Called aside in the office today...

[whatty]

I work in London in a hub office (many businesses under common ownership using the same space) in a senior role (I am female in my 40s). It is a hot desking set up- sit where you like when you come in. Some areas in the office have music playing & some don't (some context!).

At the end of my day today, a senior male colleague (50s) from another business asked to have a word with me. I have met him a few times at sessions where the businesses have been collaborating/ doing leadership workshops. He didn't remember me, so introduced himself.

He then proceeded to tell me that as I had been on calls all day (11.30-6.30 with a short lunch break) that I had been distracting people around me, and "many" people (from his area of the business) had reached out to him mention that they had found me distracting. For info- I had a headset on, and was working with colleagues on budget documentation & talking to my team re: work they were tackling.

He recommended that I use a pod/ room in future if I was going to be on lots of calls. I questioned whether there was a policy re: working in silence/ being a silent space- and he admitted that it was just different approaches to working, and that the team he works in tends to avoid being on calls in the open plan. He then said he hoped that this conversation would be taken in the way in which it was intended. I was confused to be honest- so I said it wasn't clear how it was meant. But that I'd consider his feedback.

When we left the room where we had his conversation, it was clear that those from his business around me were all aware that I was being "pulled aside".

I was livid if I'm being honest- and upset too. I am really busy at work, have been doing long hours, and felt that he had no right to tell me what to do in a shared office space. I accept that I am tired and emotional though, so perhaps should just leave it and move on. However- I also feel like he wouldn't have had that conversation with me if I was male. And that I wouldn't be unreasonable to pull him aside/ talk to him when I next encounter him with some measured feedback of my own.

What do you think? Would I be unreasonable to stew on this- and think up some direct home truths? Or should I keep quiet in the office and on the feedback front. TIA for any guidance you can offer!

What makes this a bit complex is that this guy is from another business. Perhaps the way he asked for a word felt like he was managing you or something, and he wasn't careful enough in the way he handled it to make it clear it was a request, business to business, rather than directing or telling you. He's nothing to do with you so he could have handled it more in terms of asking you if you'd mind using the pods more if having a lot of calls, rather than directing you to always use pods. It's difficult if you have a mix of businesses with different ways of doing things and I can also see that you maybe feel why should you be directed or limited in what you do by another business and their working style, when it is not their actual space but a hub. Presumably another business that has to have calls all the time would have a different working style. What are the norms for the hub space? Are there rules or general etiquette that people adhere too across all the businesses (not just his one?).

What I think is unreasonable is you are asking if you should dream up some problems to give this guy some home truths. That just sounds over-sensitive and unfair. It probably wasn't a particularly easy conversation for him to have and he probably was the one dealing with a lot of people saying they couldn't concentrate, so he was left to try and speak to you.

I agree with @LuluKentGirl that one person on calls can be massively distracting if everyone else quiet, whereas if the atmosphere is more that everyone is on calls then it might be easier to tune out. I also agree with the person who points out the worry about confidentiality if you are discussing budgets etc in front of other businesses.

If it was me i might be tempted to have a conversation where I thanked him for bringing it to my attention and say as a courtesey I would try to use pods etc more if i had a very call-filled day, however there needs to be an understanding that there are different companies working there and being in a hub means there needs to be a certain amount of tolerance and give and take including occasional calls for which you wouldn't always be able to book a room in advance. I wouldn't do that to be pissy but more as a gracious acknowledgement that you want to be helpful whilst reminding gently that your work is separate from him and his.

He asked to speak to her in another room. This conversation was therefore private but his team would have known the content because he was addressing their complaints.

I will accept that the request to go into the room will have had to be delivered publicly. There would have been no way around this and it does not constitute a ‘public dressing-down’.

I am absolutely fascinated that you would have preferred he go over her head to her manager. I think most people would be far more justifiably angered by this. He approached her as a peer and in my view this shows far more respect than lodging a complaint.

@Alainlechat So it's okay to tell someone to keep it down out in the open space, in front of everyone else, and it is okay to send a passive agressive email asking people who do loud teams calls to use a pod, but it isn't okay to step aside with someone for a slightly more private chat to let them know multiple people have complained and would they mind altering their behaviour in future?

Ah apologies, I think I misunderstood the set-up. You say both he's from another business and also that he's a colleague. I'm afraid I don't quite understand how that works, so I'm not sure of the situation at all, or how the hub environment therefore works. So ignore my suggestions which was more for a hub with a lot of different businesses using the same space.

I completely, and fundamentaly, disagree with you.

Perhaps you havent worked in a male dominated profession for 25 years like I have (IT) and this was a power move by a self important male middle manager (as described) which I used to witness on a weekly or even daily basis. Thankfully, most workplaces are becoming a bit more egalitarian nowadays and nobody I know would publicly pull aside a colleague, of either sex, for anything where I work. In fact, they'd be in trouble with HR if they were witnessed doing it by an even more senior manager.

I accept things are probably still very different in the NHS.

OP, for the sake of privacy of your company’s operations use a separate room. If you need to use multi-screens then so be it.

hats off OP for actually listening and taking onboard the comments.

But PLEASE don't play the "female" card like this for normal interactions
I also feel like he wouldn't have had that conversation with me if I was male

It makes it so difficult for women to be taken seriously when men are made to feel they have to tiptoe around us instead of just acting professional.

And before any jumps on me, I don't "feel sorry for the men", I feel sorry for the women!

Open plan mixed business working is a bit ridiculous as a concept.

I’m glad op has taken the responses on board.
It was a reasonable request. We do hybrid Work and our 2 days a week when we’re in the office, the only meetings we have are face to face ones. If we have to be on the phone all day, we’re told to work from home as we don’t have enough private rooms for someone to be able to book one for most of the day, they’re only available for 1 hour slots.

So just to summarise, he should have a) gone over her head to grass her up to her manager rather than doing her the courtesy of speaking to her as a peer and b) asked the facilities manager to send a passive-aggressive email and put up some PA signs.

Amazing.

His team were distracted by you being on the phone all day and had complained to him. What else was he meant to do? Surprised you didn’t have the awareness to do this yourself. People shouting on calls all day is a pain in the arse.

Hmmm...I think people have forgotten what it's like to actually work in a real office. There is (or used to be) lots of background noise - people talking at their desks, people on phones to clients, the photocopier etc. You're not working in a library!

If there was a policy, I would think it was weird but understand his point. Since you said there is no policy and some teams have music playing, I think he was just being a 'type' who likes to show he's in charge. I wouldn't give it another thought.

Why are you summarising? Are you writing a report?

Yes, where I work, and in my opinion, he should have mentioned it to the shared workspace management, as I said, not directly to OP if she doesn't work for him.

In fact we had a similar situation recently where one particular guy from one of the other companies wasn't washing up his coffee mugs like everyone else does and was leaving them in the sink. My manager pointed this out to management, without singling out the guy (who maybe didn't know what convention was as I have also worked in office where people left mugs for the cleaners to deal with) and they put a sign up saying, please wash up your mugs and the problem was solved.

I agree with him! My manager has his own damn office and can close the door when he's on calls but insist on keeping the door open and having his bloody meetings on LOUD SPEAKER. It pisses me off.

When we started WFH I shared a room with DH. But it became unbearable, even if I wore headphones, as he is in meetings all day. I also needed to make the odd call myself and we just couldn't have two people in one room doing that, so we are now in different rooms even when we are both at home.

Yes, bloody awful it was too. I always got much more done at home!

It would have been ridiculous to involve her manager. It wasn't a major issue. It was an informal request to ask her to use another space if she was going to be on lots of calls in the day.

You know all these threads where posters fall over themselves to try to communicate anonymously, make passive-aggressive comments, twist themselves into knot to put a message through,

and the reasonable replies are: just be an adult and TALK or ASK.

There. He did what any professional adults would do, have a quiet and polite word without making a public scene or drama or putting the other person on the spot.

Being on the phone all day is not quite the same as making a few phone calls.

totally agree with @Hadjab .
I have been working for 20 years now and not one bloody office has had enough meeting rooms or even pods - currently working for a huge manufacturing company and no bloody way do we have any pods - i would love to know what they are as never had the pleasure of using them. all my offices have been open plan and everyone had to have calls, discussions everything was heard - nothing secret. Once even an office of mine was a corridor and we shoved to one side with everyone walking past us all day. Pre Covid we had no choice but to put up with the noise but now since WFH we have discovered the peace and quiet we can have at home. This is why such a huge push back on mandatory back in the office, why when we have to go in and sit at a desk and be on calls all day. There are no meeting rooms nothing but a big open plan office, you can tell who is in the office and who is at home on calls as the noise from the office in the background. You are trying to have a call or do a presentation with people either side of you and behind you all on calls, and no there are NO meetings rooms ever available. I think in OPs case a general email should have been sent around if there were complaints, i wouldn't have singled you out at all, i think that was wrong. When you have an open plan office you have to expect noise. I would also though be doing more WFH days though

@AIstolemylunch you sound like the passive aggressive people in an office that everyone rolls their eyes at. Honestly its so childish to put up a sign when you could just speak to someone like you are both actual human beings.

I'm quite agree with him that it sounds like you were causing a distraction and not working quietly. How on earth could other folk concentrate with this going on all day., Why are you confused. You were constantly talking all day and were disturbing others, what is confusing about that.

Because when someone uses a lot of words to say something that is very simply wrong, I find it helpful to distil the wrongness into a summary.

As you can probably see from the rest of the responses you are way off the mark here but your mug anecdote suggests that this isn't your fault. You clearly have the misfortune to work somewhere with a very poor management culture. I absolutely guarantee that the mug man saw those signs and felt shit that a complaint had been made about him, while everyone else hailed the great victory that nobody had had to get involved in anything so unpleasant as a simple grown-up conversation. If the manager from the OP had asked for signs to be put up then the OP would have felt just as embarrassed as she does already, with the added treat of wondering who had made a cowardly complaint about her.

I genuinely hope you have the opportunity one day to work somewhere with a healthier culture of respectful, professional communication. This probably sounds sarcastic but it isn't.

YABU.

I work in a big hot-desking open plan office in London and absolutely no one holds a full day of calls in there. Someone talking at regular volume on a headset for that long would drive me mad and I'd have to leave.

I'm afraid I'm with your boss and colleagues on this one. I find it incredibly distracting when somebody is on calls around me (obviously the odd one is fine). If I am on call (receiving multiple phone calls) I tend to go to a different space as to not bother others.

I think for the sake of harmony, it is much easier to ask you to go to a quiet space than to move multiple people so they are far enough away from you to not be distracted.

Open plan means noise 🤷‍♀️ Which is worse now most meetings are online.