Boss told me to get off my personal phone in a meeting

[Onetwobuckeroo]

I work in a corporate role. I do my job, deliver and go above and beyond. In a team meeting today, a message appeared on my phone from my kids school. I was still listening to the conversation but opened the message instinctively. Suddenly my boss snaps my name to get my attention, then proceeds to ask whether I’m in the meeting or on the phone?! I then instantly put my phone down, confused at their outburst but did say, it was to do with my children. (They don’t have kids).

I was really taken a back but I did pull my boss up on it. I said ok, I was on my phone but everyone picks up / types / gets distracted with technology, albeit emails on laptops, work phones, personal phones during lengthy meetings. Boss said yes but now I’ve been called out on it, it should remind others how to conduct themselves in a meeting.

AIBU - You’re in the wrong. Accept it, you got caught, when in the boss’s eyes you weren’t concentrating
YANBU - Boss was out of order. You’re not a child.

Oh you think only office jobs are proper adult jobs
OK then

100 million per cent this. ^ The way some people can't stay off their phones for a single fecking minute is hugely depressing, and bloody pathetic..

I know a couple of people who I meet for coffee every month to six weeks, and they're the same. With me, chatting in Starbucks, with their phone on the table - and I'm saying something, and their eyes keep darting to their phone. Bong, a notification pops up, bong, another one. Their eyes are fixated on their phone.

I just stop talking and say 'do you wanna see what that is?' They say 'oooh may as well, and start fucking about on their phone, messaging someone back, typing back and forth - 'won't be a minute' they say - and occasionally even answering calls from someone - always their mum, their teen daughter, or their partner, asking 'what's for tea?' or 'can you pick up some bread on the way home?' NEVER AN EMERGENCY!

I'm so fucked off and borderline disgusted that they're so fucking rude, doing this while they're with me, that it's honestly putting me off seeing them.

@Cscs12

I would never dream of calling out a brief lapse of concentration from anyone in my team in a meeting to look at a phone, especially if they had children. I treat them like the adults they are…

If someone wants treating like the adult they are, they can act like it, and not like a mobile-phone-addicted 13 year old. I would tell someone to get the fuck off their phone to, when they're working for me and in a works meeting. It's ridiculous, entitled, teenage behaviour.

I take all of my meeting notes on the laptop - makes it super easy to circulate or search for information later...

Neither does my mother. She can't take her phone with her at all

There are plenty of jobs where phones can't be used.

But someone upthread implied if you weren't surgically attached to your phone in case of school calls then you were a shit parent

What the duck do you even mean by that?

You can tell people's job by their posts?

Or that because we don't work in offices then we aren't professional??

I’ve literally never had this. Maybe it’s you?!

You “pulled [your] boss up on it” 😱

That sentence tells me everything …

I would never have done what you did in a meeting!

That’s made me really giggle

me: can some people not see beyond their own specific situation?

Briefencountersofthethirdkind: but, my mum, mum AND me….

If someone wants treating like the adult they are, they can act like it, and not like a mobile-phone-addicted 13 year old.

Exactly. It's worrying tbh that "treating people like adults" means "letting them be rude" and "adults are now as phone addicted as children"

I'm embarrassed for you. 😖

Just wondering what sort of job counts as good enough for somebody's opinion of YABU to be valid here? I'm a senior commercial lawyer of almost 20 years standing and I don't think the OP has anything to complain about, but maybe one day I'll get a decent job and think differently.

Boss was right

Doctors. Nurses. Pilots. Prison officers. Police Officers (they can be tracked by personal phones). Bus drivers.

None of those are us. But all are jobs where they can't be surgically attached to their phone

Is that better?

Or do they not count because they aren't proffer enough for you as they aren't office based?

Besides you spectacularly missing the point of course

I’m not talking about your specific job. But yes, when ‘people’ post incessantly, they often do disclose their line of work/ whether they work or not etc

There are people in jobs who literally ‘can’t’ Check their phones (surgeons etc) but also unfortunately a lot of people in minimum wage / highly monitored jobs (Tesco, nursery workers etc) that can’t either…. and they resent those in decent jobs who are treated like adults. You need to earn that I guess

Oh gosh I’m so surprised at the responses here. It’s v normal to quickly check a message in a meeting and I would be fuming if my boss ‘told me off’ in a meeting. We are all adults and you were only checking as it was important.

Oh and which job have you decided I'm in that's not professional then?

Be careful though, because it looks like MN didn't approve of you calling people out like that before...

No, that’s not at all helpful. In any way!!!!

Because op isn’t any of those.

She’s a person in an office job.

If you have no experience of that, and you don’t understand what that entails, then you don’t need to vociferously keep posting arguing against a brief check of a school message in a bog standard meeting room!

I think this behaviour is common from bosses. I've seen and learned from it and treat my team as equal

Still completely missing the point

A PREVIOUS POSTER said people who didn't check their phone constantly were shit parents.

That was what I was replying to

Is it clear enough yet?

Oh and I've worked several office jobs...

I think it’s one of those situations where you have to take it in the chin, apologise for checking while in a meeting and mention it was the school and move on. Probably not ideal to pull up your boss when technically you’re in the wrong although something so many of us do. Your boss might have been proving a point to everyone and making a stance that they want less use of personal phones in the office and it’s the same for everyone regardless of title, length of service etc and you have been the one to be made an example of

Discussions regarding those who can’t use their phones are irrelevant.

if you’re a surgeon who pauses mid incision to answer a text you deserve to be fired never mind reprimanded.

but OP is not a surgeon or in any other job where checking your phone is for myriad good reasons prohibited.