Remote worker stops answering his older coworker's calls after being phoned 5-6 times daily, including during flights and customer dinners

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Apr 23, 2026 1:45 PM EDT

Working remotely was supposed to be the arrangement that gave professionals their autonomy back, the ability to manage their own time, set their own pace, and not have someone hovering over their shoulder every thirty minutes. And then some people took that concept and decided it meant calling their colleague five times a day until the colleague's phone becomes a source of genuine dread.

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  • Stressed man on phone at desk with laptop, notebook, and paperwork in home office.
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    Man looking stressed while talking on a smartphone at a desk with a laptop and paperwork.

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • My coworker will not stop harrasing me via phone calls

    I'm in my early 40s (43/M) and just started a new job at a large corporation. The position is in tech sales and we all work remote from our homes. I was recruited by my
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  • now coworker who is 63/M. Since September he has been training me which involved us talking on the phone 6ish times a day.
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  • The thing is I have done this type of work for 20 years and I know most of the accounts since I have a history in the region. After
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  • a few months of training I started heading out more and more on my own. Yet this coworker keeps calling me 5-6 times a day. He
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  • calls me Friday close to 5pm and most of the time it's pointless conversations. He asks me the same question over and over.
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  • Smiling man talking on smartphone outdoors near green plants and flowers.
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    Man smiling while talking on a smartphone outdoors near leafy plants.

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  • I was boarding a flight while on the phone with him and he's calling me again 30 I'm later leaving me VM. After I land he calls me within 30 min of
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  • getting off the plan asking why Im not calling him back. He left me a VM on Saturday to go over projects that are not even mine. He signed me up to
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  • got a show in Chicago without checking with me and the company bought a $4k ticket in my name which I had to call them to
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  • rush a return on it. I am on vacation that week. I had a customer dinner I just get off the phone with him, he
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  • calls me 30 min later to see how the dinner was going as I am in there. (I did not take his call)
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  • Concerned man talking on smartphone outdoors near green plants and flowers.
    via ANGELA KHORO

    Man looking concerned while talking on a smartphone outdoors near leafy plants.

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • Six calls a day might have made sense during training. It stopped making sense the moment the training ended, and it definitely stopped making sense the moment a 20-year industry veteran with existing relationships in the region started being called mid-flight, mid-dinner, and mid-jury duty. There is no sales emergency urgent enough to require a voicemail asking why someone has not called back yet after sitting in a courtroom all day. That is not professional diligence, that is separation anxiety wearing a work badge.

  • The final straw was I had Jury Duty a few days this week. You are not allowed to take calls while in the courtroom. He called me at 3:30 pm and I couldn't
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  • answer. He called me again at 6 pm and leaves a VM asking I'm out of Jury Duty why haven't I called him back yet.
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  • We have email, MS Teams Chat, text message etc. There are so many ways to get things done yet he feels offended if you do not take his calls whenever he reaches out.
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  • The trade show registration is the detail that really captures what is happening here. Booking a four thousand dollar ticket in a colleague's name, for a week that colleague had already marked as vacation, without a single conversation beforehand, is not an oversight. It is someone who has stopped processing other people as independent adults with their own schedules and started treating them as an extension of their own workday. The assumption embedded in that move is that his priorities are automatically shared priorities, that his calendar is the only calendar that matters, and that a quick call to sort out the return is a perfectly reasonable inconvenience to create for someone else.

  • I stopped taking his calls since that VM. I'm going to be with him all week at a trade show next week and not sure if I need to talk to
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  • The fact that none of the other salespeople are getting this treatment is the most clarifying piece of information in the whole story. This is not how he operates generally, it is specifically how he operates with this one person, which means something about this dynamic feels personal to him. Maybe he recruited the guy and now feels ownership over him. Maybe he is lonely and found someone willing to pick up the phone. Either way, a colleague is not a support system, and picking up the phone six times a day should not be a condition of employment.

  • our boss about him at this point. He does not seem to be harassing any of the other sales guys at all. I seem to be the only one getting this treatment.
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  • Necessary_Baker_7458 Don't you have sone sort of company policy regarding this sort of thing? Let your hr know.
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  • I had the same issue with our micromanager b'ch and blocked her. She's now giving me the i hate you treatment but she initiated it with tons of texts and phone calls. I am usually careful
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  • who i give my number too but she just obtained it from the phone list of employees. How she got it i don't know. Management shouldn't of let her have access to ro it.
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  • Which Witch9402 You need to get ahead of it. Go to your boss. "Hey boss I wanted to get your input. - I calls me a lot during the week. If I cannot answer he leaves VMs then calls a short time later asking why I'm not answering. <insert
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  • plane/travel/jury duty examples>. He calls at night and on weekends. He signed me up for that show without checking with me or looking at my calendar when I was on vacation and almost cost the company a lot of money.
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  • Is there an issue with my performance or how I'm handling my job duties? I would like your guidance on how whether this is normal behavior or if you are
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  • expecting something else from me. The constant checking in and calls after hours about projects I'm not working on needs to stop."
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  • Then see what manager says. Maybe this dude is paranoid about work or he's getting ready to retire and wants to leave things "perfectly run" like he think he does, or he's
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  • unconsciously hovering for whatever reason. But you want to bring it to management's attention so they can rein him in.
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  • MrStormChaser Je is Chrt, why haven't you went to management or HR? You've been there 7 months with 20 years of field experience. I think you'll be ok getting this handled...
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  • Morbid 187 Oh h I no. As someone that hates being on the phone, this is a straight up nightmare scenario
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management workplace discussion employment issues boss workplace-stories hr coworkers colleague
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