To not think I’m doing anything wrong here?

[Wherethecrawdadssingg]

Work in an office role for a busy company. Lots of phone calls and emails between departments. Apparently I have a reputation for being short on the phone i.e. straight to the point, no ‘how are you’, and that I don’t say goodbye. This wasn’t brought up in a formal way, more as a laugh actually.

Truth is, I hate chit chat, with the amount of phone calls I do I can’t bear chit chatting every single time. I’d get nothing done! I tend to just say ‘Hi, (hi) please can you send that me that document when you get chance? (Yeah sure) Great thanks.’ Conversation done.

I am often stressed as role is demanding. I can’t help but think that people don’t like it especially when it comes from a woman because we’re supposed to be nice and kind and polite all the time. Don’t know if it makes a difference that I’m younger (should I be sweetness and all things nice?).

TBH I think that some of my colleagues could really do with being a bit more efficient and less chit chatty!

I’m also in a management role so don’t know if that makes a difference.

I have plenty of friends at work and always get invited to events etc.

Just wondered what others thought/their experiences?

I was taught personal, business, personal ie start with something personal like how are you, going into business and ending with something personal like hope you have a good weekend, tied into the start to show you've been listening. It doesn't have to be a half hour conversation just enough to be "nice".

Sure you'll get a reputation if you don't bother with the niceties but it's not a hanging offense.

More bollocks. This absolutely is not true; see my other reply above.
I’m far from being praised for my ‘efficient’ manner!

No OP- if you were a man you wouldn’t be praised for this. You’d be called a grumpy bastard behind your back too.

why are you so busy when other people aren’t? Is it because you have been super efficient so have been given more to do? Is it that colleagues could take on more of your workload but don’t offer (possibly because they don’t like you)?

A man who had views for promotion would do the soft skills and winning people over thing, delegate more tasks, then argue with management he needed another assistant /more staff as the work load couldn’t be covered by them.

You said you are a manager- you are too busy to add a few seconds into each call length to do social niceties, yet more junior colleagues can fit half an hour calls in. This is a sign you aren’t good at managing your own time and delegating to others.

will those more junior people ever be asked to do 360 style appraisals of your performance?

YABU and rude.

You don't have to spend hours on the phone making small talk, but a simple hello and goodbye is just basic courtesy. I think if a colleague rang me to ask me to do something for them or send something over, and they didn't even bother saying goodbye, I'd take it rather personally.

You don't have to feign interest in what their dog smelt like after it rolled around in fox shit all weekend, you don't even have to ask them how their day is going. But ffs, at least say cheerio when you're done. You never know, you might find yourself a little less stressed if you take a couple of minutes during the day to interact with your colleagues?

If that is true where you work, it’s definitely not true universally. Where I work, we have not only attainment targets, but expected behaviours. One of which is ‘respecting others’. That might mean demonstrating basic politeness, like saying goodbye when ending a conversation, but also might mean tailoring your communication style to suit the people on the receiving end. Men being brusque (rude) and not attempting to show respect for others would absolutely be treated as a performance issue.

@Deathbyfluffy i never said I hated men, don’t know where you got that from

@LimeCheesecake because I’m good at my job so they’ve piled tonnes on! Foolish me!

Well you don’t have time do you? Because clearly relationship management is time consuming and realistically you need to be able to do that too if you are going to be able to take a career step up next.

I’d start pushing back/delegating.

I agree and often find myself willing someone to get to the point. However, hi goodbyes etc are in linguistic terms phatic tokens. Phatic communication is small talk: the use of language to share feelings or establish a mood of sociability rather than to communicate specific information or ideas. It is a politeness convention rather than purposeful and probably part of the business is to be sociable ish?. I keep to hi/bye as I haven't got the time or interest to drag things out. It is quite a gendered thing too and women (from studies) are more likely to participate in small talk.

I would find you rude if you just hung up on me!

I have a very busy job, don’t always have time or inclination for small talk. The call you describe, for me would go ‘Oh hi Susie, just a quick one [demonstrates you don’t want to go into platitudes], would you be able to send me that document please, when you’ve got the chance? [Susie: yeah sure, I’ll do it this afternoon]

Brill, cheers. Bye! [hang up]. Susie has the chance to clarify or at least answer. It’s obvious the conversation is over.

if someone called me in the middle of an actual emergency, I’d expect less ‘closure’ at the end of the call but the context would set that up and just a routine call isn’t an emergency.

If you were a man and behaved like that on phone calls to me I would probably look to see if you spoke to other men like that as well. Because it’s abrupt and could seem quite supercilious, like your time is more important than treating me as a person. I’d also find you unapproachable as a colleague if I thought I was always going to get short shrift when I asked you a question or took up your time.

As for ‘men don’t do small talk’ well nobody’s told the men I work with… or my husband and his work mates… there’s small talk and ‘chatting about bollocks all afternoon’.

I work in a place where my manager speaks like this to people on the phone (and sometimes in person) and everyone finds it incredibly rude. It has created a bit of a rift between the staff he manages and himself. I understand why he does it, he's trying to get a job done and has another job to move on to after the phone call, but the reality is it has greatly effected staff relations with him.

I wouldn't chat about personal life, you don't even need to ask a question or make small talk to be honest, but a simple "hey, it's X, hope I'm not interrupting you but....." or "hey, it's X, sorry for annoying you but....." and definitely a "thanks, bye" at the end!

I see you completely ignore the part of my post where I point how your behaviour is treating people like robots and thats quite dehumanising.

Are you ok being treated like a robot...actually you would probably say yes.