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!

I’m curious as to what these home truths are that OP was planning to concoct as revenge!

Erm because usually the open plan area is significantly larger. Our pods are set up to be used for confidential calls and discussions and continuous calls.

Some of the people on this thread are really outing themselves as office nightmares…

It’s disingenuous to say “we were all on calls before Covid and it was ok then” - the calls OP means here are effectively meetings via Teams or Zoom rather than a quick, 2-person phone call (the latter of which has, in many offices, largely been replaced by instant messaging). So a closer equivalent would be multiple people having a meeting in the shared space instead of booking a room. That has never been normal or acceptable in most workplaces, and so this counterargument doesn’t work.

Genuine question for OP and those who agree with her - why do you think your wants trump other people’s needs?

@Screenburn obviously I don't think that people on calls should be excessively loud. But in an open plan office, with lots of different types of work going on and music in some areas, it's unreasonable (imo) to expect a quiet environment. I think someone talking on the phone is normal office noise tbh.

If people need quiet in order to concentrate, then I think the onus is on their employers to provide a suitable office environment and not rely on a hot desking, open space kind of arrangement.

Surely it should depend on what the majority of people want and need.

If it's the kind of environment where people need to concentrate on things like Excel spreadsheets and Word documents, one or two people making loud phone calls are going to hinder all those other people from doing their jobs.

If it's the kind of environment like a call centre where the majority of people are on the phone all day every day, the one or two people who need to work quietly on their computers might need to find somewhere else to work.

But if you're on the phone all day, by definition you are talking to people who are not in the office. So why do you need to be in the office?

Ideally I do agree that this kind of work could be done from home, but it depends on the employer. Some are funny about people not going to an office. And whether workers are set up and able to wfh.

If your job involves being on the phone all day and your employer won't let you WFH, which doesn't sound like is the case for the OP, you need to book a meeting room or a pod, or tell your employer that you are disturbing everyone around you and really need to WFH or be provided with your own office.

@LadyBird1973 Someone talking on the phone is indeed normal office noise - and it’s accepted as normal because it’s relatively low volume and of short duration (call centre environments excepted).

But the difference here is that OP was not “talking on the phone” - she wasn’t taking 5 mins to answer a client’s query, say; she was holding hours of meetings, where she admits she was talking her team through work (so doing a lot of talking) in open, shared space when there was private space available that would’ve avoided her disturbing others. She chose not to use that private space - either because she didn’t think about others, or because she did but decided that their being inhibited from working was less important than her wanting to be in the environment she prefers. (I’m assuming the former - hopefully nobody is enough of an arsehole to do the latter!)

Agree that employers have a duty to ensure their staff have a suitable environment in which they can do work, and if OP has raised with her employer that she is totally unable to join remote meetings without two screens then they should facilitate her WFH on remote meeting days - as she’s in a senior role, this wouldn’t be an issue. If she has a mix of in-person meetings and hybrid ones, and so needs to be on-site, ensuring a suitable private space is available would be part of providing reasonable adjustments.

(I have multiple disabilities - one of them makes it more difficult to work optimally without two screens, and another means I cannot work at all in pods, even with two screens, because my mobility aids and I simply don’t fit. Instead I spoke to management about WFH more, and where I do need to come in, I have a reasonable adjustment to book larger rooms for sole use - which almost never happens as I manage my diary carefully to ensure remote meetings are not on the same day as in-person ones, so far as possible.)

OP, your calls would have driven me nuts, but I think your company is at fault rather than you, as they are not providing an adequate environment for you to do your work. You need two screens and to be able to take a lot of calls. Neither the pod nor the open plan office are ideal for both.

To be honest, I find it ridiculous that you had to come into an office at all to do that. If you're spending the whole day on calls with people who aren't in your office, and you taking the calls massively distracts everyone else, then it would make far more sense to WFH in this situation. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that you work for somewhere that equates bums on office seats with productivity.

Your last line is really a question for the employer and not OP!

It’s never nice being pulled aside. But I think what he said was fair. Take it on board n not to heart.

Do you have an option to work from home? If so, that’s probably the best thing to do when you have a day of calls. When I and others in my team have an office day, we make a point of keeping calls to a minimum on those days, so that we can get the most out of being in the office.

If working from home isn’t an option, then yes, I agree, a pod would be better for lengthy calls. When my team are sitting together it’s not so bad because we all kind of have some context behind the calls, which somehow makes it less distracting than when someone we don’t know is sitting near us and being on calls. Plus, it’s a lot harder to think properly when someone else is on the phone nearby. This is assuming a certain volume though - if someone is speaking quietly then it’s not such a big deal. If I were at a bank of desks on my own with/near another team, I would be incredibly self-conscious about being on the phone all day. The same as my husband and I can’t work in the same room together at home when one or both of us has calls.

I don’t think this is about being male or female; it sounds genuinely like you were very distracting

You should apologise for putting him in that position by annoying so many other people, surely?

Completely agree.

And the idiots on this thread desperately berating the op would also tell people who wfh they are lazy and to get back to the office.

This is why people just aren’t that keen to. Thank god I wfh and don’t have to put up with this crap.

Lol you’re feeling emotional, so you post on here lol mate, surely you have a friend that you can speak to

I think a lot of people don't really understand what co-working space is, so that isn't helping. Co-working space is shared between companies. However senior he may be in his own little world, the man is not in charge of the property not behaviour on it. This man had no more right to scold OP than complaining to a fellow punter in a hotel, a restaurant or a shop that they don't like the person's behaviour. It's very inappropriate for him to try to intimidate their other customers to using the space.

If he or his team have a problem, then he needs to take it up with the staff of the establishment, who can decide what they feel is or isn't appropriate and respond accordingly. Some might feel it's actually fine for phonecalls if they have quiet spaces and other options for those who don't like it, if they didn't feel OP was too noisy etc. Perhaps his team is actually hogging the central area and management would prefer them to book a larger side room because they are regularly interfering with others trying to us the space as intended. Perhaps there is a separate quiet area but they choose not to use it because they want to be nearer the coffee machine or whatever. If someone from another company scolded one of my team, I would ensure site management were extremely clear that must never ever happen again and I would expect site management to be apologising for the upset caused.

It sounds like he handled it really well. If the post had been written by him the other way round, ie , my female colleague was on a loud distracting call all day and left me and my team unable to work, despite there being a quiet space available for her to use..... the replies on here would all be along the lines of, have a quiet word with your colleague so as not to embarrass her in front of all your colleagues and suggest she uses a pod the next time.

Which is exactly what he's done. He sounds very professional and has handled in a good way. And now you know that lengthy calls in a shared space are distracting for your colleagues, so next time just use the pod. It's just a learning moment for you is all.

My husband often has all day calls and wears a headsets it's just his voice I heat droning on but my word, it can be distracting, so I make him work in another room if he is on a long one

And another one.
@Lizzievh84mumofboys - he is NOT her colleague! Really helps to actually read all the info.

OP describes him in her first post as a "senior male colleague" in one of many businesses in common ownership that share an office!

Nope, he sounds like an officious twat.

And the posts on here would just side against the Op like 95% of threads.

The big thing for me is as a working environment it sounds horrific for all involved. It’s sad that companies are putting their employees through this.

It sounds like your ego took a hit because you're both in senior roles. I'm not sure if it would be any different if you were a man? I know that's usually true but in this instance I think he handled it gracefully and you haven't. It isn't unreasonable to have a call space and a quiet space. Although it should have been mentioned before, so everyone is aware! It sounds embarrassing the way it happened but with everyone on the same page now I think it's best to forget it and move on.

I think many would say the opposite. We’re adults. If you’re in a shared space you should 100% expect that if you’re being loud and disruptive someone tells you. I just came back from working in LA for 5 years and there were front office people at WeWork. My manager was self-importantly on the phone and someone came from WeWork and talked to him about it. It was so cringey. I wondered what juvenile was unable to say something directly.

Back in London I just haven’t experienced a problem.

And if you’re an adult you need to accept you share the world with others. Sometimes they will be annoying in some way.

Yes, but adults using a shared workspace should not be behaving in a way that prevents other adults from working.