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!

I’m not a mental health worker.

OP are you second desk MI5? 😁

Well, yes, that too! The out of hours contact details seem to be for stakeholders, whatever that means. Clients?

Obviously they should have followed procedure.

But if you are very senior, I'm horrified that you put the phone down on a distressed junior colleague. That's very unprofessional and unkind. Don't you feel a duty of care to your junior staff?

I think you are far more in the wrong than they are.

No. Because some people prioritise their downtime.

Im not answering my phone to any employee at 10.30pm because it would be on silent.

You don't need to be a mh worker to say honestly don't worry il sort it Monday

Oh your one of them

Are you deliberately pretending to be stupid! Are you not the person I gave examples to such as sudden issues with electrics or IT networks cause severe problems at a hospital or maybe even the whole trust, cyber attacks, people can have to be on call in case of machinery failing or staff on night shifts having accidents - tyres literally a massive list of obvious reasons for on call and emails to an individuals email inbox is extremely irrelevant when it has nothing to do with an emergency on call telephone system.
You do not work for free by checking emails all weekend because you that become a workaholic that gets taken advantage of.

Yea, I put my phone on silent when im going to sleep

But that wasn’t OP’s job. OP’s job was to answer the phone to one designated person and only that person.

the designated person is the one whose job it was to answer such calls.

My phone goes on silent overnight too.

Ah you're "one of those" too? 😂

So that people understand what being on call actually means
When I was called at 2 am by a twit who had just decided that he was homeless and did not have time to contact during office hours I wasn't exactly thrilled. And I'd already done a days work.
Also I answered the poster who said there was no need for on call after 10.pm.

Yes, lots of jobs where you can be contacted out of hours. I used to be a care home manager and you're never really off duty! The staff would generally try to avoid calling during the night, but it certainly wasn't unheard of if an emergency developed (and I'd rather they call if they're not sure of what to do in a situation).

You will regret that decision one day unless you have a housephone

YANBU.

However, with what you've said about the working culture in your workplace and the sanctity of 'off' time, i'd be questioning what is going on in her Team with her immediate management that this employee was working the weekend and why she was tying herself in such knots that she got to that point of distress over the work.

Something has gone wrong somewhere.. and i'd want to know what!

I do have a housephone 😇 probably one of the only few left that do.

why?

You asked me upthread what I’d do to support someone who rang me in the night in crisis (if this is how OP described, with someone barely able to talk for 45 as they were so hysterical, I’d err on the side of the caller being at risk).

This is genuinely what I’d do. I’m senior so I have the personal numbers of the HR director and HSE director. I would WhatsApp them and say what had happened and ask advice. I wouldn’t be surprised if the HRD didn’t look up the employee’s emergency contact and get in touch to ask them to contact their relative.

I would only do that if I felt the caller was on the edge. But under the right circumstances I absolutely would. I wasn’t on this call so I don’t know what state the caller was in.

I have, when I’ve been on call as the comms director, received a call ABOUT someone on shift who had ‘lost it’ and the caller (their manager) was terrified what the person might do. I treated it as a crisis, escalated through the crisis process, and the police were ultimately called to the factory (not by me but decided by the business unit management as part of the crisis response).

I do to i thought i was the only one 🤣🤣

Whats yer number ill call you, 10.30pm ok? 😂😂

why? most phones have a bypass where if you call it twice in the space of a set time it bypasses the DND.

Mine is on DND from 10pm to 9am, but the people who matter to me and who might need to call me in an emergency have either been programmed to bypass it immediately, or know to call, drop, & call again.

So you are more senior than the person that called you and their line manager but how dare they contact you if they need help

God you sound awful to work with

Is it really worth speaking to someone's line manager because they were stressed and needed help? Why didn't you just have a conversation with them directly?

OP couldn’t have put her phone on silent because she needs to be contactable if the on-call triage person needs to escalate. She doesn’t need to watch emails but she IS the point of escalation.