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!

Thats why I said previously about half way through the thread I've never experienced a workplace where you can only speak to people at certain timeslots this is a very different type of job then I've ever worked in.

I agree with 90% of this (basically that OP as a senior person should take some action from this incident, and see it as a red flag that something needs improving within the organisation, whether it's this person's direct management not supporting her, awareness of the on call system, whatever).

However I think it's a bit harsh to criticise OP for not reacting perfectly to someone in MH crisis. She barely knows this person, she didn't even realise at first it was someone she works with as she was so incoherent - she basically answered the phone to an unknown number to someone wailing at her. Just because she is senior doesn't mean she's had any training in how to support colleagues. It's not part of the on-call role, and there is no expectation within the organisation that it would be.

I can imagine it came as a complete shock - and as the crying colleague herself insisted it was a work matter rather than a personal issue I don't think it's fair to blame OP for then (once she finally worked that much out) focussing on that element to try and work out if she did need to do anything.

She's said she did tell her it was okay and to leave it until tomorrow. Other than that, criticising her for not following Samaritans best practice for distressed people or whatever, when the call came completely out of the blue, seems inappropriate.

I imagine that if someone on OP's actual team called her crying to let her know she'd be late to work because she'd been in a car accident, or would need time of for a bereavement, she would have reacted very differently, but this was a completely unexpected and very bizarre situation, I doubt anyone would have handled it much better.

The OP said she tried that but it still took 45 minutes to get this arsehole off the phone

Why are they an arsehole

She knew that she was supposed to contact the junior person whose job it actually was to monitor these things and decide whether OP should be involved. That was basically all she needed to know. She didn't follow basic, easy to understand procedure. OP was clearly not on call to pick up this sort of nonsense.

TLDR:
OP: I was on call over weekend and someone emailed me and then called me as they were v distressed. I am outraged.

That's a very poor summary of the thread. Did you not read it properly?

I think it was very unprofessional, of you! What is the point of you, if you're 'on call' but you're not actually available to call, don't read or respond to emails, and don't allay colleagues fears over a work situation??? As a senior work mate, i'd've thought you'd have more sense?

I’m not sure why that call would take 45 minutes?

I think you may need more coaching on assertiveness / managing situations like this.

OP is a final tier of an "on call" hierarchy and only supposed to monitor her phone, not check emails. She is an escalation step for a more junior on call colleague who triages requests. The more junior colleague is who the employee who contacted OP was supposed to contact.

And how is OP supposed to allay fears that someone is incapable of expressing?

All of which you'd know if you'd bothered to read and comprehend OPs posts.

What a lot of nonsense. Why are you dehumanising the OP and inventing your own narrative for the distressed colleague? Being senior does not invalidate OPs need and entitlement to a private life. The suggestion she just takes another day off bears no relation to the reality of being a senior leader and the snarking at her skills and assumptions about how the colleague has been “supported” is lazy.

Professional relationships should be adult to adult rather than paternalistic.

Your statement re professional relationships should be adult to adult does not allow for an employers legal duty of care for the mental health and wellbeing of an employee.
I do understand senior leader roles, and if they can’t take a sick day sure but they often can say I’ll be in at 11 today. Also, in my experience of senior leaders, I work in global businesses and maybe something comes up at 10:30; you will be informed of it and expected to be able to react. I take 10:30pm meetings myself.

I think it’s hard to tell from the thread if the op focussed on the employees mental health as it’s so derailed by people misinterpreting what is meant by on call, so lots of the ops responses are explaining the on call hierarchy to people who didn’t read any of the earlier explanations.

Thanks for responding, that’s much more nuanced than the original post and I appreciate that.

Nothing I’ve read suggests that the OP has breached her duty of care to the individual. We can respectfully disagree. The junior colleague has had a rough time but so has OP and she deserves kindness (not second guessing or unevidenced accusations) irrespective of her seniority.

Senior leaders do have a duty of care to their employees. That absolutely does not mean that they are expected to provide a 24/7 mental health support helpline.

The employee misused the on call system and called the OP when they shouldn't have done so. Regardless, the OP spent 45 mins on the phone to them trying to help. She has more than fulfilled her duty of care but she is, quite rightly, annoyed about the uninvited intrusion into her non-working hours.

This is still going 😁 Honestly if you have on call at work do not call or email the on call person unless you are sure you are contacting them for something they are on call for. I do on call and most people who do on call it is on top of normal working hours. We aren’t a helpdesk or a sounding board or a reassurance service we are people like you that have already worked a full day and week and are available via the official channels to support if the shit hits the fan which in most work places is clearly defined.

If you think on call means op should have picked up her email on the bank holiday weekend I would urge you to sign up to your own work’s on call rota and then see if you change your mind when it’s you doing the extra unpaid work.

One call is not acting as a 24/7 hotline. Others at work can now follow up suitably. Things happen.

The point is, the one call wasn't appropriate because that is not how their on call system works. The OP dealt with it, but shouldn't have had to do so.

In the OP's shoes, I would be asking the company to stop sharing details of the senior on call person in future, and only to share this info with the first responders who might need to escalate.

OMG, this is giving me flashbacks to my childhood when my mum ordered me to go to my teacher's house for help, when I was struggling with homework. She was a young teacher, in her 20s, who still lived with her parents, around the corner from us. Mum couldn't see anything wrong with me turning up late in the evening to ask for extra free tuition, and although I was only around 13 or so, I knew it was wrong and was in floods of tears begging her not to make me do that.

Also, dropping in my infuriating experience of a team member texting repeatedly (the team had my number for emergencies only) and then calling, because she had seen a cheap flight deal and wanted me to authorise her annual leave - didn't want to wait until the Monday in case the deal was gone. I was literally at MiL's deathbed that weekend, which all the team knew. I had replied to the first text saying this would have to wait but then she kept messaging and calling, leaving pleading voicemails, as I did not pick up the calls. Totally unacceptable, even if it had just been a normal, downtime weekend.

I'm glad you're not my boss. How can you sleep at night leaving someone in such a state?! That's a dreadful way to treat someone. No matter if you think it's urgent or not it was obviously something that they needed your help with and you treated them terribly.
I hope whoever it is takes out a grievance against you and you are disciplined. I'm sure you would have been happily pocketing extra money for being on call so the fact that you cruely and callously disregarded this poor colleague is unforgivable.

I think lots of people are missing the point that if it had been a genuine work emergency, that I could have helped with, I would not be annoyed. But I am not there, and I am not trained to be, a mental health-care professional. Expecting someone, of any seniority, with no mental-health support training to help someone who is completely hysterical and unintelligible (and who I did not even realise was a colleague at first) is not only unreasonable it's also dangerous.

To those of you who think I should be disciplined, I will just add that HR are more than happy with how I managed the situation.

Yabu if you saw, and didn't answer, the emails. Wouldn't have taken five minutes to reply to one of them setting out the appropriate course of action.

I am glad you are not my colleague!

If you seriously think the on-call person is some kind of off shoot for the Samaritans and you can ring them at 10:30pm with a MH crisis, BANG ON FOR 45 MINUTES, and that is their job to sort it out for you, you are having a laugh.

That is NOT what on-call is for and people like you who don't get that when the OP has patiently explained her role, must be hard of reading. And totally selfish.

Its not about being a manager its about being a human being everyone should have these basic skills. You haven't said what the call was about so that obviously changes things if for e.g. she's panicking because she made a work mistake and thinks she's going to lose her job a few minutes reassuring her would of been fine. If its mental health related you sign post to nhs 111 option 2 or the samaritans ask if she has anyone with her etc.

I don’t think you should have become their counsellor, or even have handled the situation any differently, but the tone and focus of your OP is pretty disgusting. You should be feeling more empathy than fury about what happened, if you are a decent person. However ‘wrong’ your colleague was, they were clearly very distressed.

Sometimes being right is less important than being kind.

Well in that case you, your HR dept and your company in general are unfortunately very well matched.

As a senior manager of many years, this is not about policies and procedures, this is about a fellow human being. Your disregard for their welfare and your duty of care is inexcusable. If you can salve your concisence by reiterating your policies and the fact that HR is happy with your approach then that says it all. For some of us, people are more important than protocols.