I get it. I didn't used to get it. Now I do.
I've never had a job where I needed to be available when I wasn't on the clock. It never made sense to me why I would need to be. What could I do from home anyway, I'd think to myself back when I was working in an arts administration office, I'll be back in the office on Monday morning and if it was really important they'd call me. And every once in a while my boss would call and I'd go to the office or do something time sensitive. I didn't have or need internet on my phone.
At the new (restaurant) office job, they gave me a blackberry. This blackberry is synced to the 5 email accounts I manage: my own, the 2 reservation email accounts and the 2 general questions accounts. I also get voicemails delivered into my email inbox. Awesome. Although the front of house managers deal with them during the weekend hours, I learned last night (saturday) at cocktail hour why I need to check the fucking blackberry, even though its supposedly my day off. The reason is- it's a restaurant! Weekends = busy time!
In my inbox was a time sensitive email request- someone wanted us to call her so she could buy someone else some appetizers as an apology for not being able to make it to the dinner. The recipient was to dine at 5. She emailed at 4. I checked the blackberry at 5:30. I immediately forwarded the request to the foh manager with a quick "I just read this. I'm out of the office thought you should take a look." I also bccd the PR director/chef's p.a. because they want to monitor all my emails to see if I'm up to par. I got a prompt response saying that the manager had spoken with the customer earlier- it must have been one of the million voicemails I haven't listened to yet.
I did absolutely nothing wrong. I was told foh monitors this stuff when I'm out of the office. It's not my responsibility to do this stuff over the weekend. But, this is so confusing to me. I didn't look bad for missing the email, did I? If so, really?
Question: If you have a work blackberry, how often do you have to check it over the weekend? I say every 3-4 hours should do. NYC Big Law Firm Quinn Emanuel has a once an hour and always before bed policy.
Readers, tell me what to do!
Hi....I have no idea how often to check blackberry-didn't realize you were syncing so many email accts. but if it is the job of the FOH to check messages while you are away-then I say you went above and beyond, yes?
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