Ring Ring

How much time is reasonable to spend on personal phone calls at work?

Really...

My boss is almost always on the phone-personal not business (we can tell the difference because she mostly speaks Spanish for personal, and English for business,) and my officemate is on the phone almost constantly. And not about work stuff...but the phone is glued to his ear. If it's not his desk phone, it's his cell phone.

I realize that everyone has personal lives...and that it means phone calls happen sometimes. But socializing on the phone at work and not doing work doesn't fly with me. I do non-work stuff sometimes at work (lj is a perfect example) but I also spend most of my phone time at work...doing work.

So where's the line?

Sometimes the right thing is hard to do

Especially if you're not sure you did the right thing.

I have little patience for homophobia. I can laugh it off when I get called a dyke, but that's about where it ends. But that's sort of it. And it doesn't matter if it's outright or subtle or unconscious, I don't like it.

It's also important to understand that my department at work is more than 1/2 queer.

So the other day, the administrative assistant (a kid who works here part time and is in school part time) was on the phone with a friend of his and said "Oh my god, that's so gay!" about something. Which makes my skin crawl. I heard it, while I was sitting at my desk. So I didn't do anything, or say anything. But I did say something to his boss (who's also my department director, who said he'd say something, or left it up to me to say something. I said to A. that if I'd confronted it at the time, it would have been fine with me, but I didn't, so I'd prefer if he said something.

As I saw it my options were kind of limited. That kind of behavior is inappropriate in general, but here, in such an open and friendly environment it hurt even more than it usually does.

Bottom line, I don't want to make the guy feel bad-I'm sure it wasn't intentional, and I'm sure he wasn't thinking it was bad when he said it. Which is the point. It's something that's so often said without thinking. But he needs to know that he shouldn't be saying things like that. Especially not here.

Curious Mints

Altoids knows who their clientele is, I guess.