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!

To me she seems more affronted by the 45 minutes of hysterics, especially as she couldn’t get any sense out of the colleague. How long was she meant to let the colleague go on for an hour? 1.5 hours?! Plus the non-following of protocols and the 50 emails! The colleague needs to follows the rules around not working at the weekend, the on all proceed etc. It also sounds like they need more support from her manager and some occupational health / GP input

Feeling very sorry for your colleague and hoping she's going to be supported rather than berated. No she shouldn't have called you, no you shouldn't have missed out on a night's sleep.

That leaves the question of who is a distressed employee meant to contact outside of working hours and that might be worth writing down. Is there an employee assistance programme? Should there be a designated on call person for distressed staff? Do you signpost people to Samaritans/ NHS 111?

But you have to see it from every angle, of course there's people in a bad headspace but there's also people smirking and playing on it as they sit at home playing playstations everyday. There is a lot who don't need to be sat at home and as working tax payers it gets galling seeing numerous health ailments to the free money list! And many of these are things that people can fake! And because they all play that card, mental health services are stretched and shit! I have immense problems with my mother who is addicted to benzos thanks to the NHS and has what I swear is undiagnosed bpd. Lazy arses faking it are not helping me to get her help!

Also I'm wondering if the reason crying!colleague's direct line manager is downplaying it is because they are trying to cover their own arse.

Firstly because you'd like to think that most people would try their own manager first before escalating all the way up the chain, so perhaps LM also ignored multiple emails and calls that weekend.

Secondly because if there is something seriously wrong with crying!colleague (which does seem to be the case), she should have either been given support (if there's other stuff going on which is temporarily affecting her), or be on a management plan, if she's always like this, and thus apparently unsuited to her role (or any professional one!)

Thirdly because it's usually direct LM who should be ensure all staff under them are aware of relevant policies (including on call) as part of their onboarding process.

You were on call, and …. were called. Surely this is what on call means. A distressed colleague needed support, someone who by the sounds of it was so distressed they were not able to process if they should or shouldn’t call. You should be grateful for the employment (and presumably salary) as a senior leader and the related responsibility of supporting your colleagues with kindness.

If you were on call you should’ve been checking your emails. YABU.

so you were on call… saw her emails and knew they didn’t need input… but didn’t tell her they didn’t need your input.
1000000% you are the wrong’un here

Please Google all the benefit fraud, the woman caught in Mexico recently that was supposed to be housebound! My friend has live next door to someone for decades who has never worked! They claim a bad back but come home and hump paving slabs about, people have done this a long time, I'm 46 now but when I'm was with an ex ages 17 to 23, he had a brother and sister in law that never worked, the brother used to play both the bad back and the depression game, he used to laughingly show me his cupboard of unused anti depressants and he used to go out doing manual cash in hand work!

Is this the girls first ever job? DH hired a grad last year who was a bit like this super clever, super competent in some ways but needed to check everything… no initiative and would really freak out over anything. We don’t hire anyone who’s not had a job before now, doesn’t matter if you have a stellar academic record we need to know you have basic work skills.

If not, then she is having a breakdown and you need to take appropriate action and maybe show a bit of compassion.

No-one thinks that. If you're demonstrably not fit for work, you need to wait until you're better. (But you also need to do something to help yourself manage your illness - in your case, stop posting!).

You are hijacking this thread - you've posted over 50 times - are you the panicking employee in the OP?

Perhaps start your own thread.

The phone call was at 10.30 pm, if it lasted three quarters of an hour you could still be in bed by midnight, asleep soon after. Unless you kept thinking about it which kept you awake. However not having enough sleep for one night is not sleep deprivation.

I hope she is all right and has her problem sorted.

For god's sake read the comments! Her on call policy doesn't involve checking emails I can you assure many dont,!

Someone being hysterical and inconsolable for that long - 45 minutes- is surely experiencing some sort of mental health crisis. I’d have thought this renders all the other details, the late phone call, the ‘on call’ business, irrelevant. I’d like to think I’d just be concerned, not annoyed, as this is surely not a regular happening.

Please read the comments, she does not monitor emails because it is not part of her workplace on call policy and many are like that, it's emergency calls only.

Managing staff with serious mental illness has probably been the most stressful thing I've had to do at different points in my career, and dealing with these very unwell individuals has on several occasions had a significant negative impact on my own wellbeing. I've seen the same pattern in managers who I've line managed when they have had to deal with very unwell people on their teams.

Ditto @MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack So thankful I was able to leave a job in which I had to manage someone with a severe mental illness who was in complete denial about it. Almost impossible to manage as resisted any sort of capabaility investigation or even consultation with Occupational HEalth. It was ery strssful for the rest of us and we had to cover his job as well as our own. Awful.

Maybe not working over a bank holiday weekend when she knows she should not work might be the better option.

Except thats not even remotely close to what actually happened.

Do some of you hear how ridiculous you sound! There's no privilege involved! It's called working hard to get where she has, my partner is a senior IT network engineer and by god do they get their money's worth out of him! And he's not a mental health crisis service when he's on call either! That colleague isn't supposed to have been working and the fact that she is using the companies IT system at a weekend and doing things she isn't meant to be doing and getting ridiculous stressed is a big red flag that she maybe committing some kind of fraud against the company.

READ. THE. THREAD.

Jeez Louise.

This thread really has been an eye opener. People who don't read the posts and then make an erroneous decision.

I voted YANBU cos you said the issue wasn't urgent and was easy to resolve and I know how frustrating it is to be on call and get asked to look at trivia.

However the person trying to contact intact you didn't think it wasn't urgent and didn't know they could resolve it themselves. So I would make it my business to help them firstly understand what is urgent and what isn't and secondly self help. You were on call, though so should have told them to leave this until we're back in the office, let's talk then because they were panicking about nothing. That would have at least appease the situ.

Oh, I got one at 9 PM on a Sunday.

Someone new to the company needed to check an apartment she came from France to view.

Part of the job in HRM.

They don't need to be checked if it's not policy! When my partner is on call he will only be called if sometime rings the hospital on call number and the call handler deems it an IT network issue because that's his remit and nothing else! Emails are not used for the on call system and do not need to be a checked. Being on call doesn't mean you need to be a workaholic!

Agree. Ive had MH issues in the past myself so im not unsympathetic at all, but I have to admit nowadays as soon as I see a fit note with anxiety/stress/low mood etc my heart sinks a bit at what might be coming. Dont get many tbf but when its happened more often than not its funny how just when it gets to final capability stage and OH involvement etc they are suddenly ready to come back to work 😬

You aren't being unreasonable that it's not acceptable.

I would be concerned about the colleague's mental health - I would probably go down the are you ok/mental health angle rather than the this is harassment route first. It's not normal to send 50 emails in a row about anything and then phone at 2230 at night inconsolable and I would be very concerned the line manager thinks it's normal too.