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 don't have BPD; I have known several very difficult people who do. It is totally unacceptable for the PP to have made such nasty generalisations about people with BPD. Imagine being so vicious about any other illness, not least one that is invariably caused by horrible trauma.

Thankyou I appreciate that. Its a very stigmatised illness

Don't sit there denying that you said multiple times that you would turn up at colleagues homes for inappropriate reasons and at any time of night! That's harassment and you continually stated that you would do it and you would do it if they didn't respond to email harassment outside work hours! You said you would do it if you were spiralling and that's intensely wrong! They are not responsible for your mental health and you don't have the right to turn up late at night having a spiralling breakdown and frighten any vulnerable people or kids that might be in the house! You cannot hide from what you stated you would do multiple times.

I would be annoyed too. Being senior doesn’t mean you don’t have a right to decent rest and a chance to recharge. That’s what enables you to do your job.

It’s understandable if your colleague is unwell, but you are still entitled to be annoyed. I’m surprised at quite how paternalistic some of this thread is, as if being a more junior colleague cannot be expected to have judgement, be held to account or be expected to follow process.

Yeah I'm sure this has already been said in the 26 preceding pages of the thread (which I am unfortunately unlikely to read) but it sounds like said colleage is struggling and maybe having a Menty B. must be a stressful envioronment.

If someone didn't respond to me for 3 days I absolutely would go to their house as I would be concerned something was wrong. Im not denying this as obviously the threads gone on I've learnt some people's workplaces are very different to mine I didn't realise people just refused to speak to others when distressed because its out of work hours. I've never worked in a job like that if I messaged any of my colleagues or managers I know they would be there for me and I don't think I've ever waited more then an hour for a reply of any of them so 3 days would be well out of the realms of normal for anything I've ever experienced.

I'm really curious what sector this is. Defence? PR? Hmm.

If a colleague didn't respond to you for 3 days over a bank holiday weekend, you would turn up at their house?

I'm also intensely curious about what I assume is a hell of a commute if you get up at 4am. Is it Manchester to London or similar?

could be IT or Banking.

my friend was a manager in one of the big banks working in their IT dept.. they have a similar set up to what the OP is talking about. They work 8-6pm, not at weekends, but have an on-call emergency system if anything goes wrong. He was the 'shit has his the fan' escalation point that was only called if things REALLY hit the fan and the duty team couldn't handle it.

Yes if you regularly spoke to a person and they always replied quickly would you not even be slightly concerned if they suddenly ignored you for 3 days

No, I’d assume they were away with their family. Maybe somewhere with no signal.

Don't even dare, I can't begin to tell you the cruelty my mother puts people through, she broke my brother down recently and made him ill, she threatens suicide on a regular basis and then doesn't answer phones to vulnerable elderly relatives to frighten them into thinking she's done so they get distressed and panic! She tells myself and my brother that only her dog is worth living for! She used to batter us to the extreme for no reason as kids, she cost us no end of family relationships because of her behaviour don't ask me to feel guilty because I think bpd is shit and because I don't appreciate this woman's desire to stalk colleagues if they won't give her out of hours attention! I'm sick of dealing with my mum's bpd shit and having to get my remaining family through it and so have little tolerance for this womans game playing.

Whether acceptable/reasonable or not totally depends on industry, company culture and seniority of people involved. I would hqve expected a text message before a 10.30pm call on bank holiday irrespective of levels of distress.

I REALLY want to know what job the OP does, and what the ‘urgent’ query was regarding!

You do realise if you've met one person with bpd you've met one person with bpd right. I am absolutely nothing like your mother

replace 'organisation' and this sums up the issue with 99% of annoying posts on mumsnet - people completely incapable of understanding that other people lead slightly different lives to theirs, and what might be normal 'in their circle' or where they work/live is not the universal lived experience.

And then of course, even more incomprehensible to the unempathetic/short of thinking - just because someone thinks or acts differently to you does not automatically make them wrong!

But thats one of the differences between someone who is mentally ill and somebody who isn't. You think nice happy things I think the worst possible scenario. Its not easy being mentally ill. Them thoughts are hard to control. And meds and therapy only go so far

With all due respect, your work colleagues dint have responsibility for your mental health.

if you were my employee, whilst I would feel sympathetic the fact that you automatically jump to worst case scenario is no reason why my family should be impacted. Their lives are hard enough as it is and me and my family have enough of our own things to deal with. (Which include significant physical & mental health issues).

Everyone should be able to switch off from work and focus on their family.

I never once said they did. This thread has made me realise how blessed I am for how kind and supportive my work colleagues and managers are and is probably the only reason I am still able to work

Op, you’re senior. The key point here is you’re senior at work and an employee was deeply distressed and unstable to the point of irrational. They called you because they were having a mental health episode and not rational, it’s irrelevant that you were on call and it’s irrelevant that they didnt follow procedure, the only event here is that a more junior colleague needed mental health support. Colleagues are human too and workplaces have responsibilities.
i think it was inappropriate of you to have approached this like they hadn’t followed procedure, you should have realised work procedure is irrelevant, reassured them it was fine and you would talk to their manager in the morning, ask if there was anyone at home they could talk to, or if they felt they needed immediate support like lifeline. Then suggested they take some very deep breaths and that you would take care of it so they can go to bed now.
it does however perhaps reflect well on you that you didn’t sleep all night, you didn’t handle it right it but hopefully you were distressed because they were so irrational, not because they didn’t follow procedure. You can just take a sick day to recover, if you’re senior act like it. However this is only after you’ve been very clear to their manager and hr that the specific question the employee was asking is totally irrelevant and they have a very distressed employee who needs mental health support and should be on leave. Once you’ve had some rest go back and suggest an enquiry as to what was missed that this person wasn’t already being supported.

Can you also not see your situation is different. You know your colleagues, presumably you are in a small workplace or department & you work with these people every day.

OP is in a larger organisation and doesn’t even know this person.

The employee was basically having a breakdown /mental health episode. Don’t you think it would be a horrible human being whose first reaction to this is asking them to stop their breakdown, hang up, and put their concerns into a text message or email? Thats what a robot Helpdesk would do, not human people.
a robot Helpdesk might be better trained actually. Telling them to email and hanging up is probably what happened, with real people not robots being the uncaring machines, in the post office scandal.

Im astounded that the poll is swaying towards yabu. 50 emails is insane even if they were meant to be working at the weekend.
They need pulling up.

But there might come a day when one of your colleagues isn’t able to respond like this. They could have an elderly parent develop dementia or one of their children might become mentally ill or they might just get burnt out and need to take some time for themselves to deal with everything.

that is their right, it’s healthy to be able to switch off from everyone & everything sometimes & if you turn up on their doorstep in a state then that’s massively overstepping the mark.