#106 Receiving Calls (Complaining)

This guy just doesn't quit (annoying me). Here's yet another example of what bothers me about vocal-emissions / blah-blah-blah / interjecting-confirmations-guy.

The purpose of having a cell phone at work is so that you can be reached easily and so that people can reach you easily. Taking calls / emails after business hours? Maybe. Sometimes cell phones are company-mandated (they issue one to you and you have to use it), and to what extent you use your phone is up to you and the expectations of your boss. Taking calls during regular business hours? Well, that's to be expected whether you have a cell phone or not.

First, I'd like to state some facts: this guy willingly volunteered his own personal cell phone for company use and didn't request any reimbursement of his bill for at least six months. He wasn't worried about it until he had to call his boss in a foreign country a few times and his wife bitched him out about his phone bill and the excessive charges. I think it was at that point that he started requesting reimbursement, and I'm pretty sure it was only partial reimbursement at that. His phone is not a smartphone, so he's not bogged down by notifications from emails coming in all the time (not that he's good about checking them, anyways), and the only time his phone rings is if (go figure) someone calls him.

I couldn’t tell you exactly how many phone calls he receives or places in any given day. If I had to guess, I'd say he receives maybe about 6-8 calls per day (perhaps one per hour?), which I don't think is excessive since he's working on some pretty in-demand projects which requires collaboration from a lot of different people in several different places.

However, every time he receives a call, he complains. It's always "Aw, come on!" or "Are you serious?!" or "Ugh, geeeeez..." like he is completely shocked that someone is trying to get hold of him. It's as if he just got off of a three-hour conference call and he can't believe he has to take yet another phone call, or it's as if he had just received 17 calls in a row in the past 20 minutes and he can't believe someone else could possibly need something else from him. His cell phone number isn't even listed in the company directory anywhere, so if he didn't want people to have his number, he could have prevented them from getting it by not actually giving it out in the first place. But, he DID volunteer his own personal cell phone for company use, and he DID volunteer giving out his phone number so that anyone could call him whenever they needed him, so I don't feel sorry for him whatsoever. He did this to himself!

If he really didn't want to take any calls, he should just shut his phone off. I'm pretty sure people would get the idea when the call goes straight to voicemail. He has a desk phone to use, and everyone has that number, too. People can just leave a message and he can get back to them. I mean, his ringtone is annoying enough as it is... perhaps he should just put it on vibrate and maybe it won't annoy HIM as much, either!