Picking up colleagues' telephones...

[nevermore]

It's never even occurred to me to answer someone else's phone. When someone calls me, they're looking to talk specifically to me. When someone calls one of my colleagues, they're looking to talk specifically to them. We each have entirely different roles and expertise-it's not as if I could help someone trying to get in touch with our statistician and vice versa.

Of course, we're a policy research center and don't deal with customers and whatnot, so 99 times out of 100 it frankly doesn't matter whether a random phone call gets picked up or not. They can just email, which comprises almost all of our outside communication anyway-I probably get 3 phone calls a month from people outside our group and hate it when I do. Shit, none of us come to the office every day anyway, and when we are in the office, we're often in other peoples' offices (yes, we each have our own with a door that actually closes and a window that actually opens ).

 

[RoJoHen]

^no. It's not.

1. Phones often are shared. The coworker might be across the room.

Yeah, if people were to call my work number, every phone in the building would ring, and the receptionist would answer. When calling a place of business, it's not always possible to be sure that the number you're dialing belongs to one specific person or if it belongs to the whole office.

 

[milo bloom]

I would never answer someone else's phone here. I've never seen anyone else do it, either. We all have our own phones with direct numbers. We all have voicemail. Each group has an email distribution list so a whole support group can be contacted at once that way. I think there's just no reason to answer someone else's phone. The person calling is usually smart enough to figure out that if X doesn't answer, they should call Y and that'll probably work.

I agree with you till the end. Our phone system has a function to allow you to get directed to a certain department, but there are still those pigheaded types that refuse to leave a voicemail for anything, so they call and call and call until somebody picks up and then usually has to leave a message anyway.

Just learn to use voicemail people, if you're not getting responses in a reasonable amount of time, then you need to re-evaluate that business relationship anyways. I've had customers marvel at our 30-60 minute turnaround times because some of our competitors can take over a day(!) to respond. And this is transportation, where a day's delay can incur all kinds of extra costs.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I would never answer someone else's phone here. I've never seen anyone else do it, either. We all have our own phones with direct numbers. We all have voicemail. Each group has an email distribution list so a whole support group can be contacted at once that way. I think there's just no reason to answer someone else's phone. The person calling is usually smart enough to figure out that if X doesn't answer, they should call Y and that'll probably work.

I agree with you till the end. Our phone system has a function to allow you to get directed to a certain department, but there are still those pigheaded types that refuse to leave a voicemail for anything, so they call and call and call until somebody picks up and then usually has to leave a message anyway.

Just learn to use voicemail people, if you're not getting responses in a reasonable amount of time, then you need to re-evaluate that business relationship anyways. I've had customers marvel at our 30-60 minute turnaround times because some of our competitors can take over a day(!) to respond. And this is transportation, where a day's delay can incur all kinds of extra costs.

Well, my situation is probably a bit unique. My team deals directly with the customer (an entire company) but they know our direct numbers and who is the expert in any particular area. There are only three of us so it's not too hard to just go down the list and call until you get someone--and send an email if you don't. Emails are usually sent first, in any case.

For the other products, where there are much larger teams involved, developers are never called directly. Support calls come into a queue and are answered by support staff, who make the determination as to whether a developer should be involved. Customers can't just call up a random person, they have to use the support line.

 

[Chaos Descending]

No one would dare answer someone else's phone where I work.

That's just simply not done.

Uhm.. why?

I don't know about your workplace but i'd get a kick in the ass if my boss would see me doing something else why my colleagues phone would ring repeatedly. In every workplace i've ever worked it is expected from us to pick up a ringing phone (i.e. transfer the call to your own phone) and see who's there. It's either a colleague wanting something or more important our customers.. even if we can't help them we inform them that the person is not here and maybe we can help out. If we can't we pass on what it's about to the person when he/she returns.

I don't see the problem at all.. personally i get very frustrated when i call someone repeatedly and no one answers even though i know there's other people in the room.

Our customer's intellectual property concerns.

 

[Lindley]

I imagine a lot of us are cubicle monkeys.

My office doesn't use cubicles, everyone has a 1-, 2-, or 3-person office. The original reason for this was so that doors could be closed for Secret-level discussions.

About a year ago the government decided that even Secret discussions needed to take place in a SCIF, which had previously been only required for TS and higher. So that factor no longer applies. But we still don't have cubicles.

 

[ThunderAeroI]

I'd go insane in an "office" environment. I don't even know what one is, but from what I've seen of Office Space and hearing about it in threads like this I'd fear it.