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 do people do when there aren't enough pods though? I work in the civil service. There's massive pressure to be in the office a certain percentage of the time but it's overcrowded and there is a huge premium on pods and meeting rooms.

@Fieldofbrokenpromises you have my sympathies. I sat opposite someone who BELLOWED into a phone all the live long day. Everyone sitting further away found it hilarious. I had to take my calls on a mobile in an adjoining room. Someone calling actually thought I was with many people. Nope, just me and The Foghorn. Lovely woman but SO loud.
Sorry, OP, sounds like all day calls is not the done thing in your shared space.

You were being unreasonable. It would have driven me demented

I was just going to say that! 7 hours on the phone!!! 😱

I am female. I work in a group board area. Yesterday a female colleague was also on teams all day she has quite a piercing voice - but only when on calls. I could not concentrate and complete my tasks.
My immediate boss also takes calls from his desk but is quieter.
This is the joy (or not) of open plan working.
If one is on calls for the majority of the day it is best to take an office.
I would not take offence but be glad it has been communicated and act on it.

Again - genuinely - what is the alternative if that's your job though?

It does my head in when people are in non stop calls right next to me. Book a room/pod! I can't hear myself think. I do sometimes resort to headphones just to block out the sound but it feels infuriating to have to .

I think offices need redesigning so there are different spaces , pods for calls/meeting rooms/co working spaces (no long calls)/ quiet working spaces.

If I have a day of non stop calls when I am going to be talking a lot (as opposed to largely listening) then I book a room or WFH

People on my floor are on calls all day long. They couldn't move to meeting rooms, those are for.....meetings. And always fully booked. No pods in building. 7000 people in the building, it would be impossible to ask people to not do their calls at their desks. I find the responses on here strange. It would be heavily frowned upon in my place.of work to ask anyone to take/make calls off the floor.

Actually, only last week I was in a shared office space and a guy from a different organisation came over to me between calls. It had been constant all morning with different members of the team needing my input and calling. The guy said words along the lines of “dear god woman, you haven’t shut up for 4 hours straight. My work place is rubbish today because of you!”

This was dh who usually wfh but I was home due to having lots of calls and he missed his quiet work environment just being him and the dog 🤣

OP " 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."

do you work for the same company? So confused.

but if there was a room/pod free, yes, you should use that.

I completely disagree with most comments here. What's the point of going to an office to sit in silence? You can do that at home. In every office I've worked in its accepted that people need to make calls. I suppose it depends a bit on the type of work your company and the different teams are doing. If you are in sales and the bloke is head of a team doing lots of silent thinking work then the layout needs to be changed so that his team are in a quieter area.

That sounds different though - if you work in an environment where you’re all on the phone all day you’ll be able to block each other out. If ONE person is talking all day while others are trying to concentrate on non phone-based work it’s a pain in the arse.

It will depend on the office and nature of work. OP has been told that in her situation, all day calls are a distraction.

Did he really say “reached out”?

Cringe.

The practical solution is to put partitions between the desks with sound absorbing material on.

I think when he said "reached out" he meant "bitched"

I agree with him. Unless you work in a call centre, using a shared space for constant calls is annoying. I’d find a private room.

I’m not sure how senior you are if you think delivering ‘direct home truths’ is a good workplace strategy!

I think it would be extremely difficult to concentrate with someone talking on the phone all day. Most considerate people would move away if possible.

I work in an open plan office when in and people are on teams calls all day all round me and it makes no difference- If I want close concentration I wfh (which is 4 out of 5 days anyway) when in the office people are either at meetings at their desks or collaborating in person - it is a busy bustling atmosphere. There are meeting spaces but not enough for everyone to be in one for calls by a long chalk!

You haven't done anything wrong, but use one of the pod things now he's said something and he presumably wasn't the only one feeling that way.

No need to escalate stuff and make work a more stressful place for yourself than it needs to be by having people annoyed at you.

It sounds like he handled it diplomatically. They aren’t saying work in silence. It sounds like most people just make short calls or chat briefly in shared space. Talking for 7 hour is annoying to others. If there are pods or rooms available book one.

I personally don’t think you have done anything wrong, it’s your job. How about people who work in call centres everyone spends hours on their headsets. It’s a working office not a quiet area or space.

Anyone else remember when we all worked in offices and use to talk on the phone and no one batted an eyelid !

How precious has the world gone 😂

My office set up sounds exactly the same. There are several ‘zones’ and spaces for different types of working. And yes, it’s courtesy and expected that if you’re on more than a brief call, you go and use one of the pods to work from.

It is very annoying and distracting if someone is on a long call. I’m with your colleague - he was right to have a word about this.

Thank goodness for people like him. A temporary member of staff in our office had to be given the same chat a few weeks ago. It was impossible for any of us to concentrate because she'd have long, loud (she had a head set too) phone calls. The rest of us step outside or use a side room for long calls or meetings that the rest aren't on, but she just bellowed in our small office.

Seven hours of calls in a shared space is just ridiculous. How can you not see that it's incredibly irritating and affects the focus of everyone around you?

I can see why people shout 'reverse' when I read your OP.

I think you are being unreasonable, to be honest.

This male colleague was approached by a number of people in his team about how distracted they were by you, and so he had to speak to you about it - he can't be seen to be doing nothing if several of his team have had their work day impacted by your actions. By the sounds of it, he did it in a kind and respectful way - he spoke to you privately, wasn't unpleasant, and made a suggestion for how you can share the space more fairly in future. He is right to say that if you need to be making calls all day, there are more appropriate spaces where you could move to ensure that others aren't distracted by you. I would understand if you had no alternative space to work, but there clearly are plenty of private spaces you can book, so there's no inconvenience to you in doing so.

I spent the past year working in an open plan, hot-desking environment, which was fine until the PR department came to join the desks next to my team's allocated area. The jolly hockey sticks PR manager would be braying down the phone ALL DAY and it drove me absolutely insane - my work involved complex planning, scheduling and budgeting and I couldn't concentrate to the point where I ended up having to work from home far more frequently than I would have liked just to be able to get my work done in peace.

As others have said, in an otherwise quiet workspace, one person talking loudly (and you always are louder than you realise when using a headset) is incredibly distracting in a way it's not when there are lots of people talking on the phone in a buzzier office space.

It's perfectly understandable that you were embarrassed at being pulled aside, but I don't see what else your colleague could have done apart from sending you an email, which he clearly couldn't do, as he didn't know your name. This isn't about sexism at all - it's about appropriate behaviour in a shared workspace - and he was within his rights to ask respectfully for you to consider how your actions impacted others.