Boss that Calls Without Notice

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you have bosses that only call? No emails, and no warnings of upcoming meetings or scheduling. I know it is within their rights to do this but it can be unnerving for the employee to always be on edge. Anyone else have a boss like this?

This is hilarious. You are unnerved when your direct supervisor calls you without prior notice? How old are you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lot of people on here who are worried the boss will call when they're 'in a meeting' -- at the gym.

Who cares? A lot of people work well with a structured schedule with minimal fire drills. For many people, who work in well run organizations with competent leadership, this is totally normal.

Or in carpool line, or at the grocery store, or “starting dinner,” etc, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you have bosses that only call? No emails, and no warnings of upcoming meetings or scheduling. I know it is within their rights to do this but it can be unnerving for the employee to always be on edge. Anyone else have a boss like this?

Your boss should be calling you without notice. Why notice?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait, now we have to give notice before we call someone?

you don't "have to" but would be nice. people have zoom/team calls thru out the day. quick email to ask "hey you got a few min to chat" is not a bad idea

+1

It’s not required, but it’s a courtesy. If I am about to login to a meeting in 5 min. and was planning to refill coffee/go to the bathroom before then, it’s not a good time for a call.

And yet people managed to handle it for so many decades before there were texts or emails. Weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think this is an extrovert vs. introvert issue tbh.

Introverts need to stick with reclusive coding type jobs. Other jobs require verbal communication skills.

Thanks for letting us know that you completely do not know what an introvert is.
Please educate yourself.

Oh, PLEASE.

DP

[Anonymous]

This is a terrible feeling with a boss that you don't trust/like. I have had to call other colleagues out of the blue because timing required it. But I always say: I'm sorry to call you like this...

Then they know I see that it's weird/different and then they don't think I'm playing some sort of 'gotcha game'.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do any of you have bosses that only call? No emails, and no warnings of upcoming meetings or scheduling. I know it is within their rights to do this but it can be unnerving for the employee to always be on edge. Anyone else have a boss like this?

Your boss should be calling you without notice. Why notice?

Because it's polite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wait, now we have to give notice before we call someone?

you don't "have to" but would be nice. people have zoom/team calls thru out the day. quick email to ask "hey you got a few min to chat" is not a bad idea

+1

It’s not required, but it’s a courtesy. If I am about to login to a meeting in 5 min. and was planning to refill coffee/go to the bathroom before then, it’s not a good time for a call.

And yet people managed to handle it for so many decades before there were texts or emails. Weird.

Because they were handling much less work in a day. I wish sometimes for a day when I could only do as much as possible without any electronic communication or research. If my boss wanted to call me, he wouldn’t be able to reach me back then either. I’d be out at meetings all day.

[Anonymous]

OP, are the calls you get from your boss mostly unpleasant? Dumpling a fire drill on you, criticizing something you did, etc.? If that’s the case, I can see why you would hate getting these unannounced calls.

If not, then you just need to roll with it. If at some point you have to RTO, your boss may stop by your desk unannounced.

[Anonymous]

Please, those of us with REAL anxiety know the “Hey, do you have a minute for a quick call?” IM is a thousand times worse than the phone ringing out of the blue. The forewarning gives you time to fully play out the worse case scenario of getting fired and having to live in a van down by the river!

Anyway - old job - once I was settled in and reasonably senior, I vastly preferred no notice from my colleagues/boss/client. If I didn’t know the answer, it was fine to say “let me get back to you by XYZ.”

New job - I work with many more random people, and we’re all in different time zones and in open offices, so a notice, typically with a topic, is standard.

The most annoying was the boss who just left a VM saying “Hey, this is Larlo, call me back.” But I also had a good enough relationship with that boss to joke with him about how those messages really just made me go into “van by a river” mode…which only encouraged him to do it 😂

[Anonymous]

I see this as yet another problem with working from home. Early in my career everyone was in the office 9-5 and any of us would stick our heads into an office for a quick conversation. Now people are home or just pretending to work while driving their kids around and can’t be bothered to answer a call from their own boss of all people, you know this is why you receive a paycheck right?

[Anonymous]

My boss does this and I hate it. Once in a while would be fine, but it is a couple of times a day. And the calls are awful- going over stuff we have already discussed, constantly repeating herself in different words, wittering on…
Email/teams chst would be much more efficient.. I only answer now when I feel up to dealing with hee nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I see this as yet another problem with working from home. Early in my career everyone was in the office 9-5 and any of us would stick our heads into an office for a quick conversation. Now people are home or just pretending to work while driving their kids around and can’t be bothered to answer a call from their own boss of all people, you know this is why you receive a paycheck right?

Yes constant interruption is the key to success!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see this as yet another problem with working from home. Early in my career everyone was in the office 9-5 and any of us would stick our heads into an office for a quick conversation. Now people are home or just pretending to work while driving their kids around and can’t be bothered to answer a call from their own boss of all people, you know this is why you receive a paycheck right?

Yes constant interruption is the key to success!

Speaking with my coworkers throughout the day about work issues is core to our jobs. How many people have jobs with 8 hours of uninterrupted solo work?

[Anonymous]

My Boomer boss usually texts with a "Are you available for a call?" and I really appreciate that. It shows that even though she is fully free to call without notice, she respects my autonomy. 90% of the time I answer with "Of course!"