'AITA for yelling at my wife after she blew up my phone with calls because of a fire?'
"AITA for yelling at my wife after she blew up my phone with calls because of a fire?"
Throwaway because some of this made local news and I don't want it connecting back to me. I work in a place where we are not allowed to have personal electronics on us at all. No phones, no smart watches, no pagers. I've been working here for about 6 months so my wife knows this and understands that she should not try to contact me by my cell at work.
Phones are dropped off in our lockers and I typically have mine on Do Not Disturb. Before this incident, my phone has never gone off in the locker before. Recently there was a pretty big fire at a secondary worksite that I do work at occasionally but that day I was working at the main building.
Local news covered the fire before I found out about it because again no electronics, plus the work we do isolates us a bit so news travels pretty slowly. There were a few casualties, a lot of seriously injured folk. My wife had been watching the news from home and started freaking out, I guess.
She called me 20 freaking times, which (and I did not know this was possible) overrode my DND and my phone was ringing for a while in my locker. In the middle of my shift, I got called into my manager's office and was chewed out (and written up) for my phone making so much noise. They told me to go take care of whatever it was making my phone go off before I went back to work.
I won't lie...when I saw those 20 missed calls from my wife I was seriously pissed off. Like I said, she knows not to try to contact me directly and a citation hurt my chances of getting a raise or promotion. I called her back and she was sobbing and asking me if I was okay. I said, of course, I was okay and asked what the f*$k was wrong with her to call me so many times.
She was still crying and started talking about the fire. After that I started half-yelling at her about all the reasons it was dumb of her to call me. When I got home she was super upset with me. I apologized for yelling but she refused to talk. She's been very chilly the past few days and sleeping in our daughter's room. I know it was not the best decision to yell at her but I still think my anger justified .
1) she knows I don't work in the secondary worksite very often. 2) she knows that I can't be contacted directly and she could have just called the office. 3) 20 calls is absolutely *insane.* Am I the @$$hole?
People had a lot of strong words for OP:
kspi7010 wrote:
YTA, holy F she was concerned for your safety. Also, just have your phone on silent and then it won't matter how many times people call or text you.
Dabbles-In-Irony wrote:
YTA. Your wife was worried that you could have been ki**ed and you’re upset that she was checks notes concerned about you? Do you not understand human emotions? She was panicking. She wasn’t thinking about your possible promotion, she was thinking that you could be seriously hurt or even dead.
All she wanted to do in that moment was hear your voice and hear it tell her that you’re okay and that you love her and you’ll be home safe. But instead, when she finally does, she hears it berate her and call her dumb.
That being said, your employers are the biggest AHs going. Your place of work is on fire and they don’t say “hey, go let your loved ones know that you’re okay.” Who wants to work for psychopaths?
bigcup321 wrote:
Never seen somebody more YTA.
It's mindblowing that you even have to come here and ask this question. SHE
THOUGHTWAS AFRAID YOU WERE D*AD. IT WAS A REASONABLE CONCERN. So what if she overreacted? So what if she made some logical errors in her panic? She cared about you.
Does any part of you want her to care if you're d*ad? Also, have you been tested for any kind of mental/emotional issue that may account for your complete lack of empathy here? Anyway, it may help your situation to tell your manager why you were getting so many calls, and if the manager has a heart in their chest, maybe that will make a difference.
ETA: You didn't even know that lots of calls could override a Do Not Disturb setting, and yet you're holding your wife responsible for knowing it. It's your job to put that setting on when you're at work. You did that. And I'm betting that since it's SOOOOOO important that your phone not ring at work, she probably knows you do that.
Too bad you had to learn this way, but if your setting worked the way BOTH of you expected it to, 20 calls would not be a good reason to 'half-yell' at your loving wife. If she had KNOWN it would happen, that would be different. She did not.
TheAvengedSamael wrote:
Yes YTA and so is your employer. If something happens to your wife or daughter how the f@#k would they reach you? Would you make your little scene because you got called about it too?
She was stressed, and crying, she panicked for a good time but no, instead or reassuring her you took your frustration out on her and think a half felt sorry will change something. She's right to be pissed, she cares about your safety and she might feel like you don't care about hers now.
LKSnyd wrote:
YTA. Good god, your poor wife. On so many fronts. Your employer is also a giant @##. If one of their worksites was involved in a fire that resulted in casualties, they should have been offering counseling for employees and their families, not writing people up when their families are trying to reach them because they fear they are dead.
Info. Is there some kind of worksite number she could have called instead? Like I understand her fear, but I have to feel like, if the first 10 calls on your cell didn't go through, then there must have been other options besides keep calling the cell, especially if its some where you only work very occasionally.
alphiotomas OP responded:
Yes, she could have easily googled the companies name and the phone number there would have eventually connected her with my building so she could ask about me if she really felt she needed to
Wait, you didn't even give her the number that she could call? She'd have to Google it herself? So in any emergency, since she absolutely cannot reach you by cell, you told her to....Google the number instead of giving her the correct person to call?
Yeah, I do think your work sucks, but you also screwed up.