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!

If you were ‘on call’ it shouldn’t have taken 50 emails to get a response from you.

I don't know what line of work you are in but if you are "on-call" then surely you check email periodically to see if there is anything important that can't wait until after the weekend?

Ordinarily I wouldn't expect someone to be ringing me at half past ten at night but you left them no other option. I think you need to define more clearly what is done during "on call" time and which issues are appropriate to escalate, with a clear path of how to do so.

Don't drop the ball and then blame it on the team member.

Sorry, if on call then you should've answered earlier. Maybe if you had, you'd not have had a late night call.

YABU. You were on call and should have sent an email.

How did you know the issue wasn’t important if you didn’t even read the emails?

You were on call and didn’t bother to reply and you are shocked they phoned, sounds like your management skills are lacking.

If you were on call, you should have responded to one of the 50 emails and told them that this can wait till monday so this phone call could have been avoided.

Being on call and ignoring 50 emails sounds totally unreasonable. What does being on call even mean if you don't even check emails.

If you were on call, surely you should have been checking your emails at the very least?

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

Your organisation needs a proper on-call procedure whereby it's agreed that either people phone you if they need to, or you check your emails regularly when you're the one on-call.

You say the situation could have been resolved by the individual within working hours - OK, but if you had a proper on-call process in place, then you would have been able to tell her that immediately in 30 seconds and neither of you would have had a ruined weekend. Although it sounds like hers was a lot more ruined than yours, to be honest.

Depends on what "on call" means in your company.

I'd have expected you to reply to at least one of the 50 e-mails with this isn't a serious matter we'll discuss on Monday with relevant people.

I may then have taken her aside Monday and asked why she was trying to involve you and her line manager when in your view she should have been able to deal with this herself. Maybe there was more to it or maybe she needs more training.

You need to break this down:

• What is protocol? Did they follow protocol?
• What is defined as urgent? How would a junior colleague know/assess what is urgent?
• What would you have expected them to do?
• Should they have known what you would expect them to do?
• Why didn't they do what you expected them to do? Is there a knowledge gap, a training failure, ambiguity in the process, etc?

In my view, you have let this colleague down. Imagine their OP:

"I've been at work this weekend and an issue came up which I couldn't resolve without senior support. A manager was on call but I kept emailing and they didn't reply. Eventually, at 22.30pm I got really stressed. I'd been reaching out all day and had no response, and I knew that there would be nothing overnight, which meant that the issue would be left unresolved until the normal working hours tomorrow. I know that some managers hold the view that if something is really urgent, they will get a call, so I called. The manager was really cross and that made me even more stressed. I tried to explain myself but that point I just couldn't get it together. They have said that they will deal with it in the morning, so now I'm even more worried. AIBU?"

Sending 50 emails before placing a late night phone call to the senior on call is unreasonably excessive.

Getting worked up to the point of incomprehensibility before placing a phone call to the senior on call is unprofessional.

Not sleeping all night on the part of the senior because of said phone call is not a particularly professional approach either.

Time for a system reset, I think.

Yabu. To avoid this whole sorry saga blowing up over a bh weekend couldnt you have just sent a two line email that this could wait until Monday. Maybe give the junior more training too.

I mean 50 emails in one weekend is bizarre and I would have expected them to call you before it got to 10.30 at night but if you’re on call - and therefore expected to be contactable - you should really be reviewing emails every couple of hours. If that set up doesn’t work for you - and I do understand why it might not - then take a job with no such on call requirement.

50 emails? Before calling you. That's unacceptable.

2 emails, then a phone call at a reasonable hour.

If you aren't expected to pick up emails during your on call time then fair enough (I worked somewhere similar - on call was emergencies only, by phone call. No email until AFTER the phone call).

IF YOU followed the established protocol then the individual needs speaking to.

Why does a 10:30 call, the subject of which you seem to think fairly unimportant, result in you apparently being sleep deprived? I think it’s much too late for her to have phoned you, but it shouldn’t have resulted in a sleepless night, surely? Why blame her for that?

I think when you’re senior you have to expect the odd thing like this to be honest. I’d expect you to be much more concerned about this employee’s mental health - 50 emails over a weekend suggests either the issue is more serious than you think or she’s not coping.

You were on call so no it’s not unreasonable at all.

I used to have a job where I was on call sometimes and would get phone calls at 4am sometimes. I’d either advise over the phone or sometimes go in if I felt it was necessary. Part of the job.

you may disagree that it was “urgent “ but the more junior person obviously felt it couldn’t wait. And that’s fine. Even if they’re wrong it’s still fine.

hmm, I can see this both ways.

if this wasn’t an emergency then why didn’t you call the colleague over the weekend to say - look, seen your emails but I won’t be replying to each, this isn’t an issue that requires to be worked on right now?

it sounds as if she were told by her senior to call you tbh.

you were on call so it was reasonable that they expected you to pick up at least one call even if to tell them to chill out!

You were on call so should have responded to emails. Surely under the circumstances you respond and explain that it isn't an emergency and can wait until today, instead of just ignoring messages.

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

The employee had your number and used it, so that's in line with this 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.

On call means CHECK YOUR EMAILS. There is no definition of "on call", in any company I've worked for, where you neither see nor respond to 50 emails coming in.

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.

In your opinion and with your experience - clearly not with the experience of this junior staff member.

It's very easy to forget, as you become more experienced, that what seems obvious to you might not be so clear to junior employees. It's literally your job to help them.

Depends entirely on the nature of the "on-call" role and what it's supposed to deal with. If it is for emergencies only and this wasn't an emergency, then I don't think you are being unreasonable. Are you expected to check your emails when on call or simply to be at the end of the phone?

Sounds like there might need to be some clarification internally regarding the role of the on-call and when it should/shouldn't be used.

You were on call. Okay, you consider it an issue that you didn’t need to be called about. But they clearly thought they did need to call. Surely the nature of being on call means that you will occasionally get calls which didn’t need to be escalated and the response is going to be “that’s not important for now, we can discuss on Monday”.

Obviously if it’s an issue that has been going on all weekend, if they’ve emailed 50 times, then yes they could have phoned earlier instead of leaving it until 10.30pm.

You were on call over the weekend and didn't check your emails. But why didn't you check your emails on Monday either to find out this person emailed you 50 times? She was obviously desperate and after being ignored all weekend and then all Monday, she was very upset. I think you have been a poor leader here.

I thought YANBU until I saw you were on call. Were you checking emails but choosing to ignore 50 emails or were you getting paid to not even check?

And she also needs to be told that calling late at night on a weekend day/Bank Holiday in such a state is highly inappropriate.

What could yo have done at 10.30 pm anyway?

These things massively depend on the nature of the call and the job and a million other things. There are a million things that might happen in all sorts of fields where an out-of-hours call would absolutely be appropriate, and there are a million things where a senior person absolutely would/could need to step in and get something done at 10.30pm. For example, a controversial media story, a tech hacking incident, an infrastructure problem affecting premises - the list is endless really.