How long is polite to ask for a call back?

[LovesMyDogs]

Background:  A friend of ours, Tabby, works at a small university within one department. This department is undergoing some schedule shuffles and staffing changes.  Due to these changes, everyone has been promised a job, but not necessarily the job they had. All hours will be different, and some people will be doing entirely different things. (Ex--moving from dining services to monitoring the fitness center, etc.)

In order to select who is doing what, the school is doing it based entirely on seniority. If there is a tie, then previous job reviews will be used to break the tie. 

People selected their top choices, and are now awaiting phone calls with offerings. 

According to Tabby, the bosses may not call a person until the previous person has responded in some way-resigning, selecting, passing until later, etc. 

The problem:   Yvonne is person 5 on the list.  She was called yesterday. She did not call back.  The bosses have tried her cell number, home number, work email and personal email-all of which were in her contact file.  Yvonne is well aware that this was going on, as she attended the meeting earlier in the week when this was discussed.  According to Tabby, Yvonne is well known for her antics like this-not answering phones, lying about days off, claiming she can't use email while checking her email, etc.   Yvonne stated at the meeting that she was going to be working her summer job and doesn't like to discuss university job while on summer break.


Persons 6-20 are now sitting, waiting to find out if and when and where they will have a job as soon as the university kicks back into fall semester. 

Big Boss called Tabby (number 2 on the list so already been called) to see if she had any idea on what is going on with Yvonne, and how long they should sit waiting for Yvonne to get back in touch.)   Big Boss called Tabby because Tabby's sister, Eve, is number 8 on the list. 

A few questions here-
1) How long is polite to wait for a call back before moving on?  At what point is the onus on Yvonne to get back in touch?
2) Is it rude of Yvonne to do this, knowing she is inconveniencing others?  or does she have the right to do this, simply because she can?
3) Would it be rude of Tabby to send Yvonne a facebook message, asking her to give Big Boss an answer?


**Let's please assume that Yvonne is sticking to her no university talk policy, and that there is no emergency or anything like that.  She has been on facebook in the past 48 hours, so this is a reasonable assumption.**

[Firecat]

I think they should try to contact Yvonne again, and give her a specific deadline by which she must respond. And if she doesn't respond by then, they should move on to the next person...and if there isn't a job left for Yvonne by the time she does respond, that's just too bad. (I don't know if union rules or university policy or whatever would allow that, though - that's just what I'd like to see happen.)

Yes, I do think that she is being very rude to the other people she is inconveniencing, including the people trying to coordinate the job shuffle.

No, I don't think a private Facebook message would be rude.

[Merry Mrs Martin]

  As a general rule I think everyone but doctors on call get a minimum 2 hours to call back when it's a expected call but not expected on a particular day/time.  By noonish the following day I think is plenty of time given the circumstances If it were up to at noon I'd call and email each contact and leave a deadline on each of 5 or 6 that day. I do not see anything wrong with reaching out via another source(FB, leaving a message with her sister, if I lived on the same street knocking on her door would be appropriate IMHO)  at this point.

[camlan]

If there's a union involved, things could get tricky for everyone if they move on without a response from Yvonne.

Whoever is responsible for calling should check with his/her supervisor about an appropriate deadline. The powers that be may need to contact the union about this.

But I do think it is appropriate after 24 hours to contact Yvonne again, and set some sort of deadline. Even though she does not like talking about her university job during the summer, surely she wouldn't mind talking about it enough to save the job? Because at some point, they will have to move on and call the next person and offer him/her Yvonne's job. But they might have to wait at least a week before doing this, in order to say that they gave Yvonne every chance.

And there are all sorts of reasons why Yvonne may not be able to respond in 24 hours--there are emergencies and they happen to all of us. But after 48 hours, when your job is on the line, you do need to make an effort to return a phone call or email to ensure that you still have a job. Or you can ask someone else to make the call for you.

If Yvonne delays another day, it would be a kindness to send out a message to the remaining people that the process has been unavoidably delayed and that they will be notified as soon as possible.

It's a dangerous game Yvonne is playing. No, she doesn't have to respond to the messages. But she could lose her job by doing that. No matter how much you don't want to talk about your winter job during the summer, don't you want to keep the winter job? Unless she has enough seniority that she could cause a huge fuss in September and get her job back, thereby making someone who thought he/she had a job lose it. I would hate to see that happen.

[lmyrs]

I'd assume a university has an HR department. They need to answer this question. The supervisor made a huge mistake by not setting a deadline in the meeting and, if Yvonne is unionized, she can likely wait as long as she wants if there were no dates laid out. The whole mess needs to be referred to HR and, if applicable, to the union.

Yvonne is being inconsiderate and rude, but the supervisor screwed this up from the outset and he needs to get the proper people involved to fix it. The proper people do not include his staff. It's the HR authorities at the university.

[LovesMyDogs]

Hi there-

I'm fairly certain they are not unionized.  Tabby is at her job 2 at the moment so I can't ask her. I'll be seeming Tabby and Eve tomorrow though, and will get an update on what is going on.

[camlan]

If no deadline for a call back was ever set, and there is no union, probably the best way to make sure all bases are covered is to send a registered letter to Yvonne, one that she has to sign for herself, in person. That way, the school can prove that Yvonne did receive the letter. The letter should clearly state a deadline by which Yvonne must contact her supervisor and the consequences that will occur if she does not, i.e. she loses any chance of retaining her job. They'd need to give her at least two days from receipt of the letter to contact the school, so this is not a quick solution. But short of the supervisor going to Yvonne's house (and I can think of some reasons why that might not be a good idea), it is probably the most reliable.

I agree that at this point, getting HR involved, just so that no mistakes that could result in lawsuits are made, is a good idea.