Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Buy Nice Girls Don't Get The Corner Office. Read it closely.

You are damaging your own career by acting like you share a job with the long term admin. You don't. The men are not answering the phone because they know this. It's not your job to manage this woman or to do her job so stop doing it.

+1. I haven't read that book but there is no way I'd be answering phones as a backup.

Agree with this. I was once back up to a "personal calls" person as well, and flat out refused to back her up unless she was a) actually working or b) if she spoke to me personally and said something along the lines of, "I have a crisis with my son/a contractor/my demented mom. Would you mind covering my phones this morning while I sort it out?" Both of those things happened a lot less than randomly being on the phone with personal business, but they did happen.

I also talked to her pretty early on, maybe the second time her shirking caused problems for my work load, along the lines of, "Larla, I am normally happy to help cover the phones if you are busy, but today I have a very important filing/brief/whatever that is due in the afternoon and I just will not have time to help out. Just wanted to let you know!" It removed the expectation that I was always available to "help out".

Either way, OP, you've gotta get over the "but the phone ringing is annoying!" issue.

Anonymous wrote:Buy Nice Girls Don't Get The Corner Office. Read it closely.

You are damaging your own career by acting like you share a job with the long term admin. You don't. The men are not answering the phone because they know this. It's not your job to manage this woman or to do her job so stop doing it.

+1. I haven't read that book but there is no way I'd be answering phones as a backup.

OP here: I have. And they've spoken to him. It hasn't changed anything, and I think they just assume he'll move on to another duty station soon enough

Anonymous wrote:I'm in my 30s and this isn't my first professional job...capitol hill, federal agencies, I've been here for more than 4 years.

we used to have a quality guy up front (enlisted military) for admin support (that was his main job) but he moved, and now we have a guy who doesn't know anything about our office after a year and is at the gym 3 hours a day. So it's very difficult to deal with the essential jobs not getting done - it's like a conflict of my nature to let work go undone or poorly done because people are lazy.

but I definitely see your point. I'll try to be more aware of ignoring the phone and try to have her get the hint.

Sounds like your issue is with this guy, not the coworker on personal calls. Why aren't you talking to the manager about HIM?

Good point, PP

Maybe this is happening to you because Slacker is old school and thinks women should do admin work, including answering phones. So she might not expect the men to help out but feels like you should even if you are in a higher or different position.

Anonymous wrote:The slacker 40 year employee probably knows where the office bodies are buried. Document everything, but proceed with caution.

As a manager, I dealt with this problem by establishing an office rule - telephones must be answered by the third ring (except for extraordinary circumstances).

Some employees were miffed, but the personal calls and office chit chat went down and productivity went up.

She might, but we have office turnover every 18+ months, so even so, it wouldn't matter because our supervisors dont stay our supervisors very long (nature of the beast).

The office rule used to be answer by the 2nd ring, before I got here, but during a turnover period, the other employee got that rule overturned. I don't agree with office chit chat being banned, etc. We have a relatively collegial environment and I think the office being so small benefits from a collegial environment - people chat, but are productive (most are here way more than 8 hours), the issue is the personal calls cutting in to productivity. I email my husband/friends while I'm at work, but I can multitask, or leave the emails to respond to later when I have a more free moment. Assuming one gets all their work done, that doesn't bother me at all - but I think I have a different view of work than most people, seeing as how my work day doesn't end when I leave the office (blackberry). It's a give and take. Some people just choose to take a lot more, it seems, which is frustrating.

OP here, thanks guys. I appreciate the feedback.

Sorry for the delay...was working.

This coworker also spends a bit of time selling Avon, but I ignore that.

Anyway, I'll figure it out - I definitely cut back on the phone answering today. It was probably more annoying for me to hear the ring than it was for her to answer it! She did some answer it some times, other times she didn't. At least sometimes she did!

The slacker 40 year employee probably knows where the office bodies are buried. Document everything, but proceed with caution.

As a manager, I dealt with this problem by establishing an office rule - telephones must be answered by the third ring (except for extraordinary circumstances).

Some employees were miffed, but the personal calls and office chit chat went down and productivity went up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm in my 30s and this isn't my first professional job...capitol hill, federal agencies, I've been here for more than 4 years.

we used to have a quality guy up front (enlisted military) for admin support (that was his main job) but he moved, and now we have a guy who doesn't know anything about our office after a year and is at the gym 3 hours a day. So it's very difficult to deal with the essential jobs not getting done - it's like a conflict of my nature to let work go undone or poorly done because people are lazy.

but I definitely see your point. I'll try to be more aware of ignoring the phone and try to have her get the hint.

Your workplace sounds like a hot mess. Just do as little as everyone else does. Clearly, just showing up is enough around there!

NP here. We have one who spends ninety percent of the time doing non-work things.

Anonymous wrote:I'm in my 30s and this isn't my first professional job...capitol hill, federal agencies, I've been here for more than 4 years.

we used to have a quality guy up front (enlisted military) for admin support (that was his main job) but he moved, and now we have a guy who doesn't know anything about our office after a year and is at the gym 3 hours a day. So it's very difficult to deal with the essential jobs not getting done - it's like a conflict of my nature to let work go undone or poorly done because people are lazy.

but I definitely see your point. I'll try to be more aware of ignoring the phone and try to have her get the hint.

pp here. Seriously, read the nice girls book. Do you read corporette.com? Get to the comments.

Anonymous wrote:I'm in my 30s and this isn't my first professional job...capitol hill, federal agencies, I've been here for more than 4 years.

we used to have a quality guy up front (enlisted military) for admin support (that was his main job) but he moved, and now we have a guy who doesn't know anything about our office after a year and is at the gym 3 hours a day. So it's very difficult to deal with the essential jobs not getting done - it's like a conflict of my nature to let work go undone or poorly done because people are lazy.

but I definitely see your point. I'll try to be more aware of ignoring the phone and try to have her get the hint.

Your workplace sounds like a hot mess. Just do as little as everyone else does. Clearly, just showing up is enough around there!

Absolutely keep a log. You need to be able to document for your OWN work - if you weren't able to meet a deadline, you can point to the log - I answered 43 phone calls this week.

You keep it neutral. It's not about her, it's about your own workload.

(But be prepared for further conversation - If you are then asked why your coworker didn't answer, you could proceed to: for 22 of those calls that I took, "Larla" was on a personal call and so I answered the phone.)

I'm in my 30s and this isn't my first professional job...capitol hill, federal agencies, I've been here for more than 4 years.

we used to have a quality guy up front (enlisted military) for admin support (that was his main job) but he moved, and now we have a guy who doesn't know anything about our office after a year and is at the gym 3 hours a day. So it's very difficult to deal with the essential jobs not getting done - it's like a conflict of my nature to let work go undone or poorly done because people are lazy.

but I definitely see your point. I'll try to be more aware of ignoring the phone and try to have her get the hint.

Anonymous wrote:Does my age matter?

Yes. I think if you are in your 20s, it is much easier to be viewed as "oh the phone is ringing, don't worry, Larla will answer it." And that isn't necessarily detrimental to your career. Kind of like, yeah she has to do the grunt work and work her way up. If you are in your 40s, I think it is definitely detrimental, because, like PP said, it seems like you are sharing a job with an admin. It doesn't really paint you in a flattering light and just reinforces the stereotypes of women are secretaries, men are bosses.

Look, the first step is the answering the phone issue. Letting her get in trouble for not doing this part of her job is the first step. After that, is the "I'm sorry I did not answer the phone, but Barla was on a personal call and I was in the middle of this important project. I assumed she would put her call on hold to answer the phone." Then, if it continues, you proceed with going to your boss and saying this is becoming a big issue for me and this is why. I think if you follow these steps vs putting together a notebook of every time your project is interrupted, the situation will be viewed in a better light.