my coworkers won’t answer their phones, ever

by Alison Green on March 25, 2025

A reader writes:

I feel bananas asking this, but could you give me a read on how/whether people still use phones in office/remote office work in 2025?

I have a fully remote, customer-focused job for a tiny organization, and no one on my team will use phones. I have the most customer interactions and am willing to answer my phone if one calls, but I wind up getting calls for everyone on my team, because none of my colleagues will pick up their phones or even return voicemails. At most, they will email and agree to schedule a Zoom, but mainly they just ignore calls entirely.

I don’t mind helping out, but I have very different functions and access to systems from my colleagues and often I CAN’T help. I tell customers to contact the relevant person but they say, “Oh they never respond,” which I know to be true so what can I say?

My colleagues have told me phoning people is old-fashioned and anxiety-provoking and they don’t want to deal, so they don’t, but the customers are … how we make money?

I am not a receptionist and don’t have the ability on my phone to forward calls. I find it awkward and somewhat demoralizing to spend my time taking messages and asking colleagues to respond to calls.

I have spoken to my colleagues about the customers having the right to do business how they wish, English language learners having better spoken English than written, and that a quick call can replace 10 emails. I have not found a way to bring up the fact that some of them tend to both lose and misread emails, so calls are better for nipping that sort of thing in the bud.

I have brought this phone-phobia up with friends who work elsewhere, and some have said they just refuse to use their phones too! I don’t love using the phone but I don’t love lots of things about my job — that’s what the money’s for!

Am I way out of step here? Is there a solution I am not thinking of for a fully remote office where only one person uses a phone? I should say, the volume of calls is actually pretty low, but it is still embarrassing when someone calls with a problem for a colleague and I have to tell them that person is just not accessible by phone, not ever.

No, you are not out of step. Your coworkers are being ridiculous — and negligent, it sounds like.

It’s true that lots of people don’t like phone calls! Before email and other text-based methods of communicating, calls were the only real option for quick communication so people used the phone without much thought; there were no alternatives. Now that we do have alternatives, a lot of people have grown much less comfortable with the phone — most likely, simply from using it so much less often. But it’s still a normal and required part of many, many jobs … and that clearly applies to your coworkers’ jobs because customers are calling them.

In theory there are jobs where you could decide you won’t deal with customers by phone, but those are typically jobs where you are the boss or self-employed and have the standing to make that decision and to accept whatever trade-offs come with it, like potentially losing business. That does not appear to be the case for your coworkers.

It sounds like it’s time to talk to your boss, since you’re ending up having to deal with your colleagues’ customers because they won’t. Tell your boss what you said here: you’re getting calls for everyone else on your team because they won’t answer their phones or return voicemails, you’re often unable to help, and when you tell callers to contact the relevant person they tell you they already know that person never responds. Tell your boss it’s interfering with your work and leaving customers unhelped, and ask for her assistance in resolving it.

From there, if it keeps happening, cc your manager on every phone message you take for your coworkers. Having their boss cc’d on “Client X called and said they need to talk to you and you haven’t returned their messages” may get action where trying to appeal to their general sense of responsibility hasn’t.

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{ 377 comments }

{ 377 comments… read them below or add one }

    1. L-squared*

      Well, it sounds like OP may have their own calls they need to take, and its not always obvious who its from. I get work call, and we also have a general line that rings to all of our phones. I have a pretty big territory, and I just can’t know all the area codes that things are coming from.

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    2. Not Tom, Just Petty*

      Honestly, for a week. Do not answer your phone. Check your messages and call back the people who are calling directly for you. It’s not petty. It is the only way to show there is a problem. Like the person who was going into the office once a week found that after a year or so everyone saved all their in the office tasks for her. She had to stop doing anything for anybody (including her boss) for her boss to see that she’d become the de facto office manager, admin assistant. You are at that point. You want to provide good service to you your clients. That’s great. Continue to do so. Those who want the same will get on board.

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      1. Just Here For This*

        I’m dusting off my resume over this dynamic. The WFH people have turned my desk into a catch all. I was essential personnel so I rode the bus to work and came into the office tower through all of it. They are still cherry picking. I honestly think a lot of the push to bring people back into the office is to cure this dynamic. I’m being professionally damaged by this, and losing out on better assignments because I am always here to tidy up the problems. So, about to nope out the door. Disclosure, it is entirely women treating me this way which cheeses me off more.

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        1. Smithy*

          I also have to imagine one part of this connects to a dynamic around folks not wanting to use their personal phones for work, employers not giving work phones, and how that plays out with full-time or mostly full-time remote work.

          Beyond just Zoom/Teams – there are work arounds with getting a Google number or even having voicemail messages forwarded to individual’s email – but I do think that these sorts of dynamics left unchecked have become problematic in terms of how work is balanced across an office. Clearly for those coworkers, they’re not bothered at all by the phone because they don’t do it and don’t see it negatively impacting what they’ve been allowed to define as their priority work. But then it’s negatively impacting one person (or team) significantly.

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          1. commensally*

            Oh, you know what? I was 100% on LW’s side until you mentioned this. LW, on the off chance your work is expecting you to use a personal cell phone for work calls, I’m on your coworkers’ side and you should join them in their boycott. WFH or not, your personal phone line is not your employer’s property, and sometimes refusing to take work calls on it is the only way to hold that line.

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            1. I should really pick a name*

              If you don’t want to use your personal phone you say so and have a discussion about alternatives.

              Just not taking calls sounds like a terrible approach.

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              1. commensally*

                In my experience, when you have this discussion management will tell you there is no obligation to use your personal phone, email is always an option, and you should never feel than you need to. Then they will slowly creep in more and more reasons why it is “convenient” or “temporary” but “voluntary” to share and use your personal number until you either set a flat boundary or end up in LW’s situation.

                If answering the phone is a requirement of the business, they should be paying for a business phone line for employees. If using your personal phone line is “voluntary”, then you shouldn’t do it. If not doing it “voluntarily” means the one coworker who does is taking all the calls… they should be paying for a business phone line for all employees.

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            2. Smithy*

              Not wanting to use your personal phone isn’t the straight line to just not engaging.

              Where I work, I do get work calls on my personal phone because it’s the phone number I’ve given out on my email signature. If you don’t want to do that (and work isn’t paying for a phone) – there are very inexpensive options such as getting a Google number. But to have your personal phone number shared and then just not engage with it or answer it isn’t the response either.

              Way back when before everyone was just issued a laptop, when all you got was a desktop – for lots of folks the only work from home option was via personal computer. Ideally, work would pay for all equipment needed to do the job, but it’s just not a hard and fast rule which means that boycotting tasks is the next move.

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              1. commensally*

                If your employer wants you to use a Google phone number for business, they should assign you one. There’s a ton of good business reasons not to use a personal one beyond just work/life balance and privacy, and many of them also apply to a Google number that the employee signed themself up for.

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          2. CeeDoo*

            Because the letter writer mentions “receptionist” and not being able to forward calls from their phone, it seems like it’s not a personal phone issue. But the resistance to answering unknown cell phone calls is probably a factor.

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          3. Inkognyto*

            OP asked if 2025 people use the phone for work when remote.

            Yes. 90% of an IT Workforce is remote supporting 8 hospitals.

            However I pushed back myself on giving my personal phone for everything, and so did a lot of others.

            for a ‘Softphone’, we got Zoom phone numbers.

            Which is great as it also has voicemail. 95% of the time it’s used by external contacts and vendors, but that is fine.

            We’ll be switching to teams soon and using the same thing.

            No one I talk to even knows I’m not in the office.

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          4. Eukomos*

            My office set up our Teams accounts with real phone numbers, people can call us just like with a normal phone. It’s a big company so maybe this would be hard for a small one to do, but it seems important and like something a person could successfully insist on unless it’s a truly tiny startup breaking a lot of other rules.

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        2. Optimus*

          People working on site can also dodge communications and have terrible work ethic. Whether someone sits at home or on site has nothing to do with how they behave.

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            1. Elizabeth West*

              Nope, that would be true. I worked with people who would sit there and flat out ignore their ringing phone, or get up and walk away from it. I got very tired of dealing with their frustrated customers.

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            2. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

              How do you figure that people cannot dodge communications, have terrible work ethics, and otherwise be as unproductive onsite as remotely?

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              1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

                Agreed. If this weren’t true, Alison would not have half the traffic she did in the 11 years BEFORE Covid.

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            3. Optimus*

              I worked with one of these on site for 10 years. He made up his own work hours. Lied about his whereabouts. Lied about assignment status. Was caught plagiarizing. He wasn’t as slick as he thought – he left evidence all over the place. But several managers didn’t want to mess with the level of effort needed to show a union employee the door. Finally one manager was appropriately ticked off enough that she DID spend months crossing all the T’s and dotting all the I’s so he could finally be terminated. If someone doesn’t want to work, they will worm their way out of it wherever they sit. I’ve worked from home for 5 years and I rarely get up from my desk, to the point that my doctor told me in December that I have GOT to step outside the house for a few minutes a day.

              If someone is a bad worker, the bad work is the problem. If they are unresponsive , unreachable, work isn’t on time, work is bad quality, that’s all actionable and it’s because they suck. Not because of where their butt sits.

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            4. StressedButOkay*

              It’s absolutely true. People who are terrible employees will find ways to be terrible in or out of the office. They get away with it in the office because of terrible managers, or off-site managers, or hiding it. The number of times at one job where someone had been stashing physical checks instead of cashing them for the organization is kind of astonishing.

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            5. Daria grace*

              Not at all untrue. I’ve absolutely worked with people who avoided picking up calls they should have while working 100% in office

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          2. I Have RBF*

            This.

            I’ve known people in-office who not only don’t do their own work, but they spend time yakking at other keeping them from working too. They’re never at their desk, don’t answer phone or email, but are “seen” walking all over with a folder in their hand “busy” but actually doing nothing.

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        3. bleh*

          Ugh, sorry you are dealing with their literal garbage. Some people use remote work to cherry pick alright. It’s the worst.

          Also, good luck with your job search.

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      2. Saturday*

        I think it’s way too early to say not answering is the only way to show there’s a problem when it doesn’t sound like OP has taken it to the boss yet. That’s the next step.

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        1. duinath*

          Take it to the boss, cc the boss in email just like the advice said, but as for the call itself, very cheerful in tone and very …unstoppable tell them something like “I’m sorry, I can’t help you, you’ll have to contact (x) directly, have a nice day!” and hang up.

          …Mostly saying this because dealing with this would drive me up the wall, and getting roped into staying on the phone talking to someone my coworker is supposed to be helping (and I can’t actually help) would make me ragequit. Get off the phone.

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    3. kicking-k*

      I was so tempted to suggest that too. I am the colleague who hates using the phone. I have auditory processing disorder and it’s exponentially more difficult for me to make sense of what you are saying if I can’t even see you. Even video calls are easier, though I can see that’s harder to arrange with external stakeholders.

      I would agree that the colleagues here are taking it too far by not being reachable at all. If I must, I will call people – if it’s a requirement of the job – but if I can possibly email them I will.

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      1. Ace in the Hole*

        I think this would be a completely different conversation if the colleagues had requested alternative communication methods as an accommodation… or even just given an explanation to OP that shows an understanding that avoiding phones is genuinely inconvenient for others.

        There’s a big difference between saying “phone calls are old-fashioned and stressful, just tell them to email me” vs “I have a very hard time understanding people over the phone, so I need communication to be text, video, or face-to-face.”

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    4. Beth*

      This! There clearly won’t be any consequences if you stop answering – your coworkers already proved that. Anyone who needs you specifically will probably either leave a voicemail or reach out another way.

      I do wonder if there’s more to your coworkers’ phone avoidance than just not liking phones. Do you have actual physical company phones, or are you stuck with annoying workarounds like using your personal line or a zoom number? How easy is it to check voicemail? How’s your team’s bandwith as a whole – are you scrambling and needing to rely on quick communication strategies like templated emails, or do you have time to spend 15 mins talking to each client who reaches out? Are your teammates saying they’re accessible by phone and then not answering, or are they only offering email/zoom and then people are looking up a number somewhere and calling anyways?

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      1. Bike Walk Bake Books*

        Interesting point here. If the team members have been explicit about how they want to be contacted and people are ignoring that, the answer is “you need to use the methods they’ve provided; I can’t take messages for them”. That’s a different issue than if they have phones publicized as a way to reach them and are blowing off that element of professional norms.

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        1. Luna*

          If I call a business as a customer and can’t reach the person I need AND the person I have on the phone tells me they “can’t” take a message, especially knowing the person I need is difficult to reach? I will not be a customer for much longer. That’s nuts. It may solve the problem for the LW in the moment, but it’s very shortsighted for the business.

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    5. Purple Jello*

      Okay, so then you have voicemail messages that you need to listen to and do something with. It might solve your problem of talking to these customers, but not the customer’s problems.

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  2. L-squared*

    I find the “OMG phones cause anxiety” thing so ridiculous, that this letter just hit a nerve.

    You don’t want to talk on the phone in your personal life? Fine. But at work? Yeah, sometimes you need to do it.

    I think half these people would change their tune if on the other end. I once had a situation where I NEEDED to talk to someone at Uber. There is literally no way to call someone at that company, and it was the most frustrating thing ever. Because the support on their app is limited to certain problems (or at least was at the time), and I didn’t want to wait for the generic “support” email to get back to me.

    But yes, CC your boss every time, and make it their problem. And if your coworkers are too “anxious” to be on the phone, well maybe they are in the wrong role and need some help out the door.

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    1. Frosty*

      I can empathize with people not wanting to make phone calls, but this fear mostly disappears for like 99% of people with exposure!

      I used to work at a call centre and occasionally I’d take calls from teenagers that were being taught by their parents how to make calls. After the interaction, the parent and teenager would ask if there was anything they could have done differently or how did I feel the interaction went.

      Honestly – it’s such a great thing to do! If you are a parent, help your kid by getting them to call phone numbers like 311 and practice asking questions or getting information. Its important for them to learn!

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      1. CityMouse*

        I went through a trial by fire, my first post college job was at a courthouse. I’ve been on the receiving end of all sorts of nonsense. But I guess I’m glad because it makes everything I deal with now seem minimal.

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        1. JHunz*

          Same! My first job out of college was a phone-based tech support job. I got over the phone anxiety very quickly once I was out of training.

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      2. commensally*

        I’ve also found that work calls are way less anxiety than personal calls. For work calls I’m not me, I’m Employee, and I have specific things I need to say, and if I’m wasting someone’s time by calling that’s work’s fault, not mine, and they’re not wasting my time by calling because I get paid either way.

        Also the more I take phone calls for work the more I realize a lot of the anxiety is that I often have serious difficulty understanding what people are saying on the phone, but if it’s the work phone I can blame it on our crappy VOIP connection rather than being anxious about it.

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        1. kicking-k*

          I was coming to say that anxiety isn’t the only reason to dislike phone calls: certain conditions such as auditory processing disorder (which I have) may make phone calls frustrating and inefficient. Coupled with bad VOIP it’s a recipe for disaster.

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          1. seanchaigirl*

            I absolutely hate unscheduled phone calls not because I have phone anxiety but because if I’m at my desk I have other tasks I’m working on. I have deadlines to meet, a growing to-do list, and other client needs I’m trying to triage and solve. If you send me an email with a sentence about the problem or request, I can tell how urgent it is and where it needs to fall on my to-do list. At that point, I can respond and tell you when to expect a solution. I feel like people who insist on calling are trying to barge to the front of the line. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard, “oh, it’ll only take you two minutes. . .” I’d never have to work again.

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            1. Landry*

              THIS! My colleagues have gotten way better at sending a quick text or Teams message asking if I have a few minutes to chat. Sometimes I do, often I don’t but tell them when I will. I’m always working on multiple projects and tasks, so there’s no way I can drop everything and handle someone’s issue with a sudden phone call I’m not prepared for.

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            2. Iranian yogurt*

              100% this. Obviously it’s something that people learn how to manage, but for the life of me I just can’t figure it out. I also have ADHD, which makes it really, really hard to work through my to-do list when I can be interrupted at any moment by something that can either take 5 seconds or an hour. I’m trying to leave this job since I’m clearly just not a good fit for it, but I also just really want to understand how people handle this part of phone-heavy jobs!

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              1. seanchaigirl*

                Personally, I include in my voice mail message that I am often away from my desk and unable to take calls; for a quicker response please email me at. . .

                That works for some people, but others just hang up and call back incessantly. When that happens, I start declining the calls on the first or second ring.

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                1. AnonInCanada*

                  That’s my biggest pet peeve with customers calling us at work. The ones who think they are so important that everyone must stop what they’re doing to be thankful they’re gracing you with their phone presence. They will hang up and call back, several times in a row, never leave a voicemail, and then when you finally have a chance to return their call, they get incessed that you had the audacity to not jump to their beck and call the first time. Sorrrrrrry, King/Queen of Entitlement, for the world not revolving around you.

              2. Bike Walk Bake Books*

                If it’s a job expectation that you take calls, you can at least listen to your voicemails and follow up at a time that works for you. I don’t have a phone-heavy job so I let most calls go to VM and listen when I have a time block for response so I don’t interrupt my work for something that may not be as high a priority (to me; clearly it is to the caller). Sounds as if in this case the people aren’t even listening to the messages, which is sheer negligence.

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                1. Iranian yogurt*

                  Yeah, LW’s coworkers are clearly in the wrong. I’ve also found voicemail helpful, but sometimes their message starts and ends at “call me back” (despite my request for more info in my greeting), so I still have no idea how long that callback will take!

                  Still better than having the same problem with incoming calls, because at least I can choose *when* to call back. But it’s still irritating when people just refuse to tell me what they want in their message. They usually end up further down on my triage list, simply because the other callers gave me enough info to determine their level of urgency.

            3. Stipes*

              The problem with email is that a back-and-forth exchange ends up going to the “back of the line” after every reply. That’s fine for a lot of things, but phone calls are good for when there’s a vastly branching tree of if-this-then-that to hash out. (And then you want a followup email for paper trail.)

              I agree that people should email or text “when’s a good time for a call”, so they aren’t demanding your attention at the drop of a hat. But phone calls are the best way to do some things, dangit!

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              1. Stipes*

                For instance, when I’m trying to help someone with an IT issue. Based on the initial description, I might have several theories about the cause. I’ll try to pare it down with a question or two, then start giving instructions for a hopeful fix. I’ll have to adjust those instructions on the fly depending on the user’s response — some people need and want different details than others, and I’m proud of my skill at avoiding the Scylla and Charybdis of “sounding condescending” and “sounding incomprehensible”. I’ll also handle any unexpected complications, of course. And people don’t always know how to describe what they’re seeing, so I’ll ask followup questions, again adjusting the phrasing of question based on what I’m hearing from the other person. This is all vastly helped by screen sharing, of course — but remotely using someone’s screen without also being in a voice call is a problem itself.

                Doing all that via email is possible, but will easily eat up ten times as much of my time AND theirs. This isn’t the only thing I do for my job, but when I do it, I’m gonna ask when someone’s free for a call.

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              2. Eukomos*

                Agreed! We’ve gone through the looking glass on meetings that should have been an email and are now plagued with interminable email threads that should have been a meeting.

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            4. Lenora Rose*

              Honestly, though, sometimes that’s not their thinking at all. Sometimes, people are just more used to phoning.

              I’ll prefer email any day of the week, but I am not the only person out there.

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        2. PegS*

          That’s me too. I’m better at personal phone calls than I used to be, but I still hate making personal calls including to UPS any company I need to reach to take care of personal stuff.

          But at work? Sometimes you NEED to talk to someone on the phone and I don’t have a problem with it.

          It’s hard for me to believe the manager is okay with employees shirking an essential part of their job — talking to customers.

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        3. Annie*

          Right. I think there’s a big difference between being the customer and having to call someone and the anxiety in that, rather than being the employee and you having control and knowing your business already. Since as the Employee you know what the answer is, so there’s no struggle with trying to figure out the right thing to say.

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          1. commensally*

            Yeah, and there’s definitely also a difference between employee-to-employee calls, customer service or vendor calls, and calls with high-stakes clients or contracts – the customer service/vendor ones are definitely the easiest, even if they cuss or start breathing heavy it just washes over me whereas a call with a person I actually know, or where I’m the customer who needs help, I get anxious if I can’t read the tone exactly right.

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      3. Charlie*

        Making calls is definitely something that gets easier with exposure, but answering them isn’t necessarily the same.

        I have 0 problem making phone calls! I am the one calling, I have the agenda/question, I know my own needs.

        I still hate answering phone calls at work, because I do not know what they are going to want and whether I am going to be able to help them with it. In a previous job I would have to cover the main phone line while the receptionist was on lunch break, and I never got used to it because every time I answered it might be a new question that I would have to put the person on hold and then wander around the building asking until I found someone who knew the answer. I would forward calls to the appropriate extension and then get a call 2 minutes later from the same person telling me no one had picked up that extension and couldn’t I help them after all? I took a call at work once that was my coworker’s family informing me he had died. I still remember having to take that call, having to figure out what to do, having to notify everyone.

        I mean, I still return voicemails, and OP’s coworkers are being ridiculous, but answering the phone is a whole different kettle of fish from making calls.

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        1. Iranian yogurt*

          Exactly. The coworkers are still in the wrong, but a lot of commenters are glossing over the very big difference between making and receiving calls. In certain jobs (like mine), picking up the phone (vs taking a message and calling back) could throw off your schedule for the rest of the day.

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        2. Lenora Rose*

          Weirdly, I’d rather take calls, even the unpredictable ones, than make them most of the time. When I’m phoning, I’m convinced I’m being the nuisance ruining their day, and the people here who are saying callers are interrupting their work, and must be entitled queue-jumpers, aren’t exactly disabusing me of this notion.

          The number of people I know who say they hate doing outbound calls but can handle being in an inbound support call centre are… well, almost everyone I know who has worked in call centres of either kind. (I never did, because yikes.)

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      4. Teapot Connoisseuse*

        I worked at a call centre and it wouldn’t have been my first choice, bc I was never keen on making/taking phonecalls, but I needed the job, so I sucked it up. It was absolutely the best thing I could have done, bc exposure did take a lot of that reluctance away.

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    2. Bast*

      What does or does not cause anxiety for some people is not “ridiculous.” It is a very real thing for some people. That being said, it sounds like some of these folks may be in the wrong job. If speaking with others on the phone is that anxiety inducing, and you have a job that requires constant phone calls, you may want to think about looking for something else, or else, find a way to manage. I am someone who, particularly on a bad day, has to work myself up to making a phone call, particularly with some clients I knew were unpleasant. When I worked in a field that was heavily into phone calls, I’d often plan ahead how many calls I was making, the purpose, and barrel through them first thing in the morning when I still had the mental energy for it to get them out of the way. The constant interaction drained me. Since moving to another branch of the same industry where email is more frequently used, I found that my anxiety level has decreased, and I am far less drained at the end of the day. All that to say, while something certainly needs to change and the coworkers cannot keep ignoring phone calls, there’s no need to insult those that may actually suffer from anxiety and be struggling.

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      1. The Petson from the Resume*

        It’s not constant phone calls, but it’s enough that it’s a problem.

        They could at least listen to VM and respond by email or phone call (which they could write out a script for). The fact that they don’t even do this makes it seem more like a lazy thing.

        I do get phone anxiety. I hate it when my phone or teams ring with no pre-warning. But I answer or at least check voice mail later because it’s part of my job which I am paid for.

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      2. Putting the Dys in Dysfunction*

        With you on not phone-shaming people who have difficulty in that area.

        But I do wonder, in this case, how much of it is individual difficulties and how much of it is an office culture that’s consigned telephones to the dust heap of history and to hell with anyone who’s inconvenienced by that.

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    3. umami*

      I was just there with calling the DMV! I had to go through their stupid phone tree multiple times to figure out how to get to a person, because NONE of their options addressed my specific question (nor did their website, which it also kept directing me to). I ended up holding for 35 minutes before someone came on the line, but there literally was no other way to get the information I needed.

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      1. Not your typical admin*

        The DMV is horrible. I was in one last month and no one would answer the rink gong phones. One employee finally unplugged everyone’s phones because she was tired of hearing them ring. This explained so much about why I had trouble getting through.

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        1. umami*

          Right?! I mean, I get it, I’m sure t hey are busy with people who are there in person. But, I literally just needed to know what to do/take to transfer my military plates to another car because it’s a 40-minute drive and I didn’t want to go and not have everything they needed. Once someone picked up, they were very helpful and gave me all the info I needed, but I was about to hang up when they finally answered! I even had enough time to stand in line at the post office while being on hold lol

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    4. Dust Bunny*

      Yeah, I hate talking on the phone but I always pick up at work unless I know it’s spam (there are a few predictable dud numbers–IT is working on helping us block them). I used to be almost paralyzed with anxiety about phone calls but after 20 years here I just don’t care any more–even if I’m actively thinking “ugh, phone call”, I just do it because, honestly, answering it now is less work than futzing with voicemail and having to call back later.

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    5. JB (not in Houston)*

      It is a real thing. Before cell phones and email, I more than once let a small issue become a much bigger problem because I was too anxious to call someone to talk about the small issue. For most people, what fixes it is repeated exposure, and texting and email have made it so that a lot of younger people never got that exposure, and people who did are out of practice. So yes, it’s a real thing and not ridiculous.

      But it’s an anxiety you gotta get past if your job requires it. Whether that requires just sucking it up and doing it until you feel comforable or therapy, like you said, if your job requires it, you just need to do it. And if you absolutely cannot, then you need a new job.

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      1. MigraineMonth*

        Yeah, it’s tricky because the anxiety is definitely real, but for many (not all!) the best way to decrease that anxiety is repeated exposure. Before texting, most people used the phone (because they had to) and so even those of us with anxiety were used to it enough that they could do so when they needed to.

        Texting/online ordering/etc are awesome and great accommodations for those who can’t get used to making phone calls (auditory processing issues, hard of hearing, anxiety that doesn’t decrease with exposure, etc). On the other hand, it makes it really easy to avoid something those of us with anxiety should probably be practicing.

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        1. Daisy-dog*

          Exactly! Avoidance of something can increase the anxiety. But just dealing with it can mean making it easier to do time and time again.

          Case in point: I used to get major anxiety around phone calls. I ended up being a call center rep for almost 2 years. Basically zero anxiety around phone calls now (and it’s been 10 years since I held that role). And really, any anxiety usually is because of the circumstances of the call, not talking at all.

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      2. Saturday*

        I assumed the person above meant that just not doing the thing that makes you anxious is the ridiculous part. Regardless, I agree with you. I experience a lot of anxiety at work, but I’ve been able to push through it. There would be some job demands that I wouldn’t be able to do because of anxiety, but then that would mean I’d need to move into a different role.

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    6. Elbe*

      It is shocking how much anxiety a simple phone call gives grown adults.

      It reminds me of how nervous and shy I was as a child when my parents first started encouraging me to interact with service people – paying the check, ordering a pizza, etc. But I was 7. I can’t imagine how limiting it would be to have those feelings as an adult.

      Avoidance seems to be the underlying problem here. When they have these feelings, their first response is “I just won’t do this” instead of “I need to get more comfortable doing this.”

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      1. Kella*

        *Or* their response needs to be “I need to find a viable alternative.” Some people will never be comfortable or able at all to use phone calls and yes, certain types of communication are more efficient over the phone but that’s only if both parties are able to conduct the phone call in a timely manner. But a huge part of the problem here is that OP’s coworkers are not responding to their voice messages either, which would be just as much of a problem if all communication was done by email.

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        1. Elbe*

          Having the type of crippling anxiety that would make a grown adult unable to answer a phone is very rare. It strains credibility to think that all of the LW’s coworkers are afflicted by that.

          This is a “I need to just get used to doing this” situation. They’re at work and they don’t get to dictate how customers reach out to them, and there’s no expectation that a person is always going to be 100% comfortable at their jobs. They can do something else in their private life.

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          1. Snoozing not schmoozing*

            THIS! I’d never heard of phone anxiety when I was working. It seems as though “I don’t like” has morphed into “I have X anxiety” in many instances.

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            1. L-squared*

              Ding Ding Ding.

              This is exactly it. I don’t doubt that there is a non zero number of people who get anxiety from the phone, just like old Maury episodes showed that there were a non zero amount of people with a severe phobia of olives (look it up online, its kind of hilarious and horribly mean at the same time). However, in most cases it’s more that “I’m slightly uncomfortable and don’t want to do this” more than its actual anxiety. If your anxiety about it is that bad, you should probably see a therapist about it, which I’m guessing they aren’t, because that therapist would probably say “don’t get a job where you need to talk on the phone”

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          2. Kella*

            You are probably correct that they aren’t all unable to use the phone, but there are plenty of people who are technically able but find it resource-intensive to answer phone calls and therefore benefit from reducing the necessity for them. Just as I support employers trusting adults to manage their own schedule to get their work done, I’d also want to support employers trusting adults to assess what communication they do or don’t have the bandwidth for (given this is not a reception job and sounds like a lot of communication is asynchronous anyways) and if they have reasons for using digital over phone calls, that they are capable of finding ways to compensate for the potential problems that come up.

            But these coworkers aren’t doing that. The problem is not that they are doing their job but doing it inefficiently and OP is picking up the slack. The problem is that the coworkers a. aren’t answering phone calls AND b. aren’t following up on voice mails either by phone or by email AND c. aren’t reliable about email correspondence (as OP says they tend to misread or lose emails). I would bet that at least some of the phone calls OP is fielding are not the kind of conversation that need to be by phone, but that the lack of responsiveness to email is causing customers to escalate to more direct contact by phone. The coworkers aren’t reliably doing their job in communicating with customers, period. If the problem is unreliability, comfort with the phone won’t actually fix the problem.

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    7. Kella*

      The problem with the Uber situation is not just that there was no phone contact available, but that their email support system is unreliable. I have significant phone anxiety (made worse by the trouble I have processing auditory information) despite having worked as a receptionist in the past. When I encounter a company that offers no phone number and I’m struggling to contact them through provided methods, I don’t start wishing for a phone number. Because there are plenty of people who *can’t* use the phone due to various disabilities, and those people also need a reliable way to get support from these companies.

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    8. Lauren*

      I would actually take it one step further- after you talk to your boss about it and it keeps happening (because of course it will) don’t email the coworker who can’t be reached and cc the boss- just email your boss. Then it’ll be on them to reach out to that employee every time and I be that will either reprioritize things for the other employees and/or you r boss that this is a problem that needs to be solved.

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    9. Hannah Lee*

      One of my early jobs was telemarketing (for an interior landscaping company)
      At the time I was also very shy and self-conscious around strangers and really really hated using the phone, including in my personal life. But you know what? I forced myself to make the phone calls I needed to make in order to do my job.

      Granted, it would take a lot of time and preparation before each call: researching the person I was calling, what their role, company was involved in, writing down a literal script for what I was going to say, and my key talking points and goals for the conversation (info gathering or making a connection for future contact, or scheduling a follow up by a sales person, etc etc) And I tried to only make calls when the sales reps weren’t around, because they were all Capital E Extroverts who would mock me for being so nervous about making phone calls – and also piss me off by blowing off sales appointments I’d set up for them, after I’d worked a contact from “cold call” to “yeah, sure, have someone come out and talk to me about the atrium in my new office building” over a few months.

      I didn’t stay in that job long, had to quit for life reasons … but while I had it, I did my best to do it. That’s what grown ups do. If someone’s anxiety is so bad that’s not possible then a) ask for a medical accommodation or otherwise work things out with their boss or b) get professional help or c) job search until they find a job that’s a better fit.
      Don’t randomly dump your job on your co-workers.

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    10. Kit*

      I mean, I have phone anxiety now and did not as a young adult, because in the interim, I worked for almost a decade in a customer service role where answering phones was a key job element, and that workplace was so poorly managed it literally drove me into a nervous breakdown. I have progressed somewhat from the point where the sound of a ringing phone sent me into a panic attack, thanks to years of therapy and medication, but having to call a business or stranger is still an uphill battle.

      I would never take another job where answering phones is a core duty, and I agree that LW’s coworkers need to have their behavior reported up the chain consistently so their management can (hopefully) rein this nonsense in… but some of us really do have clinically-diagnosable issues, not just “anxiety,” and your scorn has hit a nerve of its own.

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      1. Some Words*

        Some people may suspect that “makes me a little nervous” or “don’t wanna, not gonna” is being communicated as “I have crippling anxiety about this job function so my co-workers should shoulder this burden for me” by many many people.

        Phones have been an intrinsic part of our world for many decades now. It’s a bit suspicious that suddenly so many people have a pathological response to this everyday device.

        I don’t believe people are unsympathetic to those with a legitimate issue.

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        1. Iranian yogurt*

          Yup. There definitely are a lot of people who use clinical terms as a form of hyperbole when they know they’re not clinically diagnosable, and others who intentionally misrepresent “makes me a little nervous” as “literally can’t” so they don’t have to do unpleasant things.

          It’s really really annoying for those of us who actually have that level of anxiety. It’s like having celiac or food allergies and going to restaurants – enough people have claimed to have serious allergies to things they just don’t want to eat, that others now assume they’re exaggerating for convenience.

          I’m in a similar boat to Kit – I never *loved* the phone, but I put my big girl pants on and answered when it was part of my job. Then I took a job where the nature of the calls was much more anxiety-inducing, and now I go into fight or flight when I hear my desk phone’s ringtone, including at other businesses that happen to use the same model. It’s not general “phone anxiety,” since I can still pick up personal calls without issue, but a super intense response to that one stimulus.

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        2. I Have RBF*

          I used to love the phone. My now wife and I would talk for hours. Then I had jobs where I was doing phones, including some bad ones. Now I hate the thing, especially making outbound calls.

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      2. I Have RBF*

        After one job where I often got out of hours emergency calls and I was burned out, I had to retire a ringtone because it set off… feelings. Another one where my alarm ringtone got to the point that it made me want to smash my phone, I changed that too. The nice thing about smart phones is that you can assign different ring tones to known numbers.

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    11. Bitte Meddler*

      Exactly. I hate talking to angry strangers but that one time I took a job at the customer service desk of a big-box home improvement store, my day was filled with angry strangers standing a foot-ish away from my face and treating me like I was the source of their grief.

      I talked to angry strangers for two full years, because job.

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    12. NotAnotherManager!*

      Yeah, I have always hated talking on the phone, but I truly do not think that half the world has a legit clinical anxiety related to phone calls. I think they have less exposure to phone calls and are not as confident about it as we old people who grew up without text-based, asynchronous options, but, when it starts impacting work and piling more onto coworkers, folks either need to practice and get comfortable or find a job that doesn’t require phone use. (My parents put 10-year-old, hates-the-phone, entirely introverted me on phone answering duty at the family business, and I learned very quickly. I’m sure grownups can figure it out.)

      We flat out tell people during interviews and orientation that they must answer their phone and check their voicemail so there is no question about it. The senior partner (or the customer) does not care if you like talking on the phone or not – if they need to talk to you, they call and you answer.

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  3. Not Tom, Just Petty*

    100% on bring the boss into this. I’m just curious how clients found you. Are people using your name in their voicemails or are you historically the person they know will answer the damn phone?
    Just curious how you won the prize.

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    1. doreen*

      It’s just a guess- but my guess is either that an unanswered phone rolls over to the LW’s number at some point (I’ve had jobs where if I didn’t answer, the phone rang at the desk next to mine and others) where it went to a receptionist or people just all the next number when the phone isn’t answered. When 867-5309 isn’t answered they call 867-5310 and so on.

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      2. Resident Catholicville, U.S.A.*

        Or, they can be like me and do 867-5309 x1. When that doesn’t work, call back and go x2 and so on. Does that mean that I sometimes call Logistics when I want Accounts Payable? Yes. Does that mean both of us get annoyed? Yes. But you would be surprised how often it works out that the person you’ve annoyed is willing to at least figure out the correct person you need to talk to and is willing to make sure you get there that it’s worth it.

        I hate phones, btw. If I’m calling you, boy howdy, it’s important and I will KEEP calling until I get an answer. If I plucked up the nerve to call you, you can talk to me RIGHT then.

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        1. AnonInCanada*

          I hate phones, btw. If I’m calling you, boy howdy, it’s important and I will KEEP calling until I get an answer. If I plucked up the nerve to call you, you can talk to me RIGHT then.

          I hope you’re the type who, if I were on the other end and didn’t answer and let it go to voicemail, you will leave one, stating briefly what you want, a phone number to call you back on. Don’t assume I have caller-ID; some people don’t, and some others have a hard time with their phone service call log handling (Looking at you, RingCentral!)

          Don’t hang up and call back 15 times in a row, expecting me to drop what I’m doing to answer your beck and call. You may think you’re important, but not everyone else sees it that way.

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        2. Iranian yogurt*

          Genuine question: If I’m on the other end of your call and I do pick up, what would you prefer I do if/when I get another call coming in? That person may also have just plucked up the nerve to call me, but so did you. To me, that means the respectful response is to devote my full attention to your important issue while I’m on the phone with you and follow up with theirs after they leave me a voicemail. But sometimes, I get clients who do what you do, and keep calling when I’m already attending to someone else’s very urgent need (I’m a social worker).

          I have experimented with briefly putting the first client on hold to set up another time to call the second, but as both of us have acknowledged, they would not be calling me if their issue were not urgent. Before I could schedule them, they’d want to explain to me, in detail, exactly why their call was extremely important. Meanwhile, the first caller, who was also calling about something extremely important, is still on hold. It’s not unheard of for this to happen multiple times during the same original call, with different clients.

          I would also never tell a client this, but sometimes their need is actually not as urgent as another client’s, even though they are both objectively very important. What would be your preferred response in situations like this?

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    2. Rogue Slime Mold*

      I could see some sort of “Life hack: Call OP, who will answer the phone, and she can get a message to the person you are trying to call” circulating amongst the customers.

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    3. Strive to Excel*

      I would guess that it’s something like “We call OP for our llama grooming appointments and OP’s colleague for our llama farrier appointments – but it’s a lot easer to just call OP for all the appointments because they pick up”.

      Reply ↓
      1. JB (not in Houston)*

        Yes, my sister deals with this at her job. She actually gets back to customers, whereas people in a related department do not, so people who have dealt with both departments have learned to call her. Another case of getting extra work by being the diligent employee.

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    4. RedinSC*

      Bring the boss in, but also, when LW tells them who they should call and get the response “Oh, they never reply” then the next bit is, here is their supervisor’s name and number. They should be able to help you, I don’t have access to the information you need”

      Reply ↓
      1. Annie*

        ooh, I like that. Throw it directly to the supervisor and that’ll get things fixed quickly when it’s their problem.

        Reply ↓
      2. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

        Bah, missed this before I made a similar suggestion below. At least after the LW has had a very clear conversation with their boss about what’s going on. The letter doesn’t make it clear how aware the boss is of the issues.

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    5. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

      Definitely. This doesn’t sound like the LW’s problem to solve. It’s the boss’ problem. Or at least it should be. The LW has no authority over any of these people. As a result, there isn’t much they can do beyond telling the colleagues what effect their choices are having. Since that hasn’t helped, it’s time to pass off responsibility for solving the problem to someone with actual authority. This could be another case of how we shouldn’t be more invested in solving a problem than management is. The exception here is that it’s causing the LW problems. Perhaps start giving out the boss’ phone number so they can see the volume of calls and how often clients are trying to do workarounds because they can’t get a hold of the person who’s supposed to be helping them.

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  4. CityMouse*

    It’s straight up articulated in my handbook that I need to return both calls and emails within 24 hours. Even if just a “I need some time to research this”.

    This is ultimately a training and supervision problem. Your boss has to be the one setting the expectations, it can’t be a coworker telling people to answer their phones and it also can’t be on you to do their work. You need to talk to your boss.

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    1. Antilles*

      I’ve never worked at a company that had a clear rule like that, but even so, I have never worked at a place that would be okay with this:
      I tell customers to contact the relevant person but they say, “Oh they never respond,”
      OP needs to loop in the boss, because this sort of non-responsiveness is how your customers stop calling you period and instead go to the competition.

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      1. umami*

        This was my first thought as well. ‘Not answering’ isn’t going to work for OP, because if ‘no one’ answers, then clients will be lost, and it becomes a shared problem. OP needs to loop boss in so they know this is a common occurrence, and it needs to be addressed immediately.

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      2. Coffee Slayer*

        I’ve worked at multiple jobs that had a set time to return calls.

        One place it was by the end of the next business day. We had someone who wouldn’t return calls at all. Her internal and external customer service skills were abominable. She finally left a year after the new manager kept giving her progressive warnings.

        It’s in my annual evaluation at my current job. I’m expected to return all calls within three business days 95% of the time. If there is a complaint made it would not be good.

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    2. City Planner*

      Agreed – our department has a very similar policy. While most of our work happens via email, people do still call and they need a response. If there are staff members who are not returning calls, we address that in the same way that we’d address any other performance issue. I think the key is to understand it as a performance issue and if you’re not the one who addresses performance issues on your team, then you need to escalate to your boss so that they understand it as a performance issue.

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      1. Bird names*

        This, yeah. They can have whatever preference they want privately. However at work they are straight-up refusing to do part of their job.

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    3. Dust Bunny*

      I don’t know if it’s literally in our handbook but it’s definitely an expectation of my job and my supervisor would have something to say about it if I didn’t do it.

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  5. mango chiffon*

    I too prefer text based communication over phone because I often have trouble deciphering spoken language over the phone, but I still make phone calls that are necessary and part of my job. If these people are fundamentally not doing part of their job because they don’t like it, well too bad for them! The boss needs to know.

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    1. Doug*

      And I’m the opposite. Without tone of voice I tend to read text in the worst way possible.
      I also prefer voice for longer interactions. A 5 minute call can cover an hour of texts when I’m just trying to move on and not keep checking for a reply that’s 10 minutes away!

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      1. Too Fat for Work Pants*

        I feel the same way, especially if you need to explain something at legnth. I dont get writing novel legnth emails, at that point it should be a screen sharing call that you record for future training

        Reply ↓
        1. kicking-k*

          I often wonder how many of the “this call may be recorded for training” calls EVER get used for anything, ever.

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          1. anona*

            When a company who said this annoyed me by not doing what they promised, I did ask them to go back and listen, and for further confirmation put in a data subject access request to get both recordings and transcripts.
            Admittedly, I was mostly doing it to be a pain
            But when I worked for a company that ran a call centre, trainers and managers regularly listened into calls or call recordings for new employees, and randomly for everyone else.

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          2. iiii*

            I worked at a place where one guy was employed half-time to audit calls. All very businesslike until he caught the sales director’s girlfriend cussing out a customer, and instead of firing her, management made up a new (non-customer facing) role to shift her into.

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          3. Seven If You Count Bad John*

            Yes, I used to do QA for call center and calls absolutely do get reviewed both randomly and by request. I’ve even seen calls played in customer disputes where the customer claimed they didn’t agree to something, and calls get pulled and heard by management because a caller complained. Those recordings get heard!

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            1. Teapot Connoisseuse*

              I did this work for a while, too. And I’ve been on the other end, where I asked (politely) my car insurance company listen back to a call bc I’d thought I had a benefit that they said I didn’t. Turned out they were right and I’d said clearly that we didn’t need it (bc we didn’t at the time I took out the policy, but circumstances had changed in the interim and I hadn’t revisited the policy). I felt like a bit of a twit, but not as much as I would have done if I’d been a d*ck about it!

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        2. Stipes*

          Oof, no. If it’s something I’ll have to consult back to, write it down! I can pull something up and read it in a fifth the time it would take me to wait through a recording. Especially if I’m following along and can skim to the pertinent part at any given moment.

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        3. Iranian yogurt*

          I fully accept that I’m in the minority here, and act accordingly. But when I’m on the information-receiving end of an exchange, I LOVE a detailed email, even if it’s novel length. I’d rather it be well organized and bulleted, but just having it in written form in their own words, AND searchable, makes my life so much easier. Likewise for detailed explainer docs attached to a shorter email.

          Again, I don’t send this kind of message because I know most people don’t like them (so no need for the commentariat to reply accusing me of imposing my own preferences on others).

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          1. Stipes*

            We might be in the minority, but we definitely aren’t alone.

            If it helps, I think the overwhelming prevalence of video replacing writing (for things like “how do I ___?” explanations online) isn’t really a reflection of audience preference — part of it is that it’s easier to MAKE an unscripted video lesson.

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      2. Rogue Slime Mold*

        Yes, text/email is good for a single question, or something that requires some research on the recipient’s end. Once it’s “Should we do, A, B, or C? If C then we must also allow for D, however X might negate B…” just pick up a phone (or do a call with screen sharing if you need a visual element).

        Reading this thread I realized that my vet confirms appointments by automated text, but if it’s to ask how my pet is doing after a visit, then it’s a phone call. Both because of the tone of voice conveying empathy aspect, and because if my answer is anything beyond “Doing great, no problems” then we need to have that back and forth about A, B, and C.

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    2. MusicWithRocksIn*

      I deal with too many technical details for talking on the phone to do much good. Way too often I get people trying to call me and read part numbers aloud over the phone – nope nope nope -you need to email that to me for a quote, I am not dealing with you getting the wrong part because I thought I heard a two instead of a T, and then you didn’t check things carefully. Even when I talk to people on the phone I always email them afterwards to sum up the conversation. I want a record of everything.

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    3. Bast*

      I prefer text based conversations not only because phone calls can make me somewhat anxious, but because there is a paper trail. My current office does not record phone calls (and even in the offices where we could, pulling a call was time consuming and irritating) and having an email saved eliminates the “I never said that” “I never agreed to that” conversations. In fact, for certain things you DO need to have it in writing, even if agreed on the phone — “To memorialize our conversation earlier this morning, please let this email serve as approval to extend the deadline to file ABC through March 31, 2025.” It’s really a CYA maneuver.

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      1. kicking-k*

        This! Accountability is a wonderful thing, also not having to rely on my fallible note-taking. (I’m a records manager, so… paper trails and accountability are good.)

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    4. Typity*

      I have ADHD and my mind tends to wander during phone conversations — this is why, when I had to act as a reporter for a while, I was a truly terrible interviewer. So I much prefer to communicate by email or text. But as you say, phone calls just come with some jobs. They’re just work that needs to be done.

      It never occurred to me — at least, not as a serious option! — that if I dislike or even hate part of my work, I can just not do it and let someone else deal with the fallout.

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  6. Angstrom*

    Your coworkers are cowards.
    I know it’s no fun to talk with customers who are angry or upset or have a problem that you can’t solve. But that’s often part of a customer-facing role, and it’s a skill that can be developed.
    Your manager needs to know that your coworkers are dumping their work on you.

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  7. Tea Monk*

    I hate the phone but many people prefer to use it. I think your boss should outline a policy where they have to pick up the phone.

    Reply ↓
    1. Rogue Slime Mold*

      Yes, this is not an unusual part of a job. If it’s part of your job, and your work has not assigned you a dedicated assistant who must do all tasks that make you uncomfortable, it’s not okay to try and shove your most helpful coworker into that role. (Also goes for the return-to-office example upthread.)

      I feel like people are trying for “I do not have the magical gene which causes one to be comfortable talking on the phone, and so I believe that Gladys, endowed by our creator with this mystic ability, must make time in her day to answer my phone for me. And listen to my voicemails, which you might think would not be anxiety inducing but I find my work is easier if I totally ignore those, too.” And Gladys is not a magical fairy whose picking-up-phone ability you could never hope to emulate, she’s just a person who practiced this minor life skill often enough to become more comfortable with it. Which doesn’t mean she wants to do it for you.

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      1. Tea Monk*

        After several burn outs I learned to stop thinking I could mysteriously do something ” simple” . I do do the phone but I need a lot more rest after a day of phone calls than others and a bunch of phone calls can derail my work. Let’s be real here. I’m not trying to say these people are bad people.

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        1. Allonge*

          I don’t think they are bad people!

          It’s also very normal to be more exhausted by certain aspects of a job than others. It’s perfectly fine to try and optimize job searches toward jobs that have less of the more-tiring aspects.

          It’s not a good solution to let someone else do it (I know you are not suggesting this, just adding it towards OP).

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  8. Calanthea*

    I also do not answer my work phone! in fairness, I don’t have customers, exactly, so the situation is different from OPs.

    Most correspondence is done by email, or over Teams. If I want to call someone, I would email them first to see if they’re available, and I would expect the same.

    I do answer Teams calls, and emails, and a couple of times a day I will check my work phone for voicemails. My phone is on do not disturb, and usually in another room, so as not to distract me from my actual work.

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    1. CTT*

      Can you expand on how Teams calls are different from phone calls for you? I would think they would fall into the same category.

      Reply ↓
      1. Glenn*

        Teams calls are generally only ever from people in the same org. You can’t pick up an unexpected Teams call and have it turn out to be someone trying to sell you a cruise, or ask who you’re voting for, or tell you that your car warranty has expired or your grandson is in prison in Mexico. 90+% of phone calls I get are spam, which makes it impractical to pick up the phone for numbers I don’t recognize, or even let it ring in the first place. I do return calls from voicemail, though.

        (Also, it doesn’t sound like this is the case for Calanthea just from how they phrased it — but in my experience, video calls (or voice calls with videocall apps) are usually prescheduled, not randomly out of the blue like telephone calls.)

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        1. MusicWithRocksIn*

          Is it just me or are spam calls getting worse in the last few weeks? I feel like they’ve gone up 75%. Was the government agency that keeps them in line taken apart?

          Reply ↓
        3. Don’t know what to call myself*

          Not always. My office doesn’t have physical phones anymore, but we have external phone numbers assigned to our Teams accounts. People outside the agency dial a phone number like they normally would, and the call comes through the Teams app on my laptop. I also use Teams when I need to dial out.

          Reply ↓
        4. OlympiasEpiriot*

          My firm has Teams as our VOIP app, too. So, yes, I get calls on Teams from people outside my organization.

          I don’t do video calls unless required, but, phone calls are just part of the job.

          Practice and having a few scripts make dealing with calls easier for the ones with anxiety about them.

          Reply ↓
        5. allathian*

          Yes, at least for me they are. I suspect that I have some undiagnosed audio processing issues that mean that I don’t hear names on the phone. Not a problem if I know the person well enough to recognize their voice on the phone, but I don’t know most of my coworkers that well, only my immediate team.

          With Teams you get the name of the caller automatically (you can’t call our Teams by phone). My org has 1,800 employees and our internal directory’s constantly changing anyway, no way to keep everyone in my contacts.

          I hate calls out of the blue, most people do contact me by IM to schedule a call. That lets me mentally prepare for the call.

          Reply ↓
      2. Incomplete Marshmallow*

        I dont know why either, but I have noticed that answering Teams calls on my computer (no special audio involved, just the built in speaker or headset depending on if Iam at home or in office) is way less annoying and has much better fidelity in terms of being able to hear other people than phone calls do.

        Maybe its something in Teams that helps make voices sound clearer ?

        Reply ↓
        1. Secret Squirrel*

          Nothing special about Teams – computer audio in general is going to sound better than the phone, because phone audio is not very good. (Usually still 8KHz using an 8-bit companding fomat.)

          Reply ↓
      3. Wine not Whine*

        My assigned “office” phone number is in my email sig, and I’ll answer it if someone uses it, but it rarely happens and I’d much prefer it to not happen at all.

        The culture at my company is to make Teams calls rather than phone-to-phone calls. It’s a lot more reliable, since most of the company is on a hybrid schedule if not completely remote; and hotel desking requires remembering to sign into the phone system as well.

        I greatly appreciate this preference myself. I have a speech processing disorder, and supplement what I hear with lip-reading. The majority of people who call me have their camera on (again, that’s part of our culture). We can also drop relevant files directly into the chat instead of emailing them.

        All in all, it’s both more productive and (at least for me) more pleasant to use Teams versus traditional telephony.

        Reply ↓
      4. Smithy*

        The one area that Teams and Phone calls are entirely aligned is when they’re not scheduled but spontaneous. I had one internal colleague who loved to reach out over Teams phone call and was really miffed about being told that office etiquette was to reach out and ask if it was an ok time to chat. Particularly for people working in an office open plan who’d need to either coordinate headphones or go to a phone booth – he really struggled to see why this was such a big issue but was regularly told it was wrong.

        I do think there are two very big issues with phone calls these days broadly speaking. The first is that a number of offices have largely stopped updating their internal phone systems where when you’d get hired, you’d be assigned a number, have a mail box to set up, and in one dream job – could have voicemails forwarded to your email. Teams that heavily use phones likely do, but employer-wide that has dropped off.

        With that, there’s become a far greater trend of some people just using their personal phones for work while others don’t do that. If you are using your personal phone for work, unless it’s a regular contact – you likely don’t have the number saved and therefore are more likely to think its spam. How one behaves after that with their messages is then another kettle of fish.

        Reply ↓
      5. kicking-k*

        For me, and not necessarily for everyone, Teams calls are better because I can probably see you. I have auditory processing disorder and find it hard to parse information and tone from a disembodied voice.

        Reply ↓
    2. Not Tom, Just Petty*

      But you do return phone messages, correct? Even if you do not call back, you reply to people who leave messages. So OP’s coworkers are at some next level BS where they’ve been allowed to avoid part of their responsibilities.

      Reply ↓
    3. Saturday*

      I have my phone on silent while at work, but the big difference is, I don’t have customers calling me. I’m sure what OP’s coworkers are doing would be fine if they were just supposed to be communicating with other coworkers, but they’re not.

      Reply ↓
    4. mango chiffon*

      My office switched our phone system over so that anyone calling our phone numbers will dial through to our Teams interface. Personally, have highly appreciated this change as I can use accessibility settings within teams to have live captions (not always accurate but it gets me closer than audio only).

      Reply ↓
    5. Another Academic Librarian*

      I hate to say it, but I don’t answer work calls unless they come in on my personal smartphone. The place where I work has taken away all the handsets (to save money) and put us on Zoom Phone. I like Zoom, but Zoom Phone is difficult for me to use — I’d have to stay connected via headset, but I also have to jump up and go look for items on the shelves.

      Reply ↓
  9. Cafe au Lait*

    OP, I feel you. While we still use phones in my workplace, a large contingent of my coworkers have transitioned to WFH full-time. It’s so frustrating to get a call because my coworker hasn’t answered an email, and the best I can do is forward it.

    We’re in a service industry, and I want to scream, “Are we serving our patron base or not?” on a very regular basis.

    Reply ↓
    1. Ama*

      There’s plenty of technology out there to allow people to receive work calls at home, perhaps your company should look into them. I worked from home full time at my last job and received work calls through Teams.

      Reply ↓
      1. Cafe au Lait*

        Oh, we have Zoom phones. The issue is WFH colleagues being unresponsive, cause our users to track them down. Forwarding a call, only for it to go straight to voicemail, is antithetical to our mission.

        Reply ↓
  10. londonedit*

    I’m mid-40s and I can’t say I love phone calls – mainly because I prefer to have things in writing, not just from a CYA perspective but also simply so I can think ‘What did I say to Jane Smythe the other week?’ and I can look up the email and it’s all right there. There’s also less margin for misinterpretation in email – if I email someone with the schedule and the dates and what I need them to do, it’s all there for them to refer to. I often have face-to-face meetings with authors before we start work on their books, and while of course it’s nice to make a personal connection at the start of the process I find they forget a lot of the information I give them, or want it in an email anyway, or they misinterpret things. I don’t mind if someone wants a quick call for reassurance or clarification, but most of the time those are just hand-holding and the info’s all there in the emails I’ve sent.

    However, my job is not one that involves dealing with customers, it’s not one where I have customers who want to communicate by phone as a preference, and it’s not one where a quick phone call can replace 10 emails, as the OP describes. If my job was like that, then yep, I’d need to get comfortable with speaking to customers on the phone, because that would be part of how I’d do my job in the most effective manner, and how I’d keep up customer goodwill and keep them wanting to carry on coming to us for whatever it is they need rather than going to a competitor who will speak to them on the phone.

    Reply ↓
    1. JessB*

      I wonder if at the start of the meeting, or conversation, you could confirm that you’ll be sending them an email with all of this information written down, so they can refer to it? That might help those authors who have forgotten the details – but might then create some frustration about ‘why is this a meeting when it could be an email?’
      I guess there’s no perfect solution!

      Reply ↓
  11. Tradd*

    I interviewed multiple job candidates last year who said they would not have anything to do with the phones. This was for a job in international transportation where you do have to talk on the phone sometimes to get info or to help customers. If you can’t get an answer on a email, you HAVE to call a vendor for the info. Non-negotiable.

    I’m in my 50s and yes, sometimes email is the quickest way and often necessary to have a record of information, but sometimes a quick phone call to explain something (following up with an email confirming the call) or just to build a bit of a relationship with a customer is the correct thing to do. I think some young people discount how you can build relationships with customers/vendors over the phone. It really helps business.

    Reply ↓
    1. MusicWithRocksIn*

      I have worked too many jobs where I was suddenly made the backup for the receptionist because I was a woman in a male dominated field. I’m willing to answer my phone for me, but am super rigid about answering ‘the phones’ or being expected to pick up the general line.

      Reply ↓
  12. Lifelong student*

    I do not understand the apparent dislike and refusal to use phones! I actually have a dislike for texting and I object to the fact that so many businesses will only communicate by text. I am not willing to pay the costs of maintaining a cell phone for their convienence! It is unreasonable for anyone- either a business or an individual to demand that everyone use cell phones. They are not easy for many people- visual issues, technology gaps, and expense are all problems for many people.

    Reply ↓
    1. Purple Stapler*

      I know a woman in her 30s who has such phone anxiety that if one of her three small children is having a medical problem and the doctor needs to be called, the woman will text her mother, who then calls the kids’ doctor. I’m not kidding.

      Reply ↓
      1. Casino Royale*

        I know this sounds mean but honestly, she maybe should not have been a parent.

        What will she do if her mother isn’t around anymore? Or just stuck in bed with the flu? Or has a medical emergency of her own? Or is otherwise unreachable? What if wires are crossed and a doctor’s office is unaware that the kids’ grandmother is someone who’s allowed to speak on the kids’ behalf so the doctor refuses to talk to her? And what if something really bad happens where one of the kids is taken to the ER (if they’re in America, and the kids are school-age, there is always the possibility of a damn school shooting) and they’re trying to reach the mom by phone. And the grandmother isn’t right nearby? What if, as the kids themselves get older, they need to contact the mom about something urgent even if it’s not strictly medical? Or if it is medical, like an allergy? And they can’t wait for the mom to text back or texting isn’t an option? Will school nurse be aware of this extra step? What about the kids’ teachers when needing to contact the parents about academic stuff? Not everything can be done by email when it comes to a child’s academic performance or school conduct.

        Seriously, WTF.

        Reply ↓
        1. Purple Stapler*

          This woman just had child number 3. I’ll admit my first thought was, you can’t handle phone calls, yet you had another kid you mother is going to have to make call for you about?

          Reply ↓
        2. Dust Bunny*

          Therapy. Therapy is a thing. When something potentially gets in the way of handling an emergency situation, it’s time to do something. And I say that as someone who used to get almost this anxious about phone calls (but needed this job).

          Reply ↓
        3. k.*

          This seems like an unfair reading, especially the comment that she shouldn’t be a parent. It’s very likely that two things are true: 1. that, when support exists, she chooses to conserve her emotional energy by using resources available to her (like her mother’s help) so she can focus herself on taking care of the child in front of her, and 2. that, in cases where such support is not available, she will use the phone even if it causes her additional anxiety.

          Reply ↓
          1. Purple Stapler*

            Per her mother (who is my friend), this woman does not use the phone – ever. The mother told me the only reason she got a smartphone is so she can communicate with her daughter via texts. The daughter can’t even cope talking to her own parents or husband over the phone. I definitely agree therapy would be helpful. The mother retired early to help her daughter.

            Reply ↓
          2. Tired*

            I don’t know- this is her kid having a medical problem and she can’t talk to a doctor which is pretty serious. If you’re having to conserve your energy I’m nervous about your ability to be in charge of small children.

            I am very supportive of mental health resources but I’m getting a little tired of bending over backwards to pretend behavior on the far side of the spectrums is normal and okay. The goal should be support and healing not normalization.

            Reply ↓
      2. CommanderBanana*

        That’s honestly something she needs to see a therapist for and treat it like what it is: a legitimate phobia that is impacting her life and the safety of her kids.

        Reply ↓
    2. Alton Brown's Evil Twin*

      Over the last 20 years, it’s gotten to the point that many people dread an unexpected phone call, because it’s 99% likely to be spam of some sort.

      Reply ↓
      2. Finucan*

        My husband is struggling to help my MIL because of this. She’s starting to have memory issues and accidentally signed up for a scam “ad blocker” through text, so now she has been inundated with hundreds of calls and texts from more scammers. Because of her short term memory problems, she doesn’t remember that my husband has explained to her that she can ignore these, and she gets repeatedly stressed out when encountering all of these texts and calls for what seems like the first time. We’re trying to use Apple’s parental controls to filter things out for her so she doesn’t have to see it, but they aren’t set up in a way that works for this situation.

        Anyway, my husband said to his dad, “Now you know why we don’t answer calls from unknown numbers.”

        Reply ↓
        3. Not A Manager*

          New phone number if possible.

          Set the phone to send unknown numbers to voicemail; monitor her voicemail for her. Filter texts from unknown senders.

          Reply ↓
      3. Casino Royale*

        And yet when it’s your job to answer phone calls (especially because your job involves customer service), you’re going to have to accept that phone calls will be unexpected, from unknown callers, and that sometimes, there will be spam calls. And you’ll need to develop a way to deal with spam callers (hanging up on them, a script, etc).

        But ignoring ALL phone calls–including from actual customers–and otherwise passing the buck onto one coworker, is not actually an option. No matter how bad the blight of spam calls has gotten, or how bad one’s phone anxiety is. If one’s phone anxiety is that bad, then they need to either change jobs or get medical help for their problem. Or both. Probably both.

        Reply ↓
      4. Dust Bunny*

        See, though, if you have a job where you sometimes get phone calls, they shouldn’t be considered “unexpected”. I might not have expected a phone call at this instant, but it’s unreasonable of me to not expect any phone calls, ever, because they do come up **at work**.

        Reply ↓
    3. FashionablyEvil*

      I HATE chats with businesses–they are so slow and endlessly frustrating. I had to do something with Delta and it took me more than half an hour on chat and it didn’t work. It took less than 5 minutes on the phone with a rep.

      Reply ↓
    4. L*

      I absolutely hate phone calls, but I definitely wouldn’t refuse to answer one if it was part of my job!

      I have audio processing issues, as well as a poor working memory, so having things in text is my best bet for both understanding what’s needed and remembering that it exists. I have forced subtitles turned on for all of my zoom meetings, and an informal accommodation that all of my actual instructions are in written format.

      But if I absolutely had to take a phone call, I’d get through it. Probably ask you to repeat yourself a million times and triple check anything important you tell me while I take notes, but I’d manage.

      Reply ↓
    5. Tea Monk*

      It’s the worst of all worlds. Irl sure you’re taking up people’s time and can’t interact at your leisure but at least you can see people’s facial expressions and understand more how you’re landing. On email or text you can’t see facial expressions but there’s no phone tag or twenty minutes of blah blah before you can get people off the phone. Phones aren’t efficient. and if you call a business there’s the horrible robot menu too.

      Reply ↓
    6. Can’t Think of a Good Name*

      I have auditory processing difficulties, and the phone is the worst possible place for me to try and hear and comprehend something important that I’m going to need to remember later.
      If it’s not on speakerphone, it causes physical pain to the ear I hold it up to, and there are a lot of places and phone call topics that are not speakerphone appropriate.
      I rely on seeing the shape of a person’s mouth when they talk to me so I know what shape of sound I’m listening for in what they’re saying, especially if I’m in a place where there is literally any other noise going on, or if the person’s voice is accented differently to what I’m used to hearing.

      I’m not saying any or all of these reasons necessarily apply to OP’s coworkers (and if you have a job that requires answering phones, either answer the phones or get a different job already), but maybe this can help someone else understand why some of us have very real difficulty with phone calls.

      Reply ↓
      1. CityMouse*

        There are ADA accommodations for that however. I have a colleague who uses a live transcription function for phone calls. The employee has to disclose that and ask though as managers can’t accommodate something they don’t know about.

        Reply ↓
      2. kicking-k*

        I’m so glad I’m not now the only person on the thread posting about auditory processing difficulties!

        They are becoming more common, for a variety of reasons (including, of course, greater awareness of existing problems).

        Reply ↓
    7. ScruffyInternHerder*

      1. I loathe how my voice sounds due to a dozen years of Catholic school bullying by TEACHERS and ADMINISTRATORS. That’s my issue to deal with, but here we are with no time nor money for intensive therapy. I suck it up when I have to, but I still hate it.

      2. I have a bit of an audio-processing issue as well, so that’s fun. My brain literally does not compute spoken word in real time.

      3. I do not have “customers” and deal with “contracts”. I need things in writing. If you insist on calling me, I then have to turn around and spend time composing an email confirming everything we just discussed in a 20 minute phone call (that could have been an email). Because I need it in writing or it didn’t freaking happen. So if I ask a question in email, its because I need a paper trail, please respond in kind.

      4. Open plan office. We ALL avoid phone calls to avoid driving each other to the point of fisticuffs because of it. It is hell on earth.

      5. We don’t have phones anyways, its all ported through Teams. I note that ported may not be the correct term, but all calls are through Teams for us.

      6. Nine times out of ten when I don’t recognize the number in Teams, its a recruiter calling to pester me at work about a job I’m either completely over- or absolutely not qualified for, or its the FOP, or its some shady sounding charity, etc.

      Reply ↓
      1. I Have RBF*

        Open plan office. We ALL avoid phone calls to avoid driving each other to the point of fisticuffs because of it. It is hell on earth.

        This is why remote work is my hill to die on. Because if they demand that I come in to some crummy, noisy, distracting open plan, my productivity takes nose dive and my patience gets very short. Phone calls and phone/voice meeting in an open plan just plain suck, even with headphones.

        Reply ↓
    8. bel*

      I had a customer service job that was MISERABLE and I associate phones with wanting to bang my head on my desk.

      But sometimes you have to talk on the phone and you can’t just turn your coworker into a receptionist. OP’s coworkers are horrible.

      Reply ↓
      1. Ann O'Nemity*

        Yeah, I used to love talking on the phone before I worked in outbound telemarketing! That ruined the phone for me.

        Reply ↓
    9. Starbuck*

      Well, just apply your feelings to texting to auditory phone calls and it should be easier to understand the other side. I hate the phone sometimes, and am annoyed by the slowness of texting sometimes. But they each have their place – being extreme in either direction is silly.

      If I’m planning to see a movie next weekend with a friend, we’re going to text about that because we can send each other links to get tickets and it’s easy for me to look at the text to remind myself what time I need to be there. Dates/times/etc don’t stick for me if they’re not visual.

      If I’m doing vacation itinerary planning with my parents, I’m going to get on a phone call because it’s so much easier to tell what we’re all actually interested in by spitballing and having a conversation out loud about it.

      Reply ↓
  13. wilma flintstone*

    I wonder if regional productions of Bye Bye Birdie are cutting The Telephone Hour from their shows! Such behavior, absolutely quotidian in my day, is absolutely foreign now! :D

    Reply ↓
    1. Casino Royale*

      They’re not. I just watched a high school performance of it this weekend. A relative had to help spray paint all the phone handsets. The director to explain to the high school cast what party lines were.

      Reply ↓
  14. Mark This Confidential And Leave It Laying Around*

    I have had to coach younger colleagues on using the phone. It is legit not part of their ordinary experience pre-work. Same for emails. “I prefer texting.” Fine for a quick question but no we are not setting up meetings and dealing with contracts via text. It takes a while for some to get that it’s really not optional. “Nobody does that anymore.” I tell them their social life is not their business life. In LW’s case, looping in the boss sounds like the only way.

    Reply ↓
    1. Purple Stapler*

      Yes, for younger colleagues who think they can conduct work business via text/WhatsApp – when they are not provided with a business phone. They see no reason for email. They are soon enlightened that email really does have a place in business.

      Reply ↓
    2. AnonymousOctopus*

      This. Phone etiquette and norms should be taught during onboarding, as well as company culture around phone calls.

      I work in a field where one of the larger segments of the work involves phone calls. I helped out with training new recruits and the majority did not have the schema about how phone calls work. They didn’t know the scripts, didn’t know how to do turntaking in spoken conversation where you couldn’t see each other, etc. They didn’t have to use phone calls in their personal life, and with cell phones becoming ubiquitous most didn’t get the “home training” about how to be polite on the phone that I got growing up with a house phone/landline.

      I hope the letter writer can get through to their boss about this, and I hope the company will implement some phone training of current employees as well as future employees.

      Reply ↓
      1. deesse877*

        The list of things missing from the schema is helpful, thanks. I teach college, and I was aware of the dynamic, but not in a direct or detailed way, since I don’t have phone contact with students. It’s helpful to see that the anxiety is related to real skill deficits, not just to feeling “put on the spot.”

        Reply ↓
        1. AnonymousOctopus*

          Glad I could help! I don’t know what subject you teach but if it’s English/Communication/Language/Linguistics-adjacent, discourse analysis of phone calls can be super helpful in getting them some of that schema.

          Reply ↓
    3. bananners*

      I worked with a high school class on a course using community-focused project based learning and they were required to both call and email members of the community that they did not know in order to progress their project. The post-course evaluations were absolutely lit up with “the most important thing I learned was how to write an email/make a phone call.” And this was almost ten years ago.

      Reply ↓
    4. DEJ*

      One of the things that I say is that we work in a customer service role. If the customer wants to use the phone, then we use the phone. The customer gets to choose what method they prefer to communicate in.

      Reply ↓
    5. Another Kristin*

      It is amazing how quickly this norm changed. When I was a child, I had my friends’ phone numbers memorized and called my best friends almost daily. Now I can’t remember the last time I made a social phone call and pretty much exclusively do video calls with friends and family. I have grown to dislike making and receiving phone numbers as much as the kids do!

      Anyway, it may be a peculiarity of my organization, but I find the more someone wants to talk to me on the phone, the more likely they are to be very unreasonable. I absolutely do ignore incoming phone calls quite a lot of the time, because I know that there’s a very good chance the person calling is going to annoy me and waste my time. However, these are internal contacts, not customers, and I do respond to voicemails unless they’re abusive. OP’s coworkers are being ridiculous.

      Reply ↓
    6. I'm A Little Teapot*

      Yep. I have a young coworker who has social anxiety (she told me) and really doesn’t like phones. I told her I understood, but she needs to be able to communicate in person, via email, and via phone with our clients. And the more she did it, the easier it would get. She’s making calls to clients now and is shy doing so around other staff, but that’s ok. She’s making progress. With more practice, it’ll get easier and she’ll be more comfortable.

      Reply ↓
  15. WellRed*

    Crap like this doesn’t support arguments for WFH, especially with companies and governments pushing for RTO.

    Reply ↓
    1. Purple Stapler*

      It still happens in office. We don’t have a receptionist in my office. Everyone is supposed to help answer calls, but a lot of people hate the phone so much, they don’t.

      Reply ↓
      1. londonedit*

        It was happening nearly 20 years ago when I worked in a really small office – we all sat in one room, and phone calls would come through to the whole phone system in one go. The office manager was nominally in charge of answering and transferring calls, but if she was busy then we were all expected to pick up the phone now and then. Of course everyone hated it (because you never knew who would be calling, and often it’d be someone wanting something outside of your wheelhouse, or you’d get stuck with a wannabe author trying to speak to the boss and/or pitch their book idea at you so you’d have to pretend to ‘just’ be the receptionist, etc etc) and everyone would avoid doing it as much as possible. And then the office manager would get annoyed and tell everyone to please answer the bloody phone. So it’s not a WFH thing, or even a ‘kids these days’ thing!

        Reply ↓
      2. WellRed*

        Of course it happens in offices and always has, but when a CEO gets a bee in their bonnet about butts in seats, this sort of thing doesn’t help.

        Reply ↓
        1. Le Sigh*

          When CEOs have a bee in their bonnet about something, they’ll find justification wherever they want. If it’s not this it’ll just be something else.

          Reply ↓
    2. Governmint Condition*

      I know of at least one agency that lost their WFH for this very reason. Not completely lost, but severely reduced.

      Reply ↓
    3. CityMouse*

      FWIW I answer phone calls all the time with WFH. Our phones ring through Teams. I actually really like the feature that transcribes the voice-mail so I have it written down.

      Reply ↓
    4. Tea Monk*

      Eh if you really are obsessed with butts in seats everything supports RTO. We don’t need an office and just carry around cell phones.

      Reply ↓
    5. Media Monkey*

      in my previous role where they were always pushing to get people back into the office, if a phone rang and wasn’t answered (because they would be cold calls, never important. they were people who didn’t know anyone in the company calling the switchboard number – clients had our direct lines which rang to company mobiles) within 5 mins one of the managers would get a call from the CEO to complain. the digital telephone software had a report function and people could see at a glance who was logged in, who the ringing phone had tried to dial and who answered. most annoyingly, the software would ring you even if you were on a teams call…

      Reply ↓
    6. Stuart Foote*

      Yeah, a lot of workers do a great job from home but if people are going to say “A basic and important part of my job gives me too much anxiety to do”, employers are just going to make everyone go to the office.

      Reply ↓
      1. Le Sigh*

        RTO doesn’t fix that problem. I had coworkers with this issue well before the pandemic and they’ll find a way to avoid calls in an office, too. For CEOs who want people back in an office, if it’s not this it’ll just be something else.

        Reply ↓
        1. I Have RBF*

          Exactly. I knew plenty of folks who dodged the phone while sitting in an open plan with a phone right on their desk. RTO is not a “fix” for anything except management’s CRE investments.

          Reply ↓
    7. AvonLady Barksdale*

      I don’t think it’s quite that simple. My last job was remote but it was client-facing. I had a work phone (separate!) and I had to answer it. I talked to clients all the time. Answered voice mails. If I didn’t do those things, I would have been horrible at my job.

      My current job is also remote and my phone number isn’t even in my email signature, nor is it in my Slack profile. A total of five co-workers have my number, and one of them is an old friend and another is my boss. So basically every job is different, but the bottom line is that we have to adjust our communication methods to the needs of the role, whether we’re in an office or not.

      Reply ↓
    8. Lily Potter*

      I heard through the professional grapevine that a former employer revoked the entire company’s WFH last year when it became apparent that people in one department were neglecting to answer their phones. Everyone let the calls roll over, thinking “someone else can deal with that”, especially for particular callers and especially on Friday afternoons. With everyone back in office, it’s always an option to walk to their cube and interrupt people in person. It’s unfortunate that the CEO didn’t just discipline the offending department, but this CEO was skeptical about WFH anyway and this provided the perfect reason to bring everyone back under the same roof.

      Reply ↓
      1. I Have RBF*

        A decade ago one company eliminated all remote work because some remote workers weren’t actually working. Instead of cracking down on crappy managers, they told remote people to come in to the office or leave, and made you take PTO for when service calls came to your house. It sucked. Spending 12 hour days in an open plan sucked.

        Reply ↓
  16. Aurion*

    There are advantages to having a written record, but many people do not communicate well in one or both spheres. And spoken communication is much faster than written. It’s absurd to unilaterally cut off phone communication when it clearly still serves the customer base (per OP, one phone call replaces 10 emails, their colleagues lose their emails, etc)! That makes no business sense.

    Loop in the boss for sure. Depending on how irritated OP is at their colleagues, they also can point out to their colleagues, calmly and without emotions, that they frequently lose their emails, so clearly email-only is not working so well either. They are failing at their own jobs, let the chips fall as they may.

    Reply ↓
    1. CTT*

      I am sometimes baffled by the insistence on using email over phones because otherwise there’s no written record. One does not eliminate the other! Have the phone call and then prepare a quick email to memorialize what was discussed.

      Reply ↓
      1. Too Fat for Work Pants*

        Personally I only bother with the written record if it is critical (e.g. you approved my vacation) or I have been burned by the person. CYA is hrlpful but at least in my life hasn’t needed to be default.

        Reply ↓
      2. MusicWithRocksIn*

        Maybe it’s because I deal so much in super complex part numbers and descriptions, but I would always rather someone send me the part number so they can copy it down on their end, then go through the whole rigamarole of “A for Apple, 2, T for Tortilla, 3 – 6 – 4 – B for Birthday…” on and on and on, then I repeat it back to them “A for Alpha, 2, T for Tango, 3 – 5 – oh wait was that supposed to be a 6… ok from the beginning”. Then hope they actually read and check the email I send them instead of just going ‘Thanks’.

        Reply ↓
      3. CityMouse*

        I am phone comfortable but if I’ve encountered an issue with someone being verbally abusive or deceptive about phone calls I so have the right to cut off phone calls and keep communication in writing so I have a record. But that is a specific defined circumstance.

        Reply ↓
  17. Liz*

    I hate phone calls. I much prefer a chance to investigate the issue and give you a good answer and save us all time via email. My voicemail message encourages them to email me instead.

    But if they do call when I’m available I answer the damn phone.

    Reply ↓
    1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

      My personal phone’s voicemail literally says “Please send me email”. Because I know that anyone who has that phone number also has an email address for me — either because they know me personally (personal email) or because they’re looking at my resume (professional email).

      Reply ↓
  18. BatManDan*

    Two thoughts. 1) Odd that they will book a Zoom, but won’t make a phone call.
    2) there is a tipping point coming soon; when enough people in work environments refuse to use the phone, the businesses themselves will start to collapse (from inefficiency, lack of revenue, or both) and people will find themselves to be stuck in low-level jobs with no hope of advancement. We treat it like a quirk, but it’s a looming dark cloud on the horizon, and it’s more significant (at large numbers) than we seem to think it is.

    Reply ↓
    1. iglwif*

      I don’t think (1) is odd at all — a scheduled video call is different from (and better than) a spontaneous phone call in several ways:
      * You know when it’s happening, so you can prepare whatever materials you need for it
      * You know when it’s happening, so it isn’t interrupting something else you were doing
      * You can generate a record of it via recording or transcription, so the record of decisions made / who said what doesn’t depend on your own notes
      * A video call allows for things like observing people’s body language, using captions, screen sharing, and sending links and screenshots, which makes it better for figuring out a customer’s problem than a phone call

      This is not a reason to refuse to answer the phone!!! If you are in a customer-facing role, you ANSWER THE PHONE, or at the very least, you CALL PEOPLE BACK.

      But it isn’t weird to prefer a scheduled video call to an unexpected phone call.

      Reply ↓
      1. A Book about Metals*

        It’s not weird to prefer it, but if it’s a customer calling none of those things may matter if they don’t feel they’re getting answers. So sure, schedule the Zoom, but do it after you answer the initial call to triage and put the customer at ease.

        Reply ↓
    2. Rogue Slime Mold*

      A tale of two phone calls. In both of these, I had an issue that could not be resolved just using the company’s website.

      • This week I had to call an insurance company about something. A human answered the phone, and quickly resolved the issue, adding some helpful context.
      • Last week I had to call a financial company about something. It took three separate calls, with increasing unhinged yelling at the voice mail on my part as I tried to avoid various cul de sacs and get to a human. When I finally did, they resolved my problem in under a minute, adding some helpful context.

      About one of these companies I am thinking “Even though they are more expensive than their competitors, what I care about is that when something goes wrong, I can get help resolving it.” About the other I am thinking “Even though I have been a customer for decades, I just don’t want to deal with this again.”

      Reply ↓
      1. iglwif*

        Yep. I don’t think decision-makers who decide to save on CSR and tech-support salaries by automating these functions really understand the amount of rage the automation generates. The CSRs and tech support people end up bearing the brunt of that rage, which is terrible because they are the least to blame for it.

        More than once I have spent 30-45 minutes trying to get to a human at FedEx or UPS to sort out what has happened to a missing parcel that someone else sent me, while growing increasingly rageful as the already annoying hold music is repeatedly interrupted by a cheerful voice telling me all the things I can do for myself on their website, none of which are the reason I am on hold, because if I could solve my problem without entering automated voicemail hell, I would have done that. By the time I get a human, I am holding onto my own humanity by a thread. (I have never yelled at a CSR on the phone. But I have cried a couple of times.)

        The more the automated voicemail hell is pretending to be a real human, the more rageful it makes me.

        Reply ↓
        1. Rogue Slime Mold*

          Telling me all the things I can do for myself on their website, none of which are the reason I am on hold.
          “Let’s essentially call the customers stupid, over and over again, while they wait on hold. This will engender goodwill.”

          Reply ↓
          1. Momma Bear*

            Yup. And they’ve gotten wise to saying things like “representative” over and over again. Just maddening.

            Reply ↓
          2. Allonge*

            It’s not calling customers stupid. You would not know from the commentariat here but there are thousands upon thousands of people who will avoid doing any kind of effort to look things up themselves and will start calling people first, last and always, even if the ‘people’ are a phone labyrinth.

            It’s no less legit than the ‘don’t make me talk to another human’ crowd.

            The auto-reminder that there are loads of things you can do on the website is for the calling-first person, who may, as they are waiting on the phone, actually try to do the website thing. Which does not make it less annoying when you are on the phone trying to solve something that is not on the website, but it’s not that personal.

            Reply ↓
            1. Iranian yogurt*

              This. I do get annoyed when the hold music is interrupted for those messages, but only because I wish my issue actually were on the website, and they keep reminding me that it isn’t! A small amount of my annoyance also goes toward the customers who make those messages necessary by calling before they try anything else, but the messages themselves are probably keeping the hold queue from being even longer than it is.

              Reply ↓
            2. iglwif*

              Yeah I don’t think it’s calling the customers stupid, either. I absolutely know people (my mother is one) who will call first before trying anything else, or instead of trying anything else.

              That said, I think listing the website options once every few minutes would be sufficient; I don’t think the system needs to say them every 45 seconds, because that gets very annoying very fast.

              In any case my real beef is with the business model of cutting down the actual tech support staff to an underpaid, overworked skeleton crew, and thus make both their lives and the customers’ lives measurably worse, in order to squeeze out a little bit more profit for shareholders.

              Reply ↓
        2. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

          My “favourite” is that when on hold with our internal IT, every few minutes, the hold music stops and you get a few moments of hope before the automated voice breaks in to say for the 15th time that all agents are currently busy. I KNOW, FFS. THE HOLD MUSIC IS ENOUGH TO TELL ME THAT.

          And this happens basically every time because the hold time is often 30+ minutes, I’m assuming because of a combination of understaffing and internal systems that move slowly in actually fixing the problems.

          Reply ↓
  19. Circus Monkey*

    I am wondering if the company provides and pays for these phones, if so this is a very easy to to fix, a directive that company provided and paid for phones are to be answer, and this is a requirement of their employment

    Reply ↓
  20. dulcinea47*

    I”m wondering how many people who hate phone calls don’t even really have phones- we have crummy VOIP software. It’s nearly impossible to answer the phone in a timely fashion if someone calls you. It makes me dislike using the “phone” even more than I would dislike an actual telephone.

    Reply ↓
    1. PokemonGoToThePolls*

      My last job switched from regular phones to an awful VOIP system that never really worked on my computer anyway. I eventually just removed my phone # from my signature because it was more frustrating because I simply couldn’t answer my phone half the time, and when I could, nobody could hear me, so we did teams/whatever meetings.

      How is the phone system in this workplace set up? Does everybody have a work cell, or are they using a VOIP?

      Reply ↓
      1. WannabeAstronaut*

        Yeah I would also be curious about this. We don’t have work phones of any kind in my workplace and I am extremely wary about giving out my personal cell number (especially as a woman in a very male-dominated field) so I try to avoid phone calls whenever possible and do Zoom/Teams/etc instead. I would be fine to do phone calls if I had a work phone.

        Reply ↓
  21. Landry*

    I recently had to get a new phone number and the grand total of work-related people I had to tell was four — my boss, two contacts at a client who text and call me often, and one contact at a major client who I text with occasionally. I communicate with everyone else through Teams, email and Zoom. On occasion, it will be easier to work with a client through phone calls, but that is maybe once every couple of months. So, I do think it is a form of communication that is on its way out, but you still have to answer or respond when customers are trying to reach you!

    Reply ↓
    1. WestsideStory*

      It’s not on its way out if the job requires communicating to customers or negotiating business – or any sort of sales. It’s so much easier to solve problems/suggest solutions in a single phone call than it is to have endless emails. For internal communications, Zoom and Teams are fine.

      I do think part of the problem is businesses stopped giving people office phones, and rely on company-supplied phones, or worse, insist employees use their personal phones to take external calls.

      Reply ↓
    2. JustaTech*

      About a year ago my company got rid of all our desk phones. What they did not tell us is that they were too cheap to upgrade everyone to the version of Teams that will let someone call your Teams from a regular phone number.

      We’re not customer facing, so no one thought anything about this until one of the managers got a LinkedIn message from the service technicians for one of our fancy instruments saying that he’d been calling and leaving voicemails for months trying to schedule our yearly maintenance. (No one can access that voicemail, it’s a black hole.)

      The amount of fuss I had to go through to get a phone that people outside the company could call with a telephone was immense, and included things like the head of IT saying “well, I prefer not to get calls from vendors”.
      OK, yeah, no one likes unsolicited sales calls, but I need to know when the tech is at the front door!
      (The techs use their phones because they’re on the road all the time and can’t be emailing while driving, but are OK to call.)

      Reply ↓
      1. Media Monkey*

        oh yes, in my previous company, the head of IT who instigated an extremely irritating softphone system would also complain at you if you put any cold calls from vendors about IT through to him. can you guess what we did?

        Reply ↓
      2. Grumpy Elder Millennial*

        We got rid of all of our desk phones around 2018, but everyone got a work cellphone, thank goodness.

        Reply ↓
        1. JustaTech*

          Yeah, only some people got work cell phones (I don’t know how) and I refuse to give out my personal phone number to any vendor after I had to give my personal number to a service tech in early COVID and I ended up with a sales call.
          I was not rude, but I made it abundantly clear that they would not call me at that number again, ever. And amazingly, they didn’t!

          Reply ↓
    3. RussianInTexas*

      I work directly with customers and even though I work from home, I have to call or answer calls on a fairly regular basis. Some things are much easier to answer in a 2 minutes call vs a long e-mail chain.

      Reply ↓
  22. Drew*

    This reminds me of when I went canvassing in my neighborhood to collect signatures for a badly-needed budget adjustment. The amount of people who wouldn’t answer their doors was insane. When I complained about it to my friends and family, their responses were that they don’t answer their doors either! They were so PROUD of not answering their door! It was baffling to me. If you don’t like answering the door/phone, that’s understandable, but to refuse to do it is anti-social and weird in my opinion.

    Reply ↓
    1. Anne G.*

      If they’re not expecting someone to show up, and they don’t recognize the person, I don’t think it’s weird at all to just not answer the door.

      Reply ↓
      1. Heidi*

        Agreed. It might be where I live, but the general advice from local law enforcement is if you don’t recognize someone and are not expecting a delivery, do not answer the door.

        Reply ↓
      2. Lady Lessa*

        I agree with you. I don’t see not answering the door as being anti-social. Just practical. Not answering the phone yes.

        Reply ↓
      3. Cat Tree*

        Yeah. If someone knocks on my door they’re either trying to proselytize a religion or sell me something I definitely don’t want.

        Reply ↓
      4. Momma Bear*

        This I understand. There are a lot of unsavory people out there and I’m reluctant to answer if I’m not expecting anyone. It’s not being anti-social so much as being cautious about my family’s safety.

        Reply ↓
    2. Glenn*

      It’s definitely a big problem when people won’t answer the phone for colleagues or customers, but not answering the door to random strangers is just common sense. There’s no upside in letting people try to sell me a newspaper subscription, or a new carpet, or any number of other things nobody actually wants to buy. I’m sorry, but in today’s culture, trying to bother a random stranger at home is antisocial and weird. Good luck with that.

      Reply ↓
      1. Le Sigh*

        Having done work similar to the commenter, I get the general frustration. But as a person who doesn’t answer the door much, no, sorry, it’s not anti-social or weird. I work a stressful job, participate in community work, and see my friends and family plenty. But I’m also an introvert — so if I’m home and haven’t invited anyone over, then I am giving myself much-needed time to myself to work on home repairs, read, watch a movie, whatever — and almost certainly not wearing my bra and might be un-showered — so I don’t want to be interrupted.

        Reply ↓
    3. Kimmy Schmidt*

      Lol tell me you aren’t a woman who lives alone without telling me. It’s not anti-social, it’s safety.

      Reply ↓
      1. londonedit*

        I wouldn’t even think of it from a safety point of view, for me it’s mainly just that in all likelihood the only people who are going to knock on my door without warning will be a) people trying to get me to sign up to donate to charity or b) couriers wanting me to take in parcels for my neighbours. Both of which are annoying in their own ways (during the early days of WFH one postie worked out that I was the most likely person to answer the door, so I became the default ‘can you take this parcel for number 21/23/19’ etc etc, and then of course all the parcels became my responsibility and I was worried about being out when someone came to claim one, or whether I should then do the rounds trying to deliver them, and so on). So now I don’t answer the door if I can help it (luckily from my window I can see who’s approaching, so if it looks like a charity collector or if it’s a courier and I haven’t ordered anything, I don’t answer the door).

        Reply ↓
      2. WellRed*

        Eh, as a woman, I’m mindful of safety but I don’t assume there’s Danger! Lurking with every knock. Sometimes it’s a kid selling candy bars or whatever. I occasionally even welcome the chance to tell someone running for city council I’m concerned about our housing crisis. We are all capable of making individual decisions.

        Reply ↓
      3. Roland*

        As a woman who lives alone, I find that quite dismissive and reductive. We don’t all have the same experience as you.

        Reply ↓
      4. Myrin*

        I am a woman living alone and I don’t have such concerns. I believe this is mostly cultural, as I remember talking about that topic with people from different countries before – where I’m from, it would definitely read as at least unusual to not answer the door on principle.

        Reply ↓
    4. FashionablyEvil*

      I both get it and I don’t. Most people who knock on my door at this point are solicitors, but if it’s real, it’s usually real. I once knocked on a neighbor’s door (who I didn’t know) because it was super windy and I saw what I thought was their lawn furniture down the block. They did not answer. Their loss!

      Reply ↓
    5. ContentIsHot*

      In this world, it’s not safe to open the door to unexpected strangers. I definitely don’t do it as a woman home alone with young children. If it’s truly important, leave a note on the door. And you don’t know if they’re not dressed or are doing an activity that makes them unavailable at the moment.

      Reply ↓
    6. JP*

      Calling people anti social and weird for not answering their door for an stranger is a bit entitled and out of touch.

      Reply ↓
    7. Skytext*

      No no no, that’s not the same at all! Answering your door could get you robbed, raped, murdered! I live out in the country, we never get casual visitors, and if someone comes down the driveway I’m not expecting and my husband’s not home, I lock the door, grab my gun, and pretend I’m not home until they go away. I’m not taking any chances.

      Reply ↓
    8. umami*

      I don’t answer the door to strangers, and I trained my girls that way too. It’s not about not liking to do it, it can literally be unsafe to do it.

      Reply ↓
    9. I should really pick a name*

      That’s very much a different situation.

      The LW’s coworkers’ job is to be available to customers.

      It is not a random person’s job to open the door to unexpected, unknown visitors.

      Reply ↓
    10. Ann O'Nemity*

      We don’t answer our doors because we’re sick of solicitors and canvassers like you. We’re not anti-social and weird, YOU ARE.

      Reply ↓
    11. Generic Name*

      You’re kindof proving why I don’t answer the door at home. I don’t want to deal with salespeople or political canvassers. I also have an unstable ex and I’ve been served with lawsuits numerous times, so no, I will not avail myself to all of that.

      Reply ↓
    12. Casino Royale*

      This reminds me of when I went canvassing in my neighborhood to collect signatures for a badly-needed budget adjustment. The amount of people who wouldn’t answer their doors was insane. …It was baffling to me. If you don’t like answering the door/phone, that’s understandable, but to refuse to do it is anti-social and weird in my opinion

      That’s super different from this. Not answering the door when I’m not already expecting company is a combination of safety and general “don’t want to be bothered when I’m in my house, doing my own thing.”

      Generally speaking, any non-family-or-friend coming to my door unannounced WITH the purpose of selling something (or trying to get me to sign up for a cause) is not going to win me over.

      If it’s a political party/candidate, I’m likely already supporting it. OR their research is faulty and it’s the political party/candidate that I’ll never support. So their time–and mine–is wasted.

      If they’re collecting money for a charity–my charitable giving is already budgeted out and no, I can’t budge from that. And again, there’s a good chance that I was already supporting whatever cause you were going to knock on my door about (if your research was at all useful). Or I wasn’t going to support anyway for whatever reason (budget, not in my wheelhouse, etc)–in which case, you’ve again wasted everyone’s time.

      If you’re collecting signatures for a charity or a cause–same situation.

      Also, in my experience, A LOT of those “sign my clipboard for X Cause!!” stuff are just attempts to get your information for future scams–either they sell your name and email to junk mail lists (best case scenario), or they use it for more nefarious means. No, thank you.

      If someone is knocking at my door because they want to sell me a new roof, new hot water heater, new electrical utility provider, etc:
      1) could very well be a scam or at least, an expensive, not-that-great service or product
      2) not actually something I need or want
      3) my god, those a-holes are pushy AF (sometimes literally)
      4) they seem to have a knack for coming around at dusk, or later, as if that’s not suspicious at all.

      I might be in the middle of something, like reading. Or watching TV. Or I just plain don’t want to get up from the couch and risk opening my door to an actual criminal, especially if I’m in the house alone. It’s none of your damn business.

      So yeah, these two situations actually aren’t related and people not answering the door to unexpected/unannounced “callers” these days is less of a “ugh people today!” problem and more of an acknowledgement that society has changed since like, the 1950s or whatever. And that door-to-door salesmen and that type of canvassing should maybe be put out to pasture with fax machines and anti-vax beliefs.

      Reply ↓
    13. Seashell*

      Some of the people may have been looking through a video doorbell and seeing that you’re someone they don’t know. For every one doorbell ring that’s actually important for me, there are probably 10-20 that are just bothersome, so I don’t always answer. If it’s important enough, someone can leave a note on my door or in my mailbox.

      Perhaps you would have had more success by asking people you know personally or by posting in a local social media group about the budget.

      Reply ↓
    14. Roland*

      I don’t think that’s very similar tbh. It’s YOUR job (unpaid or otherwise), not theirs. People often don’t answer their door because no one they want to talk to would be there, and I’m sorry to say that missing canvassers is a feature and not a bug for them.

      Reply ↓
    17. Pescadero*

      You were soliciting.

      People don’t like solicitors – whether religious, political, or selling something other than politics or religion.

      Reply ↓
    18. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      I mean, I am absolutely antisocial and weird. :-P I also have a sign on my door that flat out says, I’m set for windows, landscaping, my internet service, my political views, my religious views, and my plans for charitable donations, so absolutely no knocking on my door unless you’re accompanied by a kid selling cookies or you have a signature-required delivery. So anybody knocking on my door expecting an answer is the unreasonable one, to my way of thinking.

      Reply ↓
    19. Starbuck*

      Well of course people don’t answer the door; most of the time people going door to door are canvassing for donations, proselytizing religion, or some other sales-y thing that I’m not interested in. Also I’m in the middle of something! Sheesh.

      Reply ↓
    20. Katherine*

      Dont disturb me at home. The chance that I am busy is high and the chance that I want what you’re pushing is low. I have a sign on my door saying who I do and do not want knocking (neighbours are fine, i certainly want the kids next door to be able to ask to retrieve their balls from my yard) and most people do not read it (go away LDS! go away dodgy guy from power company who did not make an appointment and who knocked SIX times while I was at home sick and trying to sleep it off!)

      Reply ↓
    21. Curiouser and Curiouser*

      Yeah, I say this in the kindest way I can…but people canvassing for signatures, or donations, or to give me literature about their cause are exactly the people I don’t want to open my door for. Putting me on the spot to sign something or give you money is about the worst way I can imagine to get my support for something – badly-needed or not. I open my door if I’m expecting someone and I see it’s them out the window, but for a stranger? They’re going to want my signature or my money and I’m not interested.

      Reply ↓
  23. iglwif*

    I am not a fan of spontaneous business phone calls. (In fact, I like even fun personal phone calls to be planned.) I don’t like the fact that there’s no record of the conversation apart from my own notes, I don’t like having my focus interrupted, I don’t like not being prepared for whatever discussion the person wants to have.

    BUT.

    When I have a customer-facing job, I fully understand that it is part of that job to answer my effing phone, or at the very least, to phone people back when they leave me a voicemail! You can’t provide good service to all of your customers if you refuse to talk to them on the phone!

    I am a middle-aged lady who entered the workforce before everyone had email, before every company had a website, and long before Slack and Teams chats. But even my 22yo offspring, who would never pick up a random call from an unrecognized number on her personal phone, understands and executes the phone requirements of her job and does not in any way indicate to her manager or her colleagues how much she doesn’t enjoy them. OP’s colleagues are being ridiculous.

    Reply ↓
    1. cncx*

      Yup we’re the same generation and well, same, like you said it is part of good customer service. I have a peopley job. If I refused to use the phone I would not be performing my job duties. I hate phone calls, I find them inefficient and pushy but I have internal clients who prefer to call and that’s their prerogative because if they can’t work I can’t work and, more importantly, a lot of times people call because they can’t email.

      That said I hate phone calls and I tell my friends that I used up all my phone call capital at work and I am text only in my private life. Not even voice notes.

      Reply ↓
      1. allathian*

        Voice notes are the worst. But it’s funny how many youngsters refuse to call on the phone but happily exchange voice notes! I mean, what’s the point?

        Reply ↓
      2. iglwif*

        I talk on the phone twice a week: once to my mom, who lives 3000km and 2 time zones away, and once to my elementary school BFF, who lives like 4000km and 3 time zones away. I have a scheduled weekly day and time with each of those people, and the rest of the time, we text or whatsapp chat (or, in the case of my mom, email).

        My kid will facetime me sometimes to hang out (but will text first unless it’s an actual emergency). Mostly, we text. My spouse and I also text, when we are not both in the same place. And we have a very active group chat lol.

        Reply ↓
  24. Maria*

    This isn’t exactly relevant to the main advice, but I don’t think it’s true that English language learners have better spoken than written English. I’m an ESL speaker myself, and from my experience and that of others, listening comprehension and speaking are much harder than written communication. And phones make it exponentially harder

    That said, if someone calls, they have chosen to speak on the phone, so it’s a safe bet that they’re ok with it.

    Reply ↓
    1. iglwif*

      I was going to say, in my L2 or my L3 I can currently much better by writing/reading than by speaking/listening (especially speaking), and speaking even my L2, never mind my L3, on the phone is actively excruciating.

      Again, not a reason not to talk to customers on the phone, but I would certainly not use this as an argument for doing so.

      Reply ↓
    2. Lacey*

      Yeah, I was kinda side-eying that too.

      I’ve always heard that written is easier, from people who are learning it.

      Reply ↓
    3. deesse877*

      I think it depends on whether you’re learning formally or informally (and what your education level in L1 is). People who learn English not from school but from daily immersion, TV, holding down a service job, etc., may be less likely, for multiple reasons, to do well in formal written communication.

      Reply ↓
    4. Six for the truth over solace in lies*

      It’s going to depend hugely on the ESL population you’re serving and how they were/are exposed to English. Learning primarily via immersion can have the effect of better spoken than written English, especially given how idiosyncratic English spelling is.

      I would trust that LW knows their customers base better than we do.

      Reply ↓
    5. Cat Tree*

      It really depends. I work for a global company and our standard business language is English. A few times I’ve had to provide information sessions (as a supplement to training) and it varies by region. For the session that covers Europe and the Americas, quite a lot of the participants prefer the live verbal discussion. For the Asia Pacific region, a lot of my colleagues prefer to listen and to digest it, then follow up later with written questions. Of course both groups have people with each preference. But some combination of native language, culture, and/or confidence with English leads people to use a variety of methods.

      We always provide the training slides ahead of time, have live meetings during work hours in each region, record and transcribe the meeting so people can replay it slower, and offer a way to contact us with written questions later.

      Reply ↓
  25. Alex*

    In some contexts, business phone numbers are certainly being phased out. I currently do not have an office phone number. I have no phone to answer! But…if I did have a phone, and someone called it, yes, I’d have to answer it! Same as I have to answer emails and teams messages even if I don’t feel like it.

    Reply ↓
    1. Mad Scientist*

      Same here! People can’t call me even if they want to. But if they could, I would certainly answer.

      Reply ↓
  26. Finucan*

    I hate phone calls and avoid them if I can, and I suspect I have some kind of auditory processing issue, now that I’ve learned that’s a thing that exists. I never feel like I can understand people as well on the phone. But I’ve had jobs where it was part of my job to answer the phone, return phone calls, etc., and in my first job in retail I developed my customer service voice, and all that.

    Recently, my university has been switching departments over to “Zoom phone” instead of real phones. It’s basically using Zoom as your phone, and for the people who still prefer desk phones, they had the option to request that. It’s weird because I don’t think answering the phone is as easy. At least for me, it would involve scrambling to connect my bluetooth headphones before answering the call. The only time I’ve answered a call as it came in was when our student employee informed me they’d be transferring the call to me. My manager takes many more calls than me and I heard him struggling to adjust to the Zoom phone before finally requesting a desk phone. We also have a desk phone at our front desk because our student employees share the responsibility of answering the department phone.

    Anyway, that’s just my anecdote that in some workplaces, actual physical phones on desks are even being phased out. The upside of it (for people who like calling) is that I’m reachable by “phone” 5 days a week, instead of just the 3 days a week that I’m physically in the office.

    Reply ↓
    1. Momma Bear*

      They long ago took our desk phones and it’s all on Teams. I need to grab my headphones before picking up the call, but they just have to deal with that. I rarely get calls that aren’t coworkers.

      Reply ↓
  28. No Longer Gig-less Data Analyst*

    “In theory there are jobs where you could decide you won’t deal with customers by phone, but those are typically jobs where you are the boss or self-employed and have the standing to make that decision and to accept whatever trade-offs come with it”

    Not sure if this is really weird or not, but I WFH full time in a customer facing role, and I don’t have a work phone at all. I am not expected to give out my personal phone number to clients (nor have I ever been asked for it in the 3 years I’ve worked here), and absolutely all external communication goes through email or Teams/Zoom/Google Meet. I don’t have a phone number in my email signature. We have a department of about 50 people, about half in customer-facing roles, and we all work like this whether we are remote or in the office.

    Reply ↓
    2. Honeybadger*

      All of my calls, both internal and external route through Teams. I do have a direct line number but I’m not in a role that would have external customers calling me so I will ignore them as they are usually scams, misdials, or marketing calls. My role is strictly internal customers and I will answer those but we do have a culture of not just cold calling someone but pinging them first and checking to see if we are available for a call. My direct team has my mobile number but primarily we use Teams calls which route to my mobile via the app. The only time they’d use my actual mobile number to contact me is the rare instance when I’m OOF and something urgent requires my attention. When my job did require that I speak to external customers, I answered every call whether I wanted to talk on the phone or not. It’s a job requirement. If I were in that role currently, WFH or not, I’d be required to answer and I would.

      Reply ↓
  29. ThisIsNotADuplicateComment*

    1) Tell your boss what’s going on, and how much you’re covering for your coworkers.
    2) If your boss doesn’t immediately put a stop to this follow Not Tom, Just Petty’s advice under the first comment.
    3) Start updating your resume. Even if you don’t actually start job searching having your resume up to date so you can jump right into it if you have to will be hugely helpful.

    Reply ↓
  30. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

    I get it, I truly despise using the phone and have to psych myself up to call anybody. But I also know that occassionally the phone is the way that end users prefer to contact ME.

    (I know, work in IT and hate phones? But I’ve never worked helpdesk)

    If there are people complaining that your colleagues are impossible to get hold of and never answer their phones then pass on the complaint to management. I’d be very interested in hearing that some of my staff are ignoring their phones and would have a talk with them to see if there’s a serious underlying issue.

    As an aside in my last job – tier 3 support – I didn’t have a phone at all. Any communication with me was either via the call queue system or email. But that was the kind of job where I could work on very complex issues for days in silence if need be.

    Reply ↓
  31. Water Everywhere*

    Inform your/their manager of this issue AND start directing customers to contact coworkers’ manager when they cannot reach your coworkers. Sometimes you need to make the problem very visible to management to get a solution.

    Reply ↓
    1. Liz*

      Agreed – it’s time for OP to start looping in management, either by copying them when sending the customer’s info, or just with a quick email to say “Customer A called about X because she couldn’t reach $coworker. I provided the information I had, but could you please call them back, as $coworker has not been responsive?”

      Reply ↓
    2. Persephone Mulberry*

      yeah, I would not be contacting my coworkers (even with management in copy) to pass on messages.

      caller: I need help with XYZ.
      me: I’m sorry, I can’t help you with that, you need to speak to Jane.
      caller: Jane doesn’t answer her phone or return voicemails.
      me: gosh, I’m sorry to hear that. I would try reaching out to Mark, Jane’s manager. Do you need his number?

      Reply ↓
  32. JP*

    This brings up a memory of my sister and I as kids in the 80s / 90s. She had terrible anxiety about speaking to people on the phone. I did, too, honestly, but if she ever wanted to get a pizza delivered she would force me to call in the order, even though she’s six years older than I am.

    I mean, I get it still. Every time my phone rings or I get a Teams call my stomach clenches. But it’s part of the gig.

    Reply ↓
    1. Lacey*

      I can relate so much to this. I don’t enjoy calls with my coworkers, but there’s something about contacting a business that is 10,000 times worse. I don’t know why. It just is.

      Reply ↓
  33. Incomplete Marshmallow*

    I hate phones, but will still answer mine, although I do use both my personal and work voicemail greetings to ask people to text or email me instead of leaving a voicemail if I dont answer. Voicemail is the true evil: people leave rambly multi-minute messages that I could read in 10 seconds if they had just sent a text, and invariably I have to listen to the stupid things multiple times because they also rush through the actual salient info like the callback number or their name and company affiliation.

    Reply ↓
  34. Lacey*

    I grew up with the phone as the only option and so did most people my age (early 40s).
    But I have always hated phone calls and hating them is a defining feature of my generation, so I can’t agree there. I was so relieved when texting became affordable.

    But.

    Even though phone calls are by far the most stressful form of communication to me, I can’t imagine refusing a call from a coworker or client.

    It’s not a large part of my job anymore. We mostly communicate through ticket management systems, but every now and again a coworker will need to get on the phone to communicate clearly.

    And it’s kinda dumb, because we have literally the same conversation on the phone that we just had via email. But that’s what it takes to communicate with them so… it’s part of the job.

    Reply ↓
  37. Ann O'Nemity*

    Do you have a voice app? We’ve found that our phone-averse staff is more likely to answer a call coming in through Cisco Jabber on their computer versus picking up the ringing phone on their desk. Customers don’t know the difference.

    Reply ↓
  38. Bad Janet*

    As someone who doesn’t like answering phone calls, I still think these coworkers are being ridiculous! I tend to let calls go to voicemail so I can hear what the person wants help with and make sure I have the answer ready before I call them back but I always call them back! If they want to screen calls and listen to the voicemails first, I think that’s fine (if it’s not a call heavy job; I maybe get one external call a week). Not even responding to voicemails to at least show they’re communicating and working with customers is bad service.

    Definitely loop in your boss, OP. Tell them how much of your time this is taking away from your abilities.

    Reply ↓
  39. HigherEd Boundaries*

    I work at a college, so phone calls are just part of the job (whether it’s faculty, parents, or a student). I supervise three student employees, who will cover our front desk (and phones) when we need them to. Because of this, part of their onboarding includes practicing on the phones, where I’ll call the office from my cell phone, pretend to be a student or parent and they handle the call. Afterwards, we’ll discuss what went well, and what needs improvement. Over time, they become more comfortable with using phones and eventually help with our cold-calling check-in campaign for a certain student population.

    Almost every time I’ve trained a student this way, at some point they talk about having to answer phones at their internship and how they’re the only one who is prepared to answer phone calls. It’s a skill that needs to be taught nowadays I guess.

    Reply ↓
    1. Rogue Slime Mold*

      I appreciate that you provide training on this. People get less practice on this than they did last century, when phones were the “faster than a written letter” option.

      In her early 20s my daughter routinely checked with me about where to put the stamp on the envelope, because mailing a letter with postage was something she did so rarely that she didn’t remember. All of the tasks you do that are just automatic, you learned through repetition and practice. (So: Don’t look down on people who need training in the thing that is no longer routine; Don’t try to cast your phone-answering, letter-stamping co-workers as magical beings endowed with gifts you cannot aspire to claim and so they should do those tasks for you.)

      Reply ↓
  40. Butterfly Counter*

    Ugh. You want phone anxiety? How about in the mid 90s, I kept getting calls from a boy who liked me and who I did NOT like back, but felt I needed the perfect excuse not to talk to him. So, basically, I talked to this boy for a few hours over a week or two until I screwed up the courage to tell him to buzz off.

    Then, there was the boy I DID like, but we were having relationship issues and he was fundamentally not good on the phone. So there were hours of that in my mid-teens.

    Then, I worked in a hospital where everything was done via phone and people’s lives were literally at risk in some phone calls. Pressure!

    Back in my day, we actually had really uncomfortable calls that you just lived through. Talking to someone for 5 minutes to figure out what their needs are when it’s my job to fill those needs… *shakes head*

    I’ll return to being old, now.

    Reply ↓
    1. Seashell*

      In the days of landlines and no/rare cell phones, “My mom told me I have to get off the phone” was a perfect excuse.

      I hated making calls to people I didn’t know, because I was sure I was going to sound like a bumbling mess, but I forced myself to do so. I have a Gen Z son with a similar personality and I have tried to do the forcing with him too, even with something petty like calling a store to check if they’re open.

      Reply ↓
  41. mreasy*

    I don’t like answering phone calls, either. I also don’t like answering emails, or meetings, or, frankly, getting up in the morning. But because it is my job, I do not only one but all of these things regularly. It’s how jobs work?

    Reply ↓
  42. Strive to Excel*

    When I first started office work, it was in an office where they’d made the call to route all calls through Teams. It was rare anyone under the senior manager got only a phone call anyways, since we usually needed to have clients share documents. That was fine & our system allowed it, but it meant I was more unprepared for my current position which still has a classic office phone system with various forward/hold/conference line options. A lot of the solution was me sitting down with an amiable colleague to figure out what all the button options do.

    This is less relevant to situations where people object to taking phone calls at all, no matter on which device. But if anyone’s dealing with new employees or interns intimidated by the phones, consider having a quick 5-minute training built in to make sure they know how to use the model of phone they’ve got.

    Reply ↓
    1. Bruce*

      Thanks for the perspective, we elders need that sometimes! For all the complaints about Teams I’m actually finding it pretty useful… once I know someone is reaching out. Sometimes I’ll get a message on Teams chat and not even notice it until the end of the day… I check my email all the time but I have to train myself to be more careful to check Teams.

      Reply ↓
  43. The Petson from the Resume*

    Tell your and their manager EVERY TIME it happens. Customer called me because coworker is ignoring all her calls and voice mails.

    Also give out your coworkers’ manager number for the customer to call to get action. Don’t take action gir your coworker.

    Reply ↓
    1. The Petson from the Resume*

      I had to type fast because the web page reloaded and deleted my first more articulate and spellchecked post.

      Reply ↓
    2. Generic Name*

      Agreed. Customers are calling you because it’s the path of least resistance. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in over 20 years of working it’s stop doing other people’s jobs for them. Assuming your company is functional, it’s not like a group project in school where everyone passes or fails together regardless of who put in effort. In functional companies, people not pulling their weight are held accountable. You are covering up your coworker’s problems.

      Reply ↓
  44. Elizabeth West*

    We were taught how to answer calls as children — there was no texting or email. I think everyone should still do this. I get that it’s weird if you aren’t used to it, but phone calls are a very easy thing to practice.

    There is no phone at my job. It’s all Teams. Same with Exjob. TechJob did have phones, but I’m sure they don’t now. Clients don’t call me, but coworkers do it all the time. I don’t mind unless they don’t ping me first — sometimes I’m in the middle of something, and if we’re talking about a deliverable, I want it in writing.

    Also, texting can get hard for me thanks to dyspraxia. I always want to yell at people, YOUR CELL IS ALSO A PHONE. Unless it’s very brief, pick it up and call me, dag nab it!

    Reply ↓
  45. Tom R*

    Don’t get me wrong, I try to avoid talking on the phone as much as possible, especially when it’s a cold call but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. I usually try to schedule calls with clients as much as possible so I can be ready. In my work I always have infinity-billion different things on the go so if something is discussed on the phone when I am not in a position to take notes I will probably forget half (or more) of what was said. In terms of the OP’s question, I agree with Alison that you need to talk to your boss because it’s not OK for you to be picking up the slack for people who don’t do a part of their jobs.

    Reply ↓
  46. Bruce*

    In my team people usually message before calling out of the blue, but not always. And we don’t work with external customers. To have external customers and refuse to answer calls seems like a recipe for failure.

    Reply ↓
  47. Ms. Whatsit*

    I think many people get nervous about phone calls, but the vast majority can get past it. My mom didn’t like them; she made them, and sometimes she made me make them. It’s a skill like anything else and can be practiced and learned. If someone isn’t able to take a call right then, that’s fine, and that’s ok also to collect one’s thoughts before picking up or returning a call. But this is pretty egregious and reflects poorly on the company.

    These folks must do really good work and/or provide a really vital service to not have lost customers over it. I’m so sympathetic to the LW, because this is wild.

    Reply ↓
  48. CTT*

    I’m finding the responses of how people do or do not use phones so fascinating! I’m a transactional attorney and could not do my job without phone calls (negotiating contracts via email would take forever, and a lot of clients prefer calls and I would lose them if I did email only), but am interested in the people who do really technical work that can’t be easily discussed by phone or don’t have that many external people they communicate with. I think a blanket statement on “no one uses the phone, it’s outdated” is incorrect, but also this has been helpful for reframing for me that it’s not a universal use for everyone.

    Reply ↓
  49. Not your typical admin*

    I don’t think there’s anyone who loves making phone calls, but there’s times you just have to do it. And I disagree that text/email is always the easiest way to communicate. Most of the time, absolutely. But when there’s a problem that requires a lot of back and forth I’d much rather have a quick phone call than go back and forth via email or text.

    Reply ↓
    1. Momma Bear*

      Not just that but also tone. It’s really easy for remote workers to not read each other as well as people who are in the office daily. Sometimes the way to end a conflict or confusion is to have a direct conversation with someone. I can say the same thing I type, but if they hear me they may understand that I’m not angry, just confused. That kind of thing. Video is great, but not always available. With remote work it’s really important to find solid ways to collaborate.

      Reply ↓
  50. Bunny Girl*

    Ugh. I had this problem at a previous job and it was really frustrating, so I totally understand the frustration LW. What I started doing, and this won’t win you any friends but might save your sanity, is that I just started refusing to help. If I got a call from another coworker’s client, I would forward the phone right over to them. If the person complained that they never answered their call, I would apologize, say I couldn’t help them, but would follow up. Then I would send them to VM, email the person, and let them deal with it. If it was the 2nd time with the same client, that email would be copied to our boss. I sympathize because I also hate talking on the phone, but that doesn’t make it right to dump everything on the one person willing to do their job.

    Reply ↓
      1. Bunny Girl*

        Oh shoot I misread that. I think then just giving them the number and telling them that’s who they need to call is probably the best. Either way, I’d stop covering for my coworkers.

        Reply ↓
  51. Philosophia*

    In my first office job many decades ago, I was responsible not only for receiving calls—long before caller ID, so one never knew who was on the other end of the line—but also for making calls to strangers. Yes, it provoked anxiety at first. I did it anyway, because I had to in order to keep my job. The anxiety receded; in fact, I developed a fair amount of skill, and this learned skill has stood me in good stead ever since.

    The conclusion is left as an exercise for the student.

    Reply ↓
    1. Honeybadger*

      I’m with you. I’ve always had anxiety about making and receiving calls from people I didn’t know but years of practice has made it so I can do it in a work setting. I still have the anxiety and I still don’t like it but I’m pretty good at it. I do heavily screen personal calls, having a spam blocker engaged and not answering private numbers or numbers I don’t recognize.

      Reply ↓
    2. iglwif*

      I had to do this in my early office jobs, too.

      It did not make my existing phone anxiety better; in fact, it made it significantly worse. (Possibly because some of the people I had to call were so hostile, for no good reason — I wasn’t asking them for money or votes or anything!)

      So I think this is perhaps a YMMV thing.

      Reply ↓
  52. Mindi*

    It is me. I am them. In my last role, at some point I basically just stopped answering my desk phone. Well, more accurately, I stopped checking voicemail. If someone needed me desperately enough, they could (and would) call my cell. Looking back, I think remembering all the prompts in the voice mail system and remembering my passcode were just too much for my executive dysfunction.

    Reply ↓
    2. cncx*

      I think I hate voice mail more than phone calls. I can accept that sometimes the back and forth of a phone call is more efficient but there is no planet where me listening to someone’s five minute podcast is more efficient than them just using their words and writing. It is quicker for the talker to talk and slower for the person who has to listen to it.

      Reply ↓
  53. DidIRollMyEyesOutLoud*

    I h ave nothing nice or empathetic or productive to say about OP’s coworkers, so I’ll just leave it at that…

    Reply ↓
  54. AnnoyedInWonderland*

    I empathize with your coworkers. I had a job years ago where one of my responsibilities was following up on past-due AR…in other words, collections. My anxiety was so terrible it often drove me to tears, and I would procrastinate making the calls until it became so overwhelming that I ended up ignoring that part of my job entirely and hoped no one would notice.

    Yes, I got fired. Rightfully so. And then I eventually found a job that didn’t require so many phone tasks (at least not the kind that involve hounding people to pay their bills). Your coworkers can do the same.

    Reply ↓
    1. iglwif*

      It takes a particular kind of person to be good at collections work, IME. Most people find it excruciating and don’t want to do it.

      Reply ↓
  55. Momma Bear*

    I agree with time to talk to the boss, and come with receipts about how this impacts not only LW’s day but the customer when they can’t get the help they need timely. Customers who are not able to get help will stop coming back and tell others about their negative experience. It’s nice to not have to answer the phone but it doesn’t sound like this is a zero phone job. These coworkers need to figure out how to deal with a phone call that is part of their job. If they have anxiety, that’s something to address, not avoid forever. If it’s a matter of practice, then boss can do a training in how the want people to answer the company calls. I was a receptionist for many years and there’s often a standard greeting, which may help the initial “what do I say now?” feeling. It’s also egregious, IMO, that they don’t respond to voicemails. That is….really not great. And very unprofessional.

    I also have coworkers who pick up the phone vs text or email. I’d love to be an antisocial little troll some days, but that’s not what I get paid for. Pick up the phone.

    Reply ↓
  56. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

    I think it really matters whether the company provides phones or other tech for remote staff to take phone calls. If folks are being required to use personal cell phones to take calls from customers, that’s a much bigger ask than being asked to use a business resource to take these calls. But if the business is providing the tech, this seems like a pretty basic job requirement.

    I was in a customer service role once where I was required to use my personal phone. A few customers got creepy AF once they had my phone number; others just relentlessly tried to contact me outside of work hours. So yeah, I stopped answering (and got out of that job as fast as I could).

    Reply ↓
    1. Roland*

      I don’t even think that would excuse it tbh. Incoming calls tend to be free, and many people have unlimited plans anyway. And even if someone does have some sort of plan that somehow limits minutes, the solution isn’t “don’t use the phone”, it’s “talk to your employer and figure out if you need a company phone and/or to work from the office with a landline”. After all, I am expected to use my company laptop at home even though my employer doesn’t pay for my electricity.

      Reply ↓
  57. Not Jane*

    I hate phone calls.

    I still answer my phone, because that’s why I have a phone, and it’s part of my job. It’s not spelled out in my job description, but it’s a form of communication my employer uses. They didn’t provide me with a phone just to decorate my desk.

    Reply ↓
  58. Momma Bear*

    I don’t see my original comment but I am also team Talk To the Boss and Bring Receipts. Lay out for the boss the impact not only on LW’s time and productivity but the frustration of customers. Don’t just say some. Say, “This week we had five calls for John and three for Sally. They all said they’d left voicemails that went unanswered for x days.”

    If it’s your job to answer the phone, then answer the phone. It’s really unprofessional not to, or not to respond to voicemails.

    Reply ↓
  59. Elbe*

    I find it odd to have this level of anxiety over a phone call, but what is the real issue here is that so many of the LW’s coworkers are basically saying “I don’t like this aspect of my job, so I’m just not going to do it.”

    That’s an absolutely bonkers attitude to have. Almost all jobs have parts that are uncomfortable or undesirable – that’s why they have to pay people to do jobs.

    It’s such a bad sign that so many people at the LW’s office are reaching the conclusion that basic job tasks are optional.

    Reply ↓
    1. iglwif*

      See, I can 100% understand the anxiety and the desire to communicate by means other than “random unplanned phone call from unknown person” — but it is still not okay to not answer calls from your customers!

      If you are not willing or able to perform this extremely important function, you need to not be working in a job where people need to call you.

      Reply ↓
      1. Elbe*

        Agreed. It’s not uncommon at all for a job to not be a good fit for a particular person.

        If a person is uncomfortable with public speaking – and they don’t want to learn to be more comfortable – they need to find a job that doesn’t involve public speaking. Lots of introverted people reject career paths that would require significant interactions with customers and coworkers. When it comes to matters of preference, every person needs to find a job that is the right fit for them.

        It’s very strange that all of the LW’s coworkers think that they can just opt out when they don’t love an aspect of their job.

        Reply ↓
        1. Pescadero*

          “It’s very strange that all of the LW’s coworkers think that they can just opt out when they don’t love an aspect of their job.”

          Is it though? They appear to be succeeding at doing it.

          Reply ↓
  60. Honeybadger*

    All of my calls, both internal and external route through Teams. I do have a direct line number but I’m not in a role that would have external customers calling me so I will ignore them as they are usually scams, misdials, or marketing calls. My role is strictly internal customers and I will answer those but we do have a culture of not just cold calling someone but pinging them first and checking to see if we are available for a call. My direct team has my mobile number but primarily we use Teams calls which route to my mobile via the app. The only time they’d use my actual mobile number to contact me is the rare instance when I’m OOF and something urgent requires my attention. When my job did require that I speak to external customers, I answered every call whether I wanted to talk on the phone or not. It’s a job requirement. If I were in that role currently, WFH or not, I’d be required to answer and I would.

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    1. Purple stapler*

      I get those at work all the time. I tell them to take us off their list and never call again. Then hang up.

      Reply ↓
  62. Overthinking It*

    Gack! Emailing people to schedule a Zoom! Why not ask them to schedule a PHONE CALL. Zoom/WhatsApp technology can be SO fraught. Frankly, if the only option offered to me to get my problems solved was a Zoom (or writing everything out in emails) I would absolutely be looking for another firm to do business with.

    Zoom is useful for some things, but it seems like we spend a third of every zoom meeting dealing with technical issues.

    That being said, I remember being young (back in the 90s) and not very comfortable talking on the phone, especially people I hadn’t met. Ya know what? I got over it. Your coworkers have some growing up to do, and no one is making them do it. (Unless customer service and teamwork are a really inconsequential part of their jobs, sounds like they are pretty incompetent, generally, with losing emails too. Smells like incompetent management. Better make plans to move on. . .

    Reply ↓
    1. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

      My mother, in her 90s, would much rather talk over zoom than on a voice call, because she’s hard of hearing. It helps if she can see the other person’s face, for both lip-reading and facial expressions.

      We often spend a few minutes sorting out tech stuff at the beginning of a zoom call, but that’s a few minutes of tech nonsense and then a real conversation, instead of 20 minutes of “what?” and “please repeat that, slowly.”

      Reply ↓
  63. Mad Scientist*

    I was very surprised and low-key thrilled when I recently started a new job and discovered that I don’t have a work phone number at all! I can still get Teams calls, but only internally, and it rarely happens anyway. I used to hate getting random unexpected external calls, but I would still answer them because it was part of my job, so I don’t really have sympathy for LW’s coworkers here.

    Reply ↓
  64. Nebula*

    We don’t use the phone at all at work anymore – I started my job last year and I don’t even have a phone number assigned – but apparently no one has thought to update the handbook which says you *must* speak to your supervisor over the phone to report that you’re sick. You are supposedly not allowed to email or text them, you theoretically *have* to speak to them. Obviously this is not enforced – I do not have my supervisor’s number, so I just email her when I’m sick – but I do wonder whether anyone is going to update that ever.

    Anyway, whether people use phones generally in 2025 is irrelevant to the fact that the LW’s coworkers aren’t doing their jobs. The fact that their customers are calling LW because so-and-so never replies is ridiculous. Stop covering for them, LW, you shouldn’t do their jobs for them, regardless of whether it’s normal or not to use the phone.

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  65. Jennifer Strange*

    So I agree completely that this is unfair to the LW and that they need to rope in the boss. That said, I do have two questions:

    1) Are you all being expected to use your personal phones for this? I had to use my personal phone when we went WFH during the pandemic. We had a system where I could call my business phone and get any voicemails, but if I wanted/needed to return the call I was just using my phone, which suddenly gave people access to me I didn’t want them to have. If the company expects phone access I’d have them set up work-only phone numbers for staff.

    2) Are the customers actually leaving voicemails, or are they expecting the person to just see a missed call and call back the number? I’ve had plenty of customers call my phone and not leave a message for me, seemingly with the expectation that I’d just call the number back. In my case I had a database where I could look up the phone number and see if it was actually tied to a customer, but if I didn’t there’s no way I’m returning a call from an unknown number. Too many spam calls going around these days.

    Reply ↓
  66. Rebecca*

    Your coworkers are being ridiculous, but I don’t think you can or have to convince them why phone calls are better than email. Your boss can and should require them to do a part of their job – they don’t have to agree it’s better to do it.

    I am in the category of ‘self employed person who hates talking on the phone and gets to make the decisions’ and I limit that as my communication method as much as possible, because you couldn’t convince me that it’s better or more efficient. After every phone call I still end up having to send an email with the notes I took during the phone call so we have a written record of what what discussed and decided – my emails last forever and my inbox has a search function. Clients who call me on the phone without telling me what the call is about ahead of time still end up having to wait for an email while I look up and then type up whatever they were asking me for. I waste so much time on the phone with clients who are chatty, don’t know what they want or need, or who end up just asking me to send them an email with all their options at the end of the call anyway. I have one client who really prefers talking on the phone to email or texting, and I have the same conversation with her every two weeks for an hour because she doesn’t remember what we talked about. That phone call is about emotional reassurance and not about efficiency or effective communication at all.

    A boss could require me to use it as a method of communication, but a coworker couldn’t convince me that it was the most efficient choice.

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  67. Aggretsuko*

    I hate phones because I’ve been so scrutinized and nitpicked over my voice and everything I said being “wrong” that I’m afraid to speak on them now.

    That said, you’re not allowed to not answer a phone at work, period.

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  68. HonorBox*

    This would really get to me. And I think it is well past the time to talk to your boss. There are a couple of things to consider, which @Jennifer Strange pointed out above, but no matter what, you shouldn’t have to be the one to manage all the calls because no one else will answer.

    Let the boss know that people aren’t answering or responding to messages. And then yes, cc them when you send emails to your colleagues. Every single time.

    I can assume that you’ll hear that coworkers are getting spam calls and don’t want to answer. Or that people aren’t leaving messages. But if any customer/client is leaving a message, even if it is one call for every 6 that fit into the two other categories, your coworkers are not doing their jobs effectively. And what does that mean to productivity and revenue?

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  69. Somehow I Manage*

    I literally just received a call on my office phone that was a junk call. And I probably receive a dozen of them on my office and cell phones combined every day. I’ve listed both numbers on the do not call registry, but that’s not helped. And yet, I still answer my phone because it is something that is expected of me. Am I annoyed when it is not a legitimate call? Yes. But you know what is more annoying?
    *Calling, as a customer, and not being able to talk to someone.
    *Leaving a message and not receiving a return call.
    *Having to make multiple calls just to talk to a human, and still not hearing back from the person you need to talk to.
    *Calling someone and their VM is full because they never check or delete messages.
    *Trying to do business with someone who doesn’t seem to care that you want to do business with them.

    Maybe these coworkers don’t LOVE talking on the phone. Maybe because some of them are remote they don’t like using their cell phones. But if they’re interested in being employed, they need to answer the phone and/or return messages.

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  70. Alice*

    It annoys me when I call colleagues on their work telephone — which they can have forwarded to their computer or phone, wherever they are — RIGHT AFTER they sent me an email which deserves some synchronous discussion because their question is ambiguous, and they don’t pick up. But, hey, people have meetings, people have bodies that take them away from their computer, fine.

    But when the same people who don’t pick up (OR return) phone calls are ALSO people who complain that we don’t have enough “hallway conversations” because of WFH, or I’m not enough of a “team player” because I don’t eat lunch in the breakroom, it drives me NUTS.

    Reply ↓
  71. Spicy Tuna*

    I am Gen X and left my full time job about 10 years ago. For the last 10 years, I have been working for Old Job as a contractor. I had a very niche role and reported directly the CFO. I found that while I was working there and as a contractor, the younger employees would NEVER answer the phone. While we were still in the office, the CFO would let me use her phone to call people because despite the hatred of the phone, people will pick up if the CFO is calling! Post covid, if I needed a response from someone, she would offer to call them and conference me in.

    Effective, but completely ridiculous!

    Reply ↓
      2. Rebecca*

        It’s endemic now, rather than pandemic. Which means it’s just part of the ecosystem of illnesses we have to live with, as opposed to the emergency situation when it was pandemic and we had no information, control, or treatments/vaccines.

        That doesn’t mean we don’t take it seriously, but it does mean that the way were were living when it was pandemic is unsustainable, and referring to that as a specific time with specific behaviours has changed.

        Some people have to be more careful than others because of this illness. That’s true for a great many illnesses, unfortunately.

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  72. FunkyMunky*

    I don’t answer my phone or return calls. Schedule a call with me or email me first. I used to have to support reception calls when in the office and I don’t want to talk on the phone anymore — 99% of the time it’s a call that could be an email. Customers adapt!

    Reply ↓
    1. TGIF*

      Nah they won’t. I worked in a call center and 99 percent of people will call with some stupid thing they could have done on their own or online. But NOOOOO we have to call and get someone else to do it for them.

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      1. FunkyMunky*

        I work in data management. All my contacts email first and those who call – if it’s important enough they’ll email. We have people internally who still have troubles with “oh I’m just gonna quickly call and talk with so and so”, same people who would barrage into person’s office without asking if they are busy with something right now. At the end of the day — just because *you* are free doesn’t mean the other person is. WFH has re-aligned things for me! And before anyone asks, I’m the highest performer on my team and consistently get excellent appraisals

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  73. Michelle*

    This is an issue in my office, too. I will tell them the person’s DID and the DID for their manager, as well as emails for both. I used to try to help, but it’s not fair that I’m doing my job and their job.

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  74. TGIF*

    I work from home, and I have desk phone, it’s a voip phone with a number that goes with another state, but rings in my house. I am rarely on it but I do answer it if it rings, and I have been known to call people occasionally. I would rather email if at all possible but I still do call when needed.

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  75. ElliottRook*

    Can’t wait until society goes cashless and ends voice calling entirely. Coworkers are totally right, phone calls are *always* disruptive productivity murderers, and need to go the way of the dodo.

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    1. Mad Scientist*

      Well, going fully cashless could negatively impact lower income folks, especially homeless folks. But I understand that it’s convenient for a lot of people.

      Reply ↓
  76. Former Retail Lifer*

    Not to generalize everyone, but there is some weird phone etiquette among may of the youngest adults these days. Tons of people don’t have their voicemail set up. If they do, it’s probably always full. Even if it’s not, instead of checking their voicemail to see who called and what they wanted, they just see a missed call and blindly call the number back, stating, “I got a missed call from this number.” I can’t speak for how their professional norms are, but I have to call lots of people for work (people who live in and are interested in the apartment buildings I manage) and this is so often how it goes with people in their 20s. Using a phone as a phone is just not a thing to them?

    Reply ↓
    1. Former Retail Lifer*

      To be clear, a phone call is my least favorite method of communication, but sometimes it’s what works best.

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    2. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      In my private life, I keep my voicemail not setup. If you call my number and I don’t answer, I’m not going to provide any hints as to my identity. Most of the cold calls I receive are scams, so I don’t want or feel the need to give them any hints to work with.

      In my previous job, I was internal-only. Instead of a scam, it would likely be a customer that Sales gave my contact info to so they could bypass Customer Service and Quality Assurance, botching our process and bypassing our safeguards, so again, I intentionally wanted my voicemail to appear neglected if the caller didn’t know better.

      IMWO, it’s a sign of a defensive mindset, not weird.

      Reply ↓
      1. Former Retail Lifer*

        I sometimes have to call people about an emergency (Hey, your apartment flooded while you were out! Your car was broken into and the door was left wide open!). We don’t have a texting app and email is just the wrong method of delivery for that.

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  77. Kella*

    I’m going to share a position I’m not seeing in the comments much: Your coworkers don’t have a problem with phones, they have a problem doing their job.

    There are certainly contexts where phone calls are more efficient than email or more comfortable for the customer, so your coworkers unwillingness to do this at all is an issue. But your coworkers are also refusing to follow up on voicemails, even by email. They are also losing and misreading written communication. Which means, there just is not *any* reliable way to communicate with your coworkers, phone anxiety or no.

    OP, based on how you said you don’t know how to bring up the fact that your coworkers often lose or misread emails, which is a thing their manager should be handling, not you, I’m going to guess that you are frequently in the habit of catching the balls your coworkers have dropped, and covering for them, the way you are with continuing to take their phone calls. I agree with Alison that it’s time to go to your boss about it, and maybe ask if you can refer customers who are struggling to get a hold of someone *to* their boss, so that these problems stop getting covered up. Basically, allow the problems of their unreliability to be visible so that someone with the relevant responsibilities can see and address the problems.

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  78. SS*

    At least 8 times out of 10, when my direct reports ask me for advice on how to handle something … the answer is … CALL THE PERSON! I am not some boomer, I am 34 managing other 30-somethings and it’s infuriating! (Yes, I’ve named the pattern and am coaching them on it.)

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  79. K12 Ed*

    Today I had to call a parent and tell them to come get their kid because she was caught with a weapon and she is going to be arrested.

    Angry parent calls are just a part of my day.

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    1. A Book about Metals*

      As a parent, I can relate to not wanting to answer a call when you see it’s from the school :)

      Reply ↓
  80. HiddenT*

    I absolutely despise having to use a phone. One of the only perks about my current job is that I never have to talk to clients on the phone. But that’s how my current company is set up, and I’m always available via email (and make sure to respond to them). When I’ve had jobs that required me to use the phone, I did so. That’s just part of being an adult with a job.

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  81. WantonSeedStitch*

    For goodness sake. Talking on the phone can be uncomfortable for a lot of people. Many, if not most, of those people can become more comfortable with practice. For those who have anxiety-related issues, auditory processing issues, or other actual issues with how their brain works that make it impossible to get used to phone conversations, you should not be taking a job where one of the job functions requires answering a phone.

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  82. Anon attorney*

    gen X here who used to be a receptionist/switchboard operator back in the day, so I’m not phone averse as such but I don’t like taking calls unprepared. I screen, but I will return your call within an appropriate time frame because you are my client and you pay me to do that. this is not complicated.

    I find that younger entry level staff have to be told to use the phone. if I just say “contact X” they default to email or teams chat. I have to explain why sometimes phone is more appropriate. I think senior staff are doing entry level people a disservice by not training them in this skillset and encouraging them to develop confidence. I will happily coach you in how to do phone calls but I’m not going to accept that you just don’t feel like doing it. it’s a core skill for attorneys.

    saying that LW has a manager problem and nothing will change until they stop covering for this BS because nobody other than LW is suffering any inconvenience from it.

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  83. But not the Hippopotamus*

    If the manager is less than helpful, I would be tempted to do things like give the manager’s number to theses extra callers (“I can’t help you, but let me get you the number for someone who can…”). Or maybe enter IT tickets like, “customer left a message for Percival, but never heard back, so I’m sure there must be a problem with the voicemail.”

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  84. Raida*

    Every time it happens, make a note – especially where it’s THEIR JOB and you CAN’T HELP.

    In a 1:1 with your manager, bring up how much work it creates FOR YOU, during which you can’t do your actual job’s tasks, and how you feel so bad for the callers who need help you can’t provide.
    You are NOT tattling. You are bringing to their attention an issue where some staff just decided to not answer the phone BECAUSE it impacts you AND your team’s customers. It’s the manager’s job to decide if answering phones is part of their jobs or not.

    And ask the manager to give you clear direction on what to do when these calls come in. Do you take notes and email the other person? Do you take notes and email the manager so the other staff don’t think you are their secretary?

    Reply ↓

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