed it was an emergency, she merely told the switchboard it was urgent - which it was, as it was a time sensitive request - which is not the same as it being an emergency.

Secondly, the OPs DD didn't "constantly" ring the OP at work, in fact the OP even admits that her DD has had the work number for years and has never used it before now, so it's hardly like she's abusing it and calling twenty times a day every week. She rang/messaged the OPs personal mobile once before resorting to contacting the OP via her work. If the message/calls were back to back then I can see some annoyance but for all we know there were 30 minutes between contact attempts so a call to the work phone after over an hour of no response to a time sensitive request is perfectly reasonable.

Thirdly, regardless of how long the film was in the cinema, the DDs friends were going to a specific screening on a specific day which she couldn't go to because of a mistake by the OP (not transferring her allowance on time) so it is not unreasonable for her to take proportionate steps to have the OP rectify this mistake. IMHO a single phone call to the work phone after no response from her personal line is perfectly proportional and reasonable, especially as the OP has also admitted that she will and has suffered zero negative repercussions from taking the call.

A minor point but the DDs age is literally in the OP, about 3 sentences into the post, she is 17.

Switchboard? Where do you work? 1973?

Must admit, I thought that, too.

Doesn’t everyone have their own direct dial and it comes through via Teams / Skype to your personal laptop? Or even just a mobile?

I actually can’t even envisage how this happened.

God what a ridiculous overreaction. Your poor daughter. When you think of some of the stuff that goes on in the world…how have you even got the energy to get so worked up about such a non-event?

I would be annoyed, as long as I had told her only to call in an emergency. Disturbing you for money for cinema trip is not an emergency.

OP, this totally made me laugh. 🤣 I grew up in the Stone Age before cell phones and remember tracking down my mother for urgent! things.

Her secretary was a wizard at finding her so I could ask if we had any Mac & Cheese left in the house. And there was the time I had to call a restaurant to find out where she had moved my concert tickets to.

Just make sure you return the favor some day when you need to know if she saw the article you emailed to her when she has a professional job.

Things are hugely important to teenagers at the particular moment.
Seems silly to you but I bet it was a big deal to her. She's growing up. Cut her some slack and laugh about it

Just seen this. My middle Herbert (13 at the time) rang me at work shouting that his sibling wouldn't let him have the remote control. Next day, I took the remote control and the TV to work with me. Strangely, I never got any telephone calls at work again.

Brilliant!

I honestly can't understand the issue at all
Sounds like she used initiative and was pro active

@badhappening

poor dd

Pull the other one

shes 17 and gets an allowance for…nothing. Free money.

mum forgot this once. Mum is human. Big deal.

let’s not pretend this is some poor deprived child