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!

LOL 🤣🥰

If there is something this thread has shown it's that people don't read instructions.
It also shows that people don't understand that each organization has a way to do things that works for them.
I don't recall getting so frustrated by people who comment without actually reading everything.

and again FFS RTFT

Oh FFS!! RTFT.
You are talking absolute bollox.

The line of work matters not one jot.

Two tier on -call system

Tier 1 - junior manager who monitors emails/fields phonecalls, who's email and phonenumber was issued to EVERYONE with explicit instructions to phone/email them. Their job is to deal with it or escalate to tier 2.

Tier 2 - The OP. Who's number WAS NOT shared. Who's only responsibility is to answer the phone if the tier 1 junior manager phones her.

You had very obviously failed to read the thread. Just admit that you got it wrong.

yup....and they are BREEDING

did I already quote you? well if I did have another one
FFS RTFT

You tried way too hard there. 2/10.

😂I miss that laugh emoji badly.

I feel like I need to say one more time for the people at the back of the room who cannot read the full thread or understand what happened: the bar for which my input is required during the weekend is incredibly high. We have someone paid to triage anything that comes in and decide if it does need action, if it does not, and whether I am needed. They are the only person who should contact me. Only once in five years have I been contacted and that was because someone had died. And I mean died. No heart beat. Actually dead.

'Big boss' very much takes the view that on-call staff, who have no mental health first aid training, should not be there to administer pastoral care. So do HR. Why? Because it would be an absolute disaster should something terrible happen as a result of staff giving incorrect and/or insufficient advice to someone who needs professional help and/or the samaritans.

I'm also not a Civil Servant - I just used the grades as an example😀I also don't get paid for being on call. Why would I get paid? The whole point of me being there is in case of emergency not to monitor my emails.

If all the people who didn't read the full thread gave me a £ I'd be able to pay for some MHFA training for the whole company and maybe this would never happen again!

oh me too

I don’t think you did anything wrong, you followed protocol, this member of staff didn’t. I do however understand the level of anxiety when you feel unsupported at work, I’ve been there. It can escalate anxiety so that you start to act irrationally, it’s not healthy, this person is clearly very conscientious so I think they need a bit of support.

So a managing partner is too good to interact with a trainee are they 😂😂

Under the health and safety at work act you have a responsibility for colleagues wellbeing / welfare. So you had a responsibility by law to support the distressed less experienced colleague - as you were the on call person.

That you with all your experience didn’t consider it an urgent matter is not how it was perceived by the more junior colleague. Therefore this indicates a possible training need for the more Junior colleagues and a chance to expand their experience.

You have handled this very unprofessionally and in an uncompassionate way.

I think you should probably apologise to them and offer training or support so that next time they are better equipped for the situation. They probably have grounds for complaint against you.

Hace a look at compassionate leadership

So op what exactly did you do to cause that person's death?

Given all of the information now available on this thread about the actual situation, I’d say posters are going out of their way to bully the OP

I very clearly told you that I had just responded to the OPs original post . So I responded with an opinion of what they said in original post . Sorry I gave an opinion on what they said

again I just went by the details shared in original post .

yup, my late husband used to work within a similar on call system. Whoever was on call (24/7 1 week in 6) was actually the senior on call cover for several departments as well as the one he actually managed. And yes he was only contacted for the sort of thing that would end up on the national news...and no, not civil service or public service.

I admire your patience, OP. Sadly, it seems that many posters are utterly incapable of comprehending very basic explanations.

It is utterly terrifying to think that many of these people may be voting in elections tomorrow. I have no confidence in democracy if our collective future is left in the hands of people who can't comprehend such simple facts even when they are clearly articulated. We are all fucked!!

Ok so it sounds like the process and triage needs revision or the policies and guidance for contacting the on call manager needs revision. That should be looked at,

but blaming the junior individual is not the right thing to do. They need support and the system may need review or guilines clarified.

Yes, which is really fucking annoying for everyone else on the thread. At least read all of the OP's posts, or if you can't be arsed to do that, don't comment at all.

Hopefully they're also too thick to read and comprehend the voting instructions.