Phone calls during office hours

The office manager has a point. If your friend is being paid to work at that office, your friend should expect to work--not attend to personal business.

Of course, exceptions should be made for a true emergency--and here the devil is in the details: What constitutes a genuine emergency.

Personally, I'd say only death or serious injury should interrupt office routine. If in doubt, tell the Office Manager, "I'd like to speak to so&so. Her child has been in an accident....her father has died....her house is on fire...."

If the "emergency" is something that it is important for you to have settled immediately but not particularly earth shaking such as dinner plans or where are the car keys or what is the name of the plumber, the Office Manager has a right to decide whether or not to detour office routine.

"deemed urgent" by whom? (What one person sees as "urgent" can be seen as trivial to another person!)

Legally? They probably aren't under any legal obligation to pass on a phone mesage.

Now if their failure to pass on a message results in damage or irreperable harm then you could possibly sue for damages.

That was sort of my point, what right do they have to decide what is important or not ?

But basically what you guys are saying is the Office Manager has no legal obligation to pass on the phone call is this correct ?

Do you guys know any text where i can read about this more psecifically ?

Yes



Yes, read all the laws and note the absence of any that says the manager needs to pass on the phone. ;-)

They have the right by virtue of being a designated representative of the employer. Some employment settings specifically tell people they may not receive phone calls, and tells them they make calls during breaks, and not using work equipment (i.e. go to a pay phone). Employment legislation varies by jurisdiction, but bottom line is that it's usually at the employer's discretion.

The office belongs to the owner of the business, not to the employees or to friends or family of the employees.

Reading these forums, I rarely laugh out loud. That made me laugh out loud. A tip of the topper to you, Craven.

Well, I don't know how one can read about a non-existent law.

For waht it's worth I'd talked to a lawyer about it, trying to stop an idiot who kept calling his girlfriend at our office.

He came close to going to jail.

There's no law that his "urgent" need to talk to his girlfriend every 5 minutes needs to be respected.

SBC couldn't block his calls so we went to the police.