Does anyone know if a employer can come by your home when they have tried calling you 2 to 6 x's and have not been able to reach you? My job requires i have a phone...i have never read anywhere or heard anywhere that it require i answer it though and i just do not want to be pested by work calls on my time off. I am feeling enough stress from my job and other things the way it is. So does anyone know if its really ok that they come by or would i have the right to tell them to not do so. I work midnights and they call me all day long interupting my sleep. Its beginning to annoy me!! Thanks in advance for your answers.

sugr,

I may be reading what I want into your post, but I would expect that you are entitled to turn the telephone off during those hours each day which are outside of your scheduled work shift.

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Eudaimonia

I don't feel i should have to turn off my phone..i just screen calls is all on my time off. I just can not turn the phone off you know in case of family emergency.

I think you might have a case for harassment if they are coming to your house on your day off. You'd have to check with your local laws to know for sure.

I'd try to diplomatically explain to your employer your desire to be left alone on your time off, as bringing an outside agency into it might bring your employment with this company to end. (Probably not directly, but a company that wants to get rid of an employee will find a way.)

My personal opinion is that it's a bunch of crap for them to come to your house when they can't reach you by phone.

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Yep, I agree with Aqua.

If your job doesn't require you to be "on call" then there's really no need for them to keep calling you at home on your days off. And to actually show up at your home? That's not right. Unless they have expressed that they were concerned about you since you didn't answer the phone, or if there was some sort of work emergency that they had to contact you about, there really isn't a need for them to come to your home.

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Confucius say, "He who masturbate into cash register come into money."

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No i am not on a on call basis at all. And i seriously doubt they are worried about me due to my not answering the phone. They know good and well i just dont want to be bothered on my time off.

You need to find a very tactful way to talk to either your boss or the human resources department about it sugr. It really does sound like a case of harassment.

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It takes a gutless mouse to play only when the cat's away.

No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever. ~~ Francois Mocuriac

Confucius say, "He who masturbate into cash register come into money."

An optimist looks at the glass and says it's half full. A pessimist looks at the glass and says it's half empty. A Cubs fan looks at the glass and says, "When's it gonna spill?"

Deus Impetitio Esuritori Nullus

1. Check your contract with your employer.

2. Confirm that these visits are sanctioned by management.

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Calm, quiet, smooth, devastating

The haunting echo I keep hearing here was "My job requires i have a phone..." Is phone communication a basic part of what you do or is notification involved as part of the job? Was there a written job description when you started. Do you know the purpose (other than to harass you) or nature of their repeated calls?

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I am pretty sure that if they need you to be answering calls on your time off then they need to be paying you an 'on call fee'. Otherwise, people who work regular hours could conceivably be called at midnight which, I'm pretty sure people would object to.

As for how to approach this, I suggest you do what I did when I was being treated unfairly with regard to my maternity rights and didn't want to rock the boat.

Simply send an e-mail to your HR department asking the question you've asked us here. Explain that you're concerned that these frequent interruptions to your sleep may have an adverse effect on your work performance as you do not feel properly rested.

This will result in two things:

1) You will know for definite what your rights are for future reference

2) When HR find out that your boss/colleagues are doing this, they will make sure it stops for fear of some kind of litigation (assuming, as I suspect, that it is unreasonable) without you having actually put in a complaint against anyone - you have simply asked a question. A lot of time, bosses break employment law simply because they are unaware of what the law is. This way, HR will give them a quick crash course and the behaviour should stop. If it doesn't, I think you're perfectly within your rights to put in a complaint as it's clearly malicious. The result will probably be your boss getting into trouble, not you.

I hope this helps.

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Is this a frequent matter or a one time incident?

In other words...were you scheduled to work but for some reason did not/could not/called off sick and they needed info for the person who was covering for you?

What was the nature of the calls and visit? Where they "just checking" to verify that you were indeed home and/or sick? I think we need more detail to determine what the recourse is.

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~Thomas Dewar~

Nature of calls was to to request that i work a extra shift..do a double shift for someone else that had called in..and we are required to find our own replacements when we call in sick like that and i always do find my own but seems no one ever calls me except management for that other person that has called in..thats another whole sore subject with me..i think it would only be fair we all have to find our own replacements and not make it where some dont have to and management find it for them. I already feel my work schedule is having a adverse effect on my sleep and my health...a normal week for me would be Saturday off ..Sunday 4pm to 12 pm ..Monday 6a to 2p and turn around and come right back in at midnight to 8am Tuesday and Tuesday midnight to 8am Wednesday and a Thursday 4p to 12a...now this changes quite often and i do work doubles on monday evenings/midnight and sometimes days on Thursdays instead of the evening shift. And other times they will completetly change me to all midnights for a week and 6 of them instead of 5.
I do think my whole sleep pattern is messed up for the rest of my life. I actually love the work i do so that is why i find it so hard to leave this job..its just the management that really i can not stand.
I have worked there for 17 yrs and not until just recently has things like this got bad. Kinda hard to leave a job after that long when u do love the work u do...but i do think about it sometimes. Anyway thank you all for your ideas and comments.

I work weird split shifts, too. I turn off my phone because most calls I get are stupid recorded messages from moving companies, etc. I can understand not wanting to turn off your phone but I could never do it. There are enough distractions when you're trying to sleep, when you *have* to get as much sleep possible in a short time frame.

Sometimes my boss would call about something the night before but she must have figured out that I'm not usually up at 08:00 a.m. and now emails me.

I've never heard of an employer coming to an employee's house. That's insane!

I would definitely take Aqua's advice and then move on to Lou's HR route if things aren't solved.

My boss recently asked me to work a couple of weekend graveyard shifts (notice I said asked) and I negotiated some concessions of my own and told her I'd see how it went because it is an insane schedule.

It sounds like your employer depends on you too much. Have you spoken to them about how the constant shift changes affect you?

Sounds to me like you ARE being taken advantage of...and mostly because you are one of the few who follows the rules. If the rule is to find your own replacement, and you do so, then there is no reason for management to harrass you by phone or make a personal appearance!

If you don't state your case to your immediate superior then you can't expect anything to change. If you do bring your concerns of infringing on your personal time and how difficult the shift changes are on your health and you get no satisfaction, or worse they make conditions even harder for you in retaliation, then you have to go higher up and talk to HR or even the owner of the company!

Get all your ducks in a row and take control of your working conditions. If you've been a model employee and your bosses take advantage of that dedication while dismissing other employee's slacking...you are setting yourself up as the jackass (meant literally and figuritively) who will carry the largest burden! Even a donkey will kick or stand it's ground when it doesn't like the burden put upon it.

Don't go in angry but DO go in and state your case! If they don't know what you are thinking and feeling then they'll keep loading you up till you break down!

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Minds are like parachutes. They only work when they are open.

~Thomas Dewar~

I am "on call" and thus have been provided with a company cell phone. This on call status is a condition of my employment and I am not paid any additional amount, but am entitled to bill the company if I am called upon to physically return to the office outside of my regular working hours.

If you are not classified as on call, and it is not a condition of your employment, you are not legally required to answer the phone. If you bring that up to them, they may make being on call a condition of your employment. At that time, you will either be required to acknowledge that and accept it, or disagree and risk being dismissed (if they wanna be spiteful). That having been said, you are probably in violation of the company policy for cell phone usage. It is, after all, company equipment and should not be used to conduct personal business any more than using a personal cell phone during company time is.

I have a pretty strict contract, and even I don't have any indication that management is entitled to come to my house!

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