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 should run a dbt course and tell everyone with bpd to just stop it 🤣🤣

You say she should have been able to deal with whatever it was on her own, and she should have known the correct procedure for who to contact. But clearly she couldn’t and didn't, and got into a panic.

She needs better training and support. But you could show more sympathy, and as a very senior member of staff more concern about what shortcomings in the organisation led to this happening.

Nothing warrants 50 emails except maybe to tell someone a kidney is available for them. And then you would go round and see them.

If the OP's colleague thought the issue was urgent, maybe she could have called the OP a bit sooner. What did she think 50 emails would do that one wouldn't?

@fromthegecko She says no-one is expected to work out of hours

Yeah sure... "no one is expected to work out of hours" is the official company line, but then they give the staff an unmanageable workload that can only be done out of hours.

Then when the staff complain, management simply state "no one is expected to work out of hours."

Only in theory. In practice, all of her juniour staff would be expected to work during evenings and weekends so that everything gets done.

It's not really. In my organisation there is a Chief Exec supported by a team of directors who will take a turn at being on call for serious incidents. Some areas, such as security, building management or comms have someone who is on call for their areas and any issues that can't be handled by the staff on site or the first port of call will get escalated to the head of that office who will then decide if it needs to be escalated to the senior team. If it does then they'll contact which of the CE/ Directors is on call.

For example they'd want to be made aware of a major issue that would end up on the news, a death, a fire or if the IT network had totally failed. They wouldn't be disturbed for anything that can be dealt with by the appropriate office head.

On call means different things in different organisations. My DH is part of the leadership team, it's a private sector 24/7 organisation. They all take turns at being on call at the weekend. That does involve checking emails and responding to calls from managers on site if they need advice, it also involves a meeting at 8am each morning to provide an update to the UK senior team that needs a bit of light prep work for.

The key things here are that the employee didn't follow the on call process for some reason, their line manager didn't seem to think it was an issue and the wellbeing of the employee.

@ThisTimeWillBeDifferent and the other colleague shouldn’t have been working at all

Bullshit.

So if that member of staff didn't get a bunch of tasks completed on time, do you think management would have simply said "that's OK, we gave you a heavy workload and you can't work out of hours, so it's fine"?

You can't give someone a heavy workload and play dumb whenever their workload requires them to work evenings and weekends.

Silliest comment of the day! Don't be irrelevant! Of course we need those who are playing the system to be in work, it doesn't mean you can have staff having extreme breakdowns over nothing over a weekend and harassing another member of staff!

Employers are not daycare centres. Managers are not support workers.

If someone is so unwell that they cannot avoid harassing their colleagues, then they may not be fit for work. Employers have a duty of care to all employees and not only those with mental health problems, and if someone's illness is having a detrimental effect on their colleagues, then that is not sustainable.

I have no issue with people claiming benefits if they are genuinely too unwell to work, as long as they are making reasonable efforts to try to improve their health. That's what the safety net of the welfare state is for.

It's hard to vote without more details
Why was the caller so upset?
Why didn't you open the emails when you saw they had sent so many and obviously desperate to contact you?.
Obviously the caller thought the issue was very important and needed clearance otherwise she wouldn't have been so upset.
What is the blame culture like at your place of work?

Some businesses do actually adhere to working hours. If you have an issue with yours not doing so, perhaps a change in job is in order. Your projection is making you sound awfully angry.

Sorry, you think MH issues are a free pass for harassing colleagues? They are a mitigation for sure, but employers have others welfare to consider too.

If I knew the person had a MH issue or reasonable suspicion I wouldn't go down the conduct route of course, it would be capability process instead.

Are you part of the Emergency Services (Police, Ambulance, Fire)? Nothing else is an emergency, so out of working hours there is no need for any contact, unless you are responsible when these services have to attend the building concerned.

Yeah you can't just fix smi I've been in therapy for over 20 years so are you ok with me claiming pip and lcwra or do I have a time limit

Yes, I do agree. As stated above.

If someone is too unwell to work, then they should be able to claim benefits and be given support to help them get better if possible.

I don't think forcing people who are seriously mentally unwell to work is a benefit to anyone, not least because it can often have an incredibly negative impact on the mental wellbeing of those around them. It is a false economy.

Nothing else? Really? You can't possibly imagine any other scenarios that might require an immediate response? Any workplaces that might operate/need monitoring around the clock?

I don't see that harassment I see it as desperation to try and get hold of someone who is ignoring you while spiralling

As I have repeatedly said, I'm ok with you claiming benefits if you are too unwell to work. I do think you should be expected to engage with reasonable activities to try to improve your mental health, and you should be given appropriate support to do so, but I fully accept that some people may never recover enough to work, no matter how hard they try.

You were on call. You should have been available. YABVU.

There are things that don't add up though.

OP's colleague thinks OP should have been answering her emails, that colleague's line manager has said OP should have been monitoring her emails, and OP doesn't seem to have pulled him up about the fact she is only only call for absolutely urgent phone calls.. nothing else.

I'm not disputing how the process should work, but why would two people completely ignore, or not know about, the contact heirachy.. and why would a colleague be emailing 50 times and ringing up crying over something that was 'completely none urgent'?

None of it makes sense to be fair.. then OP then spent OVER 45 MINUTES on the phone with this person late at night (why entertain that?) and all they managed to ascertain that there was some emails that hadn't been responded to, but didn't know what about.. I was on board with OP until she came out with that gem.

I'm sorry I just don't buy that in 45 minutes this person couldn't articulate what this "very simple" issue was..

then if it was such a nothingness, why did OP not take her own advice and leave it to deal with in the morning rather than stay up going through everything?

[Sigh]

Have you actually bothered to read the OP's posts?

You sound like you aren't comfortable with your own achievements in life to be so aggressive about the OP being a senior! She spoke to the girl for 45 mins! Being a senior doesn't mean you should be harassed at home when you are on call and when it's over something inappropriate! We get put on workplace security courses and it seen as a massive red flag if a staff member is working outside of hours when they aren't supposed to be and exhibiting abnormal behaviour - it can be a sign of some sort of fraud against the company!

"To be clear, we have formal 'on-call' procedures. They are written down and kept in a shared online area everyone can access. They are even stated in an email we sent at 18:00 every Friday to all stakeholders detailing who is on call and what their email is.
So Friday's email said:
'Department X is closed for the bank holiday weekend.
If your query is urgent, please contact 'A': 'insert email address and phone number'.
If necessary, 'A' will escalate it to the duty senior point of contact who will be in touch.'
The 'junior' person on call is expected to monitor emails all weekend and reply to anything that needs actioning. They are very generously compensated for this.
The expectation is everything urgent goes to the 'junior' person who will escalate to the senior person, via phone call, if their input is needed. Juniors are any grade up to Deputy Director.
The 'senior' person on call is expected to only answer the phone and not to monitor emails. In five years, averaging being on call once every two months, I have only had to be rung once on the weekend and that was due to a death on the premises. That is how high the bar is for contacting my level.
This colleague who called me and emailed me, was not on call and nor was her query urgent. She should not even have been working. She did not, in any way, attempt to contact the junior colleague on call. She emailed me directly, multiple times, on a non-urgent query knowing that I would not be checking emails. She then rang me in utter hysterics making no sense because I had not replied to emails she knew I would not be monitoring.
I honestly cannot stress how non-urgent her issue was.
For those of you who understand civil service structures...think of it as a HEO ringing a SCS3 to ask for guidance on something very routine (say, an email to an internal colleague about a meeting). That's the closest comparison I can make. Or think of it as a trainee lawyer ringing the managing partner.
"

I feel like I'm back at work trying to explain to Mr Angry that there is a way of doing things and that no amount of him shouting is going to change that. Why are so many posting here so obtuse?

It also makes me wonder about the OP's complete and utter lack of compassion, politeness, good manners and courtesy towards someone who was absolutely at the end of their tether and didn't know what else to do.

I would have huge respect for a senior leader who responded to a junior in distress with kindness and care, no matter how great her over-reaction.

Getting shitty about her not having followed protocols, not knowing her place in the food chain and reporting her to HR for presuming to bother the important people with her petty concerns (and then coming to rant about it on an online forum) doesn't leave me with a great feeling about you tbh.

You may not have been ‘unreasonable’, but your response to this situation is not one that I would admire, look up to or aspire to emulate.