22:30 work call - completely unacceptable?

[shortbreadconsumer]

I received a work call from someone in my organisation at 22:30 last night. I answered, thinking it was an emergency. The colleague was completely hysterical and impossible to understand. In the end I had no choice but to end the call with 'we can discuss this in the morning.'

This morning I spoke to the persons line manager about it, who said that it was 'unfortunate, but not unreasonable' for this individual to have called me as I had not answered any emails from said colleague over the weekend. They had sent me over 50 emails this weekend. I did not see the emails as seniors within the organisation take an 'if it's urgent, they have my number' approach.

I am more senior than both of of these colleagues and I was 'on call' all weekend as the most senior point of contact in the organisation. However, this was not an issue that required weekend working and, more importantly, it was not an issue that I needed to be consulted on. It was very simple and should have easily been resolved in working hours by this individual alone - her direct line manager would not have needed to input either.

AIBU to think that this was unprofessional and unacceptable from both of them?After no sleep, I've reached that 'was it really that bad' point where I am so sleep deprived that I am not sure whether I am overreacting in my annoyance or not!

You were on call.

I work in a 24/7 setting and we have an on call at weekends. If there was something I deemed needed higher input and I tried 50 times to contact my on call unsuccessfully, I’d be incoherent by 2230 on the bank holiday - incoherent with rage. And your boss would be hearing about it through our whistleblowing procedures.
And if you can’t trust the staff on the floor to judge whether they need a little guidance from above then you’re not developing the team in the right way.
And if you take the on call shilling then ignore 50 emails you’re a CF whatever your pay grade.

You should have explained in your post what on call means as you're just getting loads of replies about their idea of being on call.

Sounds like you're more of an emergency contact.
The actual person on call, getting paid to look at their emails and deal with problems wasn't contacted.

I'm not sure its disciplinary, but she needs reminding of working hours and out of hours protocol. It's good your organisation is protecting non working time, I don't think that should change.

I think you are getting an unnecessarily hard time over the incidents especially if they are not part of the on call procedure.

Also just from a basic common sense approach I would never send an email in an emergency. And if I did and did not get a response I would pick up the phone not send 49 more.

Is she young? I see this a lot with younger staff who seem terrified to pick up the phone even when getting no response via email.

I think YABU to be annoyed by a call at 22:30 if you were on call. I think YANBU to be annoyed by a call at that time that was wholly unnecessary.

@loislovesstewie - i’m not for a moment suggesting a junior member of staff would be incompetent. Most of the junior staff I’ve worked with over the years have been extremely impressive. However, my point was that a junior member of staff might, perfectly understandably, feel concerned about a matter that a more senior member of staff feels can wait until the working week. But yeah - i usually try to read all an OP’s posts before but didn’t with this one. My bad.

Read her updates.

You do understand what the word 'call' means, right?

I never look at my emails when I am on call, because the people I am on call for don't have my email address. They have a phone number. If they need me, they call me. Revolutionary, I know. They might email or Whatsapp me after we have spoken, if deemed necessary, but most of the time, on call means 'a phone call'.

I do know that actually. I could see that from the OP's subsequent posts.

Thank you so much for telling me though. I am so massively grateful.

.

You'd do the basic task of contacting the correct person though, following the right on call process, right?

Whistleblowing wouldnt apply here.

I’d be more annoyed at the 50 emails than the phone call to be honest! I think you are being a bit U but unless this was life or death the colleague sounds neurotic and pretty moronic tbh. Why not phone way earlier than sending 50 goddam emails?! Also it was 10.30 pm
so not that late so unless you are up at 3 am for work it doesn’t sound that unreasonable, presumably your salary takes account of your on call responsibilities

Now I see why you're annoyed.

She didn't follow proper protocols for on call support.

Whatever she was contacting you about wasn't actually urgent. And she was hysterical.

She needs a quiet word on procedures and her lack of professionalism.

I'd crossed with that latest update.

However, it doesn't make sense that a simple query that could have waited took 90 minutes for the OP to sort. Either the OP is grossly exaggerating or the issue was more pressing/complicated than we are led to believe.

Even so, OPs subsequent insomnia isn't the callers fault.

I was replying to your post that you edited, before you knew that 👍

I'm glad you're not my senior manager.

I genuinely don't understand how people think you are unreasonable in this. She didn't go through proper procedure. being on call or not, it seems clear what the procedure is and you would not be expected to check your emails unless contacted by A (Presumably by phone)

Because they don't read. They (barely) skim the OP and then are falling over themselves to post the same thing that fifty other people have already posted.

It's because OP didn't explain the on-call procedure properly in the first post - many people probably haven't read beyond it

Ironically, this is one of the problems that leads to situations like this

Things aren't communicated properly or clearly enough

If the caller was in a panic, I admit she may not have understood the instructions clearly because of that

But it sounds like she didn't understand the on-call procedure in the first place

Perhaps she hates dealing with phone calls. Some people seem to have become violently allergic to actually picking up the telephone. It may be that her panic had mounted and that's the only reason why she did it.

But if the on call procedure was to ring the junior member of staff and then the senior one and you instead sent 50 emails to the senior member of staff would you be incoherent with rage then?
Op has said their oncall do not check emails when oncall its a phone call in an emergency not "working as usual at a weekend"

So you were on call but didn’t answer the emails. Yes of course you are being unreasonable! What’s the point in having an on call member of staff if they’re not on call! Hopefully you learn from this

It’s clear from your updates that this issue wasn’t escalated in the right way. However, to use a CS classic, I think you should be using the experience to look at the bigger picture, rather than being annoyed about being called. Eg, why was this person so distressed about a non-issue? Do they need MH support, better training, both? Why were they working over a BH when they shouldn’t have been - eg are they trying to do more than one person’s reasonable capacity, so do the teams need rejigging? Why did they not follow the processes - eg, is the caller scared of the line manager who they should have emailed because they’re a huge bully?

Of course, these details might be for more junior managers to sort out rather than you personally, but if I were you I’d want to know if there were something about resources, culture, training etc that needed addressing in my department, and I’d be immediately tasking the right people to take that forward.

As for the phone call itself, I feel like you had a duty of care in that moment to end the call well - perhaps the better thing to do if there’s a next time is to signpost someone hysterical to the Employee Assistance Progrmame, where they can talk to a trained counsellor, then get back to you the next day once they’re calmer and have had some sleep about the work stuff, rather than just cutting them off.

Perhaps it’s part of a wider conversation needed with HR.

Concern over this junior colleague and their state of mind/lack of support/training need because no matter the stressors under the way they handled it was not appropriate or normal at all (who on earth thinks spamming emails if going to get a faster answer?!). Re-affirming the position on out of hours working and ensuring the line manager (and others) feed it down and allocate tasks appropriately, making sure the staff understand the “on call” procedures properly and ensuring line-managers are doing their jobs. It all sounds like it was entirely unavoidable and ended up being shit for both the colleague and you, despite it being, arguably, a failing by the LM to start with and they’ve brushed it off.

YANBU at all but you’re going to get a lot more snarky posts from people that didn’t bother reading your updates. Hope today has been a better day!

Have you read the updates?
Op explains what on call means in her organisation and the process
She doesn't have anything to learn
The person who rang her needs to learn the process and needs some support as something has clearly been miscommunicated/gone wrong somewhere

So you posted a snarky response without bothering to even read or understand OP’s updates? What’s the point of giving your opinion when you aren’t considering all of the information available? Hopefully you learn from this.

OMG read the updates!

Her MH issues are not necessarily work related, but may be now spilling in her work too. I think it's shocking her own supervisor hadn't noticed anything wrong and was clueless about basic procedures they should be well familiar with. And that they think her behaviour is ok - how strange!
Also, I mean this kindly OP, but you roped yourself in it by spending 45 mins repeating / justifying yourself to someone who was not in a receptive state. Such a call is best ended in 10-15 mins max. I can see it must have been very hard for you, but try to keep your boundaries and look after your wellbeing.