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!

Yet the process was not understood- so either it’s a training issue or it’s a process issue. Blaming the junior individual is not appropriate. If after repeated training and support the process still is not understood then it’s a performance issue of the individual.

well but hang on.... Incoherent Person shouldn't even have been working.

FFS!

You can filter, and read the OPs 10 posts easily!

Oh @MrsBennetsPoorNervesAreBack we just have to laugh at this point 😂Hopefully there are more people that can read than can't 🙌

Multiple instances of the wrong person berson being contacted indicates a process issue.

One person getting a 2 point process wrong indicates they are the issue. But im really not sure what training on how to read and understand a 2 point process looks like tbh.

People really shouldn't need training in order to follow extremely simple instructions that are clearly set out in an email.

However, as this thread has shown us, many people appear to be utterly incapable of processing simple, straightforward information, so perhaps some individuals genuinely do need trying to be able to follow simple instructions.

It's hardly any wonder that our productivity is so low. If people think that it's unfair to hold a junior member of staff accountable for following the simplest of instructions, then I guess our economy and our society are just permanently fucked.

Can I ask why you feel I need to read the full thread? The OP trickle fed information - I should be able to have an opinion based on the posted topic, I shouldn’t have to read 35 pages of posts to find information the OP left out of their original post… but hey…. Continue to mumsnet your way and I’ll do it mine

I can’t understand how people aren’t getting this … she posted a post … she wanted opinions on that post . Dont drip feed . She posted something she wanted opinions on . So I gave one and didnt say she was wrong or owt , but why is not easier to just post relevant details in initial post ?

Gee if only people asked for opinions on posts and then gave relevant details after they post . Oh wait they do .
why not just post relevant details in the post you’re asking people to vote on ?

and you will continue to get stuff wrong....

And I find it frustrating when people are such robots and 'just follow procedure'.

I don't know the context but if someone is working when they're not paid - admittedly I've never worked for the civil service or similar, only small private, entrepreneurial companies - I'd be impressed.

And if that said person emailed 50 times and then called, I sure as hell would have tried to calm the poor person down. Even if they hadn't 'followed procedure' she was in distress and perhaps she didn't see the situation quite as transparently as more senior staff would.

I hate to say it, but the number of times when you come against bureaucracy, it invariably is a woman who says no/stop and won't budge. I feel bad saying it - as a woman - but too females who subscribe to the old "Good Boy/Nice Girl" orientation (Kohlberg).
Sad. Take initiative, be flexible.

And apparently cause keyboard warriors like you to get their knickers in a huge twist over a thread that isn’t even theirs! Your life must be very dull!

Because everyone can only ever post from their OWN perspective which means that other people will misunderstand from THEIR perspective, therefore, once people start to misunderstand an OP should be able to adjust that perspective with other people's in mind to open up a whole new understanding!

Completely reasonable reaction OP, though not sure why you didn’t trust your instincts instead of coming on here to get flamed by all the trolls. Go with the facts, remain objective and stop letting the anxiety win… but I suspect by this point you’ve already realised that it was a bad day in the office by all accounts (pun completely intended) and one that should now be put to bed… ahaaha another pun, oops 😁

I have read all the OP’s posts.

Thank you so much for your helpful advice. Of course I know how to filter the OP’s posts and read them before I posted. 🙄

Then you know that she is not obliged to read her emails because the person dealing with the emergency will only contact her by phone and only if it's deemed to be so serious that OP has to be involved.
That's it.

People ask questions, OP answers, if not it would all be one post and disappear.

it’s the reason why MN allows you to filter the OPs posts, you aren’t repeating the inaccuracies of others.

Why have the feature?

@Growlybear83 reading comprehension clearly isn't your strong suit then if you can read all my posts and still not understand it wasn't my job to monitor emails. 🤔

Side note: 22:30 is very late as I'm usually in bed before 20:00. I need my precious 8 hours a night. Takes a lot of sleep to be this cold hearted and unprofessional, you know.

Clearly you are getting your eight hours sleep. 🙂

Clearly you’re not, which is why you think 10.30 “isn’t that late for a work call”, it’s absolutely and totally unacceptable!

Side eye you say - the many moods of my little white overlord...

Ok, read your second post and, as someone who runs an on-call function in the public sector and is a senior point of contact on it, I’d be beyond pissed that someone outside of the duty rota took it on themselves to not only attempt to raise a senior leader out of hours without sufficient cause but also to go over the head of the person on call to try the escalation point first.

NRTFT as I’m unreasonably incensed by this on your behalf and I might pop if I read more 😂. But hopefully you’ve delegated the bollocking of those two CFs to the person who draws up the rota and therefore owns the process. Gah! What is the world coming to when people can’t follow a simple bloody process? (I say every day at work 😂)

That's slightly worrying, then. How did you manage to read all OP's posts and still think she had a duty to respond to emails over the weekend?