I’m at this job for about 8 months and it’s fully remote. We, as a team of 10 people, communicate through Slack.
Everyone mostly uses written communication or ping me asking me if I’m available for a quick call. It’s totally fine.
Except for my boss.
He calls me without prior notice almost every day on Slack to talk about something non-urgent that could have been solved with a couple of texts. And the conversation normally goes on for 30-60min with him talking amenities or small talk.
When I started at the company I would answer all of his calls, but it insidiously grew to be something unbearable. I feel like he is disrespecting my time, specially because I work on commission and if I’m 1 hour on a chit chat with him that means 1 hour of basically not working = no sales, no commission.
I’m starting to set boundaries such as not answering the unnanounced calls and texting back “I’m a bit busy now. Is it urgent”?. But he doesn’t seem to understand and immediately calls back after I text him. Never even say beforehand what is the topic of the call.
How can I set proper boundaries or give a feedback that won’t threaten my employment? Some professional way to do it and that won’t hurt his ego, which is kinda big.
I’m curious to read your thoughts 🙂
Edit: he is the CEO, btw.