On Fri, 8 Aug 2003 20:36:41 -0400, BeckiBead wrote (in message ):
When I was a manager, my way of approaching the problem was to make sure that the complainant didn't end up as the target of revenge once I spoke to the offender. I would tell the complainant that it might look as if I'm not doing anything, but please know that I was going to observe the situation for a bit before taking action. Invariably, the person complaining would be relieved, because in that way, the offender wouldn't necessarily know who complained.
For a phone abuser, I'd probably look at the PBX records. Most corporate phone systems keep track of employee phone use, as do nearly all voice mail systems. If this person is truly spending a lot of time on personal calls, it will show up on the reports. If the friends are using the toll free number, so much the better: I'd be able to see the incoming phone numbers. (If we had a ghetto phone system that didn't provide reports, I'd nose around the work area, listening for calls which obviously weren't work related) In every instance, there turned out to be multiple offenders.
Then, I'd get _all_ my people together, and say that I have had complaints about misuse of personal call privileges, and that I'd be happy if I never had to hear about it again. This would invariably stop the people who weren't misusing the phone and keep them from making/receiving personal calls whatsoever. The real offenders would tend to go on their merry way.
Then I'd bring the offender(s) into my office, individually, and show them the portion of the phone records that represented their calls. Usually, they'd be shocked that (1) I had everything in writing and (2) How much time was really spent on the phone. I've had people who lost more than a whole day of work screwing around in the phone every week. (One guy was calling his family in India for over an hour a day on company time and the company phone bill!)
I'd explain that I didn't want them mis-using the phone, and would always give the person a chance to explain why there was so much phone time spent on personal business. I'd also make it clear that I don't want anyone taking their personal phone messages, because that would merely compound the problem. 99% of the time, that solved the problem. Only stupid people keep up bad behavior when they're confronted with incontrovertable evidence.
The remaining 1% of my people were stupid and thought I wouldn't keep after them. Those people got fired.
The reason I've told you all this is to tell you that there are ways the supervisor can handle it without confronting the person and saying "Someone ratted you out." You might want to suggest to the supervisor that running reports on people's use of the phone system is a Good Idea. Unless she's totally clueless, she'll know exactly what you mean.
Kathy N-V