Comic Strips

Send the email, then call me to say "hey I sent you an email that I really need you to read and respond to urgently, I'll let you go so you can focus while reading, talk later"

For one of my 3 jobs, I don't have regular work hours, I'm employed just 5 hours a week, on call, for IT support for a little non for profit.

My contract, my email signature, my numerous discussions with the team all state "if you require a response within the same business day, please phone me to alert me to the issue"

I check my email once a day, I don't have time to be checking it several times a day when I'm only paid for 5 hours work, I need to conserve those hours for maintenance and support I'm not about wasting anybody's time.

So if someone happens to email me after I've already checked my inbox for that day, I won't see it until tomorrow. Hence, phone me, I want to work, I just need a way to alert myself that work is available for me, a text message will also suffice.

I realise this is asking someone to change the way they operate to make my job easier. But the number of times I check my email at 1pm, and there's zero tickets, so I turn off my computer because I'm not going to sit and watch an empty inbox for my free time.

Then the next day I check my email and I have 20 emails all from the same person from about 3-5pm all saying "hey I have an issue" "hey following up this is kind of urgent" "hey, are you even checking your emails?"...no obviously I'm not, it would have saved you so much effort to send 1 text after 1 email as I requested than to send 20 emails, and I would have actually gotten the text in time.

Also half the time the issue needs to be fixed with a phone call anyway because it's something simple like "Microsoft Word is missing"... because the program was unpinned from the taskbar and the staff member just needs help remembering the start menu exists. Most of my support resolutions are the equivalent of describing the buttons on the TV remote to your grandmother over the phone. (lots of older, less tech literate folk working in NFP sector)