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!

It's impossible to answer this accurately without a good understanding of your workplace culture and environment. It seems pretty rigidly hierarchical from what you've said (a bit too much so for me!).

I'd say the junior staff member clearly had no idea who to contact for help, and when would be appropriate to do so, so needs more training and a conversation with their line manager. They also need support in coping with stress etc. They had clearly reached some kind of breaking point.

How would you 'help' a hysetrical employee at 10.30 pm?

She spoke to them 45 minutes and then reported the incident to the line manager to deal with. This seems entirely reasonable. The line manager should be very concerned, and should be looking at both the support for mental helath the employee needs and how able they are to do their job at present.

There will be very careful HR guidelines for how to approach this. It should be handled by the line manger.

Senior managers at night would be placing themselves at risk if they tried to support 'mental health' beyond this level outside procedures.

OP has done what they should have done.The Line managers response is concerning however.

@shortbreadconsumer I did not see the emails as seniors within the organisation take an 'if it's urgent, they have my number' approach.

If you're a senior in your organisation, then it would be expected that all of your time is working time.

I'm sure you don't have an issue with the more junior staff working all hours of evenings and weekends, so why would the same thought process not apply to you? You're not special.

Glad you got it sorted. Seems that a staff member with problems got completely overwhelmed.

If you were on call at the weekend then of course you should have answered e-mails. Why didn't you?

Except that’s not the case at all, as Op has made perfectly clear. She was not expected to be reading her emails, and the other colleague shouldn’t have been working at all, which you’d know if you bothered reading OP’s updates.

Did your ignorant little dig make you feel better though?

I’m not senior but I am on call and on call isn’t extra help for people working out of hours regardless of how much you are being paid for it or how senior you are. And no one should be emailing anyone 50 times about anything. This colleague is obviously really struggling and nothing op could have said or done would have changed that at 10.30pm last night. I’m surprised how vehemently people are having a go at op, nothing at work in a normal desk job is that urgent.

That's the opposite of what OP described. She says no-one is expected to work out of hours, and there is a single point of contact (Person A) for out of hours emergencies. Person A gets paid extra to monitor their emails, and phones OP if there's something they can't handle. It's a civilised set-up.

It's literally in the OPs second post, she does not monitor emails

But i thought we wanted mentally ill people in the work place and off benefits. Or is it we just don't want them in our own workplace

You were on call. One minute to reply saying what you wrote here would be enough. You’re superior and not professional. Shocking behaviour. I’d be very pissed if I were your manager.

That’s quite a funny way to be on call… not checking, don’t call me? Do they pay you to be on call? Is it in your job description?

Today at 12:23 I wrote:

”I really should have read OP‘s update…”

thanks for your input, I guess 🤗

So as this colleague didn’t send emails to the junior who was monitoring emails - only to your personal email ?

they didn’t get read as they didn’t follow the weekend orders /protocol

they didn’t call the junior. Only you @shortbreadconsumer?

while I get you couldn’t understand the hysterical colleague - why didn’t you check your emails at all during the weekend esp as bhw as on call ?

i would have said i cant understand you. Take 5 mins to calm down and we will chat after ive read your emails

There seems to be a lot of failure here:

• Lack of clarity over the process for contact the person on call - this could be the employee's issue or their manager's.
• Employee who called being unable to handle a part of their role they should have been capable of.
• Employee who called being inarticulate unable to communicate when they needed help.
• Manager of employee who called having low standards for their staff, putting someone in a position they were not capable of handling and then not acknowledging that when the lack of skills blew up into an issue affecting others.
• Your inability to cope at work the next day after receiving a call at 22:30 the night before when it is part of your role to be on call.

I see the main issue as being the employee being unable to do their job competently and the manager putting them in that position and accepting that as normal. But you seem to be completely over reacting to being called when you are on call. And as someone senior in the organization you really need to be seen to accept the less friendly bits of your job, not act as though you're too good for them. Your reaction (if what you are showing on here comes across at work at all) will effect workplace morale making this one incident far more widespread in its damage than the issue of one employee not being able to do their job in one instance.

Employers should be supportive towards people with mental health difficulties and make reasonable adjustments as appropriate, but it's ridiculous to expect managers to act as a mental health support service outside of office hours. That's not what the on-call role is for, as the OP has clearly set out.

Maybe the OP could get you to write to her employers to tell them they are running their business wrongly and an internet random who knows absolutely nothing about them has a better idea, I'm sure they'd be very appreciative 😁

She didn't need to check her emails and it was the weekend. As she has already articulated very clearly, there is no expectation on her to check emails when she is on call. I don't understand why people are having so much trouble understanding this.

But thats the reality of smi i would of done exactly the same as that employee

Before I fire off 50 emails, please for the love of God, could people read all the OPs posts. It explains quite clearly:
A) what the set up is for on call

B) that the employee who phoned direct wasn't even supposed to be working.

C) The OP only steps in if the actual triage person decides the situation is so severe that it has to be escalated.
Even I can understand that. It doesn't matter what your organisation does. It's what this one does that matters.

yabu and grumpy.

You should have realised that this person was extremely distressed about this issue and needed urgent help as soon as possible.

If you are the most senior person on call but don't deal with lowly minions, you should have immediately delegated the problem to the person below you, who was also on call. And so on down the chain of command until this poor woman actually got some kind of response and the help she so obviously needed.

Your behaviour towards this frantic junior staff member was supremely callous and dismissive and unfortunately, it has made you look like a nasty piece of work.

Then you'd have been totally in the wrong for doing so because you would be abusing the on-call system by using it for a non-emergency.

But in her head it was an emergency op needs to be greatful she didn't turn up at her house because when im spiralling i would and have

Initially I thought you were potentially BU if you saw 50 emails while you were on call and did not reply (or didn’t check emails when on call).

Now I know “on call” does not require checking emails I think YANBU.

Such a late night and long call must’ve been horrible for you.

I do feel sorry for your poor colleague - sounds burnt out and in need of some help, but that’s not your fault.