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!

It's not ideal, but hardly the end of the world. You were oncall (and presumably compensated for this and all the other oncalls you've had to do where you've been distrubed once), and it was late but not the middle of the night.

Just send a company wide email, reminding them of the importance of following proper oncall contact procedures.

YOU have wound yourself up so much by this that YOU haven't slept, Just chill!

You were on call - surely you should have kept an eye on your emails; not necessarily actioned them but once you'd seen several from tje same person didn't that alert you to a potential issue?

You said it could have waited but perhaps the person felt it was and needed someone senior to tell them that?

Why would op check her emails when thats not the on call arrangement?

If you were on call why didn’t you answer any of 50 emails? As a senior team member you should support juniors not castigate them.

There are many lessons to be learned here. Obviously, the reporting procedure broke down so that needs to be addressed. The reaction from a member of staff would certainly concern me, and I would be urgently reviewing whether this is something that is the result of a wider dysfunctional culture and whether I played a part in that, or whether it's specific to the individual. If so, that needs supported by Occ Health. Finally, I'd question my own instinctive reaction in the moment to someone who was obviously in distress and whether I should have been checking my emails to prevent this escalation.

I don't have any knowledge or understanding of that sort of structure but a couple of things stand out to me.

1 - a person who was not meant to be working over a 3 day period was clearly doing a lot of work. This should ring alarm bells as a senior. If I received over 50 emails from the same person on something that shouldn't have involved me, I'd be contacting them at least to say "please stop emailing me. Direct your query to X".

2 - A junior calling you in hysterics at 22.30 didn't send off major concern with you? You appear more concerned that they bothered you. I would be very worried about what was going on with this employee, considering the 50+ emails before the call.

3 - why should receiving a call at 22.30 render you sleep deprived?

10.30 is hardly the middle of the night warranting severe sleep deprivation. So for that YABU and slightly hysterical about this.

If you are so senior then you need to look at the culture that has been created in the company that people are working all weekend and are under this level of stress.

The Colleague sounds dramatic however so do you, sleep deprived.

Sounds like a communication failure, hopefully you’re not CS putting a post on here about it, isn’t very CS.

The colleague sounds like they are having some sort of mental health episode. Maybe OH need a heads up.

On call or not on call, 50 emails over a weekend is excessive and unreasonable. When it became obvious after the second unanswered email that you were not contactable, they should've tried to resolve things a different way. Perhaps even by contacting the person whose actual job it was to be monitoring emails that weekend.

Obviously a hysterical phone call at 10.30pm on a bank holiday Monday is unacceptable and unprofessional. I'm surprised at the number of posters on this thread acting as if it's in any way within the bounds of normal behaviour.

I'm also wondering why, if you're as senior as you are, you even had to start a thread about this? Surely the next steps are obvious? Talk to their line manager tell them to review the on call procedure with them and get OH involved. No need for you to do anything further.

That person wasn't emailed - the employee missed that step out completely!

What I'm seeing is potentially an employee ill with anxiety or bipolar agitation/hypomania/mania who needs a welfare check urgently by the line manager to make sure they are safe and well. The rest can be sorted later. Referral to HR etc is going to take too long.

If you’re so senior and important, why are you asking this on Mumsnet?

Is it just me who finds this type of post highly unprofessional? People within the organisation can probably identify it and it's just not - professional . . .

On call means you're available to answer calls or emails in that timeframe.

So you're being unreasonable not checking your emails and not wanting to answer a late work call.

Because the emails should have been sent to another person who then decides if escalation is required. The procedures weren't followed.
I had to be on call in local government, I dealt with anything over the weekend in terms of homelessness. I would not have called my manager unless it was a major incident such as widespread flooding etc rendering many households homeless. A person working when they shouldn't is clearly struggling and the OP didn't need to be contacted. And the emloyee needs to be told not to work out of hours unless agreed by management.

The junior colleague sounds in a bad way. I’d refer the matter to HR to have a chat with employee and line manager about what went down. They should do a stress risk assessment or wellbeing check- something like that. Sounds like junior needs to take some time off and support with mental health.

You’ve done nothing wrong so I’d just refer to HR for a wellbeing review and crack on as normal.

Yes, possibly.

It's also possible that they are just very bad at their job.

But unless checked on it won't be clear and their welfare is number 1 priority until checked on.

I had a friend who would have done something similar to this (and in fact did do something very similar once) she couldn't understand at all why she was being disciplined for it, or why it was inappropriate.

Absolutely.

OP, for someone supposedly functioning at 'managing partner' level, your response to someone you employ calling in acute distress is pretty shocking.

It may be the distress was unjustified, but that's clearly not how they saw it.

It's only a snapshot, of course, but to me this heavily suggests a toxic culture.

I have read both OP’s comments and still think it’s a bit unreasonable tbh.

OP, you state that your junior colleague on call could have dealt with it as per the procedure but the individual’s line manager said it wasn’t unreasonable for them to have called you directly.

Either the matter was more pressing than you’re describing here or there’s a widespread culture of misunderstanding the correct procedure. Whichever one it was, it doesn’t sound as if the individual is to blame - if their own manager thought they were right to ring you then it’s hardly surprising that was the outcome.

Also, if you were on call then it’s not unreasonable to get a call. Irrespective of whether this was a vital matter or not, your role required you to be on call this weekend. Your post title is therefore very disingenuous because normally yes, being called at 10.30pm by a work colleague would be unacceptable- but not when you’re on call.

Also, I can’t fathom how on earth such a senior member of staff managed to get themselves in such a lather about an apparently non-urgent phone call at 10.30pm that they’re now “sleep deprived”.

Review company procedures - maybe introduce an “on call” email so that no one is emailing you directly. Or if they do, they get an out of office reply directing them to the on call email address. And provide better training to managers that they can disseminate to their staff.

No, it's not. Its potentially a serious breach of confidentiality. The specific circumstances, the exact time of the call, the detailed breakdown of the on call arrangements...

The fact it's posted anonymously may not matter if it's possible for the other person (or anyone else) to identify their circumstances from the thread.

The junior on call person never got any emails as per the PS update "She did not, in any way, attempt to contact the junior colleague on call. "

From your updates - she was BU.

She needs help - and the department/team needs a re-education on how to use out of office calls.

Yes, and this too.

I’m slightly sceptical about the “hysterical” nature of the phone call seeing as how the OP says they are sleep deprived from a single phone call at 10.30pm.

However, if accurate, surely there should be some concern for the employee’s wellbeing. 50 emails and an agitated phone call sound like cause for concern but this seems to have passed OP by.