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 did nothing wrong OP but definitely sounds like that employee needs alot of help

Because if there is a family emergency in the middle of the night which for some reason this is when people seem to mostly die. You will hate yourself for not answering and saying goodbye and being there with the rest of your family. Imagine if you didn't get to say bye to your child because your more interested in getting your 8hrs

If you were on call then you should have been checking emails.

Clearly the person thought it was more or they wouldn't be hysterical.

Yabvu

But do most people know this or do most people just put it on silent. Because I have family members who have been completely unreachable in the middle of the night

No I won’t. There is an over-ride for my children and my parents only if they call twice in succession. They know this and that in an emergency they have to call twice.

As per the instructions that this woman received at 6pm on Friday night

The department was closed for the bank Holiday weekend.
All emails are to go to junior person
…@….who then deals with them and if there is an emergency, only then does
shortbreadconsumer get called

Being on call means getting on with your life but having your phone nearby incase something is deemed an emergency

At no point was shortbreadconsumer ever supposed to do work or even look at her emails so why this woman was emailing her 50 times and getting hysterical because shortbreadconsumer wasn’t answering is anyone’s guess.

I would actually ask her to read and explain what she thought the notification sent at 6pm on Friday night meant and why she then ignored that and sent 50 emails to shortbreadconsumer’s
work email and why she expected a reply

Do people not understand what on call means.

Well i guess you didn't bother reading.

The op is the escalation 'on-call' there is a duty person on call who employees are meant to call or email first.. that person should be able to handle everything. In the event that person can't handle it, they have to PHONE the op to escalate it.

The employee should never have phoned or emailed the OP as they are not the emergency contact. the Duty on-call employee is.

The ONLY person who should be phoning the OP is the duty On-Call manager in a dire emergency.

My emails come up on my phone so I see them when they come in

there are at least three of us because the indoor mobile signal here is pants

it's your phone, you should know how it works, and make sure the people who might need to call you know how to contact you.

same here

You sound like a very cold person.

I leave my phone on i would never risk missing that call if someone needs me i will be there

the people who I would want to hear from know the "call twice" thing

My work emails do not come up on my phone. It is a conscious decision I made.

Exactly this.

nope, the op's job wasn't to check emails or to take employee phonecalls.

it was the ops job to be on call in an emergency for the duty manager who's job it was to check emails and take employee phone calls.

Op was not checking emails.

so you don't know about the call twice thing either <eyeroll>

nope, have you not RTFT?

have fun being disturbed by international friends who think its amusing to send you memes at 3am then.

Why do I feel like the only person on the planet who doesn't know this also my family doesn't I've been the person in the hospital in the middle of the night repeatedly ringing and no one answering and then frantically ringing me at 6 am wondering why they have 100 missed calls but their to late

You’d hate working for us them. Many of our employees have to hand in their phones at reception (or leave them in their vehicles) as they are strictly banned on site.

Yeah people don't send me messages in the middle of the night unless its an emergency