How to Handle Necessary Personal Calls at Work
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2019 Update: We still stand by this advice on how to handle necessary personal calls at work and images and links have been updated below.
Sometimes you simply have to make personal calls at the office — perhaps to ask your doctor a question, call a plumber about a broken hot water heater, or something else along those lines. While you're at work, how should you deal with personal telephone calls, especially when you're playing phone tag? Reader J wonders…
Five years ago, you answered a question about personal calls in the office for wedding planning and other activities that could optionally be handled outside of regular work hours. What about calls that just can't be handled before or after work or on the weekends?
I find it extremely frustrating and somewhat embarrassing to have to manage calls with my doctor's offices and my bank during business hours, but these are the only times that the businesses in question are open and will take calls. The doctor's office is a particular frustration. When you call in, the receptionist takes a message for the doctor or nurse, who then calls you back when convenient for them. With no scheduled time to expect the call, it inevitably interrupts work or is missed, leading to phone tag. If I can pick the call up, I cannot always get to a private place, making the call highly uncomfortable and sometimes ineffective. I imagine people have that problem with lawyers too. How to cope?
Interesting question, Reader J, and I'm curious if people think this has changed through the years. In 2010, I remember disagreeing with the letter-writer's habit of taking long personal calls at the office with her mother for wedding planning (as well as talking to wedding vendors). In years since, we've talked about “homing from work” as well as how to handle frequent doctors' appointments, so I'm curious what readers will say.
{also related: how to handle your kids' doctor appointments}
If you're not comfortable closing your door, don't have a door to close, or are frequently meeting with other people and can't excuse yourself, what do you do? Doctor calls in particular are problematic because if you just have a little question, they will often call back with a recommendation for an OTC product or advice such as “if X starts happening, bring her in,” or something like that — and particularly if you're dealing with an embarrassing medical question, either for you or your child(ren), it can be difficult to field the question, ask the appropriate questions, and generally speak freely. A few ideas:
- Schedule everything. With lawyers or some wedding vendors this should be par for the course. Get thee to a coffee shop, find a seat at a quiet bench outside — heck, even go to your car if you work somewhere with a car culture. This is your lunch hour for the day!
- Book a conference room. If you don't have a private space and need to work while waiting for various personal call backs, go work in a conference room or other quiet space.
- If you're in meetings all day, tell people you're expecting a call back from the doctor, and scope the meeting place enough to know where to duck for a private call. (If all else fails, the ladies' room — particularly the kind with a lounge area separate from the toilets — is where I'd head.) If you really can't excuse yourself from the meeting, see if your secretary can take a detailed message from the doctor (if you're comfortable doing this, of course).
- If it's someone else's care, such as a child's, sometimes I've found it's helpful to make an appointment, and then send the nanny or other caregiver — the doctor will often get you on the phone for the actual diagnosis. This usually occurs within 10-45 minutes after the scheduled appointment, which at least helps you know to stay close to your phone and avoid meetings during the period.
Readers, what say you? What are your tips for dealing with these kind of personal calls that must take place during working hours?
(Originally pictured (black handset): My new office phone, originally uploaded to Flickr by Sint Smeding.) 2019 image updates (rotary phone) via Stencil.
Life does not stop purely because you are at work. Now that I am no longer in an office I do one of three things: (1) take the call in my cube if I know I won’t need to reveal any personal information and make it snappy; (2) take the call and walk out of my cube to the stairwell or the nearby conference room; or (3) ask the caller to call me back at a specific time or tell them I will call them back at a specific time when I know I can step away/am on lunch.
I work in a fairly casual environment (even though it really shouldn’t be), so people take personal calls in their cubes a lot and it is crazy loud (I sit next to a customer service group). No one bats an eye about this at my office, but YMMV.
I have a hard time sepearating work from personal b/C I am workeing all the time, sometimes @ the office and also @ home. So even tho the manageing partner said NOT to handel personal busness at work, I must and I told him so. He now understnad’s that there is NO WAY I can bill 7500 hours a year unless I mix in a few personal calls (and CORPORETE) while I am workeing — like now. He says that as long as I meet my billeabeles, he will NOT stop me from doing personal stuff. YAY!
I once read good advice here from someone dealing with a chronic health condition that she finally found a doctor that understood that she was at work and therefore would ask her leading questions that she could answer at work – for instance, the doctor would say “Are you having symptom A or Symptom B?” and she could just say “the first one” or “neither, something else” – as opposed to him just saying something open ended like “tell me about your symptoms”.
If you have an ongoing health condition, it’s worth trying to take the time to find a doctor that will work with you on these things. I think it is also perfectly valid to say “hold on one moment while I go to a more private area” if you can rush away from your desk on your cell phone to the ladies room or an empty conference room.
If it’s a one-off, time to time thing and you have a reasonable boss, I’ve had good results saying “I may have to step out for a moment, I’m expecting a call back from my doctor’s office. Not an emergency, but something I need to deal with so it doesn’t become an emergency.”
Also, for medical questions like “do I need to see a doctor for this symptom immediately or only if XYZ is also happening?” your insurance may have a 24 hour nurse line (check the back of the card) to tell you that. I used it a lot when my kids were young “so, I have symptom X, Y and Z with a fever of 100.4 – do I need to take them to a doctor ASAP, or only if they have additional symptoms”. Most of the time they were conservative and told me, yes, make the doctor’s appointment, but occasionally they would say something like “you are fine to just watch and wait, but if the temperature goes over A go to your pediatrician and if over B go to the emergency room”
That was me! I was on steroids for a crohns flare and my doctor wanted to keep having check ups about my bowel movements when I was working without an office. His questions really worked as multiple choice and it was so much easier to respond that way then describing how things had improved or got worse. No one else needed to hear the details I had to share!
I know this is a serious issue (have family members who’ve dealt with it and similar), but your understatement in the last sentence made me LOL
I don’t ever feel bad about taking a personal call at work. I just close my office door (lucky me!) and proceed. If I have a scheduled call, all the better.
I try to schedule medical appointments for before work and run errands over lunch. When I was selling my house and buying my condo (at the same time!), it meant 2 or 3 hour long “lunches” once or twice. But I am on the billable hour so I could make up the time after business hours.
I don’t have formal sick days or vacation so I don’t feel guilty about taking a call in my office instead of taking it at a coffee shop. I would rather bill the time spent walking to the coffee shop, buying an overpriced coffee, and getting back and settled in my office.
When I worked in a glass-sided, shared, open-topped office (thankfully at my new job I have my own office with a door that closes), I would go to a private place–outside, in my car–to make the initial call. If I couldn’t catch the doctor or nurse live, I’d leave a voicemail with all the pertinent information or question, in which I’d mention that I don’t have a private place to talk on the phone, but that I gave them permission to leave a voicemail in return in which they could relay all necessary information. I found it pretty efficient and I think the dr did too. This also works when I’m in meetings all day or otherwise unavailable.
Or just be like my cube neighbor and take these calls without any regard to who’s listening! Seriously, I know way more than I should about her daughter’s reproductive issues.
I feel like I’ve gotten quite good at this, we work in an open bull-pen type environment and I hate it! I don’t have to take personal calls a lot, but when we were buying our house it felt like there were calls I had to make or take every day from the bank, title company, realtor, etc.
I’ve had to take my cell into a meeting and just tell the person running the meeting (before the meeting starts) that I’m expecting a call from my doctor’s office. People are understanding about that kind of thing. I also scope out who is out of their office for the day if I need to make a call or am expecting a call back. If I can duck into their empty office, that is ideal. I’ve also scoped out a few quiet areas (that get good cell phone reception) in the building. If a doctor or someone calls me back and I need to get to one, I just tell them, “You’ll have to excuse me, I work in an open area and need to get to somewhere where I can talk to you.” They have never been anything but understanding.
A doctor called me at a bad time recently (I was not at work, but was in a public restroom). I asked him to call back in 5 min. He said “no problem” and called back 20 minutes later. His timing wasn’t accurate, but I certainly had time to get someplace more acceptable to receive the call. Take your phone and something else to do while you wait, and hang out in a quiet area to wait for the callback. Rebeccas’s strategy is good too.
Because of teachers’ schedules, they might not be able to shuffle you to the bottom of the pile and call back in a few minutes. Just ask. They want to talk to you, or they wouldn’t be calling. APs and nurses probably can call back a little later.
Wedding organizing? Really? I do not see how that constitutes an emergency. Do it on your lunch break!
Kat, if you had someone else to deal with it, why would there even be any question? Your final tip only makes sense for ladies who are working because it’s boring at home, and their husbands say it’s ok. I find it insulting for you to say (to those of us who don’t have the luxury of a backup) “use your backup”.
Why so hostile? I know many female colleagues with in home childcare who are the major bread winner of the family. Some are single moms, some have partners who also work, and all work their butts off while being good moms. Just because they work doesn’t mean they don’t want to participate in the doctors appointment if they can find a way. I find your assumption that women only work because they’re bored or that women with childcare don’t need to work very insulting.
This is simply part of working life if you are a busy person. Especially if parent, even if not, transactions and the millions of details and accounts occur constantly during workdays at least for me. I find the suggestions in the post to be unrealistic. You can rarely pin down when various providers will call you back, secure a conference room at the exact time, etc. I try from private rooms. Then I answer from the open area, then walk away quickly. It’s often awkward, inefficient, and extremely frustrating. It’s working life today. Some days I work from home simply to knock out a bunch of these calls and transactions. I do them in my car. I never take them in my cube, but when I have to for a brief moment, I tell the person: I can not discuss that right now.
I’ve never worked anywhere with a ladies’ room lounge– Macy’s?? ;) I’d think a stairwell is far better than a bathroom. Things I find annoying: going into the private room wasting time while on hold. Of course I bring the phone and do minor things but it’s disjointed time. Not having my computer in front of me in the private room. Yes, I could re-hook up the computer, but then I’d be taking more time away from work, risking losing the room, etc. Worst thing lately: there is no personal cell phone reception in my cube– protective windows per a security building. Have to go outside frequently just to see if any of the people I need to talk with have called. Roof installed last week, didn’t go in half the week, actually told my boss I needed phone reception so couldn’t be there.
I work at a government worksite, and the ladies’ room near the front office (where senior leadership sits) has a lounge with a couch. I find it a bit weird, but whatever.
Agree it’s part of life. Disagree “especially if parent” – my life isn’t less busy or full without a herd or SO.
I work in a space that’s open, but other folks have offices with doors. I’m the newest staff member, so I get the least desirable space. I usually will go to the bathroom for a personal call. Its a large, handicapped accessible size although it doesn’t have a separate lounge space.