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!

If you were on call how did you not see the 50 emails? You should have checked in and responded that the matter wasn't urgent and could be sorted during work hours. You massively dropped the ball here.

So the question was whether a 2230 work call was completely unacceptable.
Surely, if you are 'On Call' then it is not only acceptable, but is the whole point of having someone on call

If you’re On Call over the weekend and/or in a senior enough/high salaried enough position where some work or communication over the weekend is normal, it’s outrageous that this employee had to send you 50 emails to get a response from you about something she deemed important. Regardless if you thought it was urgent or not, here we have a worker who is clearly distressed about something work-related and considers it serious and not a single person over the weekend who saw all her emails has told her “It’s ok, don’t worry about it. We can resolve this on Tuesday. Don’t fret about it anymore over the weekend”.

Even if your workplace didn’t have a culture of working or replying to things over the weekend, as a courtesy and kindness, I would have thought a senior (who would be keeping one eye recreationally on the inbox anyway) would take 30 seconds to reply to a worker who they received 50 emails from who was very worried about something. It’s professional and comes with the territory of managing people.

Yes it’s inappropriate to call you that late but she sounds very worried or distressed about something that’s gone wrong. In 24/7 law, finance or tech companies, these things happen all the time. My friend who was a trader once made what she deemed to be a grave career-ending mistake for a client after normal trading hours and had to contact her boss over the weekend who reassured her it was fixable and could be reversed. In some of those high paid jobs, these things are normal.

From your follow up @shortbreadconsumer it seems very clear that this employee didn't follow your process which is clear to me and I don't even work for you.

Ah it was this - "did not see the emails as seniors within the organisation take an 'if it's urgent, they have my number' approach." that made me think it was the latter. An actual "on call" policy would usually involve checking emails IME.

Op you need to clarify as tbh Id think YABU if its the first version (proper/contractual on call should mean checking emails as you (should) be being paid if its mandatory) and YANBU if the latter, so others may think the same!

Having seen your update I don't think you were unreasonable at all,particularly as the person who contacted you wasn't supposed to be working and hadn't contacted the appropriate person. 50 emails is bordering on hysteria.

So you were on call all weekend but didn't check your emails at all.
You got a call at 10:30pm about a problem so simple that even someone 2 or 3 levels down from you could have solved it, and you have spent 2 paragraphs saying how easy the problem was, and how unreasonable the caller was for being upset at your lack of response for 3 days.
Then at 11:21 the next morning you claim to have had no sleep and be so sleep deprived that you can't decide what you think, having been very sure about it for the 12 hours you presumably lay awake worrying about it?
Are you really a senior manager?

Possibly, I’m reading your post differently to everyone else. To me it reads as every person in the higher leadership takes turns to be available if all hell breaks loose out of working hours, not a generic “I had a deadline on Friday evening but wasn’t able to deliver and now I’ve worked myself up trying to sort it and I need HELP”- which this sounds more like. But I think your problem isn’t the junior colleague- it’s their line manager that is lacking a sense of proportion and understanding of what is actually important (judging by them thinking you should’ve dealt with the problem and the level of panic from the junior person- that panic is coming from somewhere and it doesn’t sound like it’s a company ethos) and my inclination to think that as the senior person you actually know what needs escalating better than more junior staff (but I could be wrong on this one, sometimes people are so high up they lose sight of things that might explode, so maybe recheck if it wasn’t actually one of those too).

People working all hours is an issue that needs to be flagged by the OP. Someone doing so will end up tired and making mistakes, I bet the hysterics could have come from tiredness or maybe under the influence of alcohol.

Oh and check in on the staff member positively and ask if she needs support and find out what is happening there.

Read the OP's update. There is a clear process which does not involve her checking her emails.

You were scheduled on call at work and still think it's unreasonable that this colleague called you after you ignored 50+ emails? I think you'll find that you were unreasonable to think that despite all those emails you still deemed it not a priority to answer your work enquiries whilst being the scheduled on call senior within your workplace. Don't be surprised if you find yourself on a disciplinary for not doing your job

YABU - you were on call. Colleague was obviously upset. You made it worse.

I don't think that it's a big deal to receive a phone call if you are on call. If it ends up being a minor issue that you don't have to deal with, even better!

Seems like being OTT is quite common at your workplace.

Read the OP's posts.

Read your emails = cancel the cheque.

Wouldn't it be nice if people bothered to at least read all the posts by the OP before wading in with their "wisdom".

Sorry x post.

I think YANBU then if this person didnt follow the arrangements for raising issues and their manager should follow this up with them rather than shrug it off.

People need to read the OP's posts. There was no obligation on her to check her emails.

This colleague who called me and emailed me, was not on call and nor was her query urgent. She should not even have been working. She did not, in any way, attempt to contact the junior colleague on call. She emailed me directly, multiple times, on a non-urgent query knowing that I would not be checking emails. She then rang me in utter hysterics making no sense because I had not replied to emails she knew I would not be monitoring.

Given your clarification above @shortbreadconsumer I think there's a case here for strong intervention - by her manager, and maybe by Occupational Health. She sounds as though she's mentally ill, or in acute crisis.

Otherwise, she's behave extremely inappropriately, and needs clear & firm treatment and/or further training.

What she did was very unprofessional.

It's the waiting until 10.30pm to call that I think is the unreasonable thing.

The worker had the on call number and had been emailing for 3 days. Why not call on day 1? At a reasonable hour?

If that the case and clear procedures weren't followed - I'd be asking why next work day with line manager and trainee.

I'd also think about a company wide e-mail stating above again - and point out this information is held and that this information is sent out every Friday.

It does sound like she did the wrong thing here - but why and how to avoid in future would be where I'd be focusing my energy.

The colleague was completely hysterical and impossible to understand.

Was this colleague a woman? Should you have used ‘hysterical’ if it was a man?

If they were ‘impossible to understand’ how do you know they were calling about work?

I'm glad you're not my boss. You may have thought the work wasn't urgent/could be done in normal hours but how did she know that. That's why you are on call, to pick up stuff like this and I bet you get paid an on call allowance too.

I don't think you were in the wrong, but it sounds as if that junior colleague has misunderstood the "on call" procedure.

Also - I would not underestimate how many people fail to distinguish between urgent, important, and "the next task on my list". I meet people in training who are astounded by the urgent / important matrix and only start to think about the difference between the two concepts at that point. That's before you get to the nuances of what is urgent in your work or at your level.

Obviously the phone calls happened and if it's a rare event it's not systemic. So I would guard against repetition by managing my own auto response - your company message is all very well but it doesn't communicate to the stressed junior that you aren't reading emails. And if your relationship is right, I would mention your concern about the junior's stress levels and abilities to prioritise to her line manager; but it sounds as if they are communicating so that is probably in hand.

This colleague who called me and emailed me, was not on call and nor was her query urgent.

In @shortbreadconsumer 's clarifying post. Read the OP's second post - it shows how out of order the colleague was, and that @shortbreadconsumer is in no way unreasonable. At all.