I think you should ask what the proper office protocol is. Do what ever the person that would typically answer general calls would do.

Talk to your manager about how far you can go in forcing the issue. 'Tell me or I hang up' is very reasonable if it's just a sales weasel (which at least 1/2 of those calls will be), but if you've got a client who's annoyed for some reason, this kind of rudeness is really going to to put him/her off.

It sounds like you have been given pretty clear direction from your boss. Why not ask her how she would like you to handle this situation?

The role you are performing is often called a gatekeeper. It may be instructive to search for articles on this keyword, often written for sales people to get past you. You will learn to "think like your enemy" as it were, and hopefully to identify those calls quickly.

@MichaelKohne: in particular if they want to talk to your boss about how rude his receptionist is ;-)

As a developer, your salary is too high for the company to be wasting money with you handling these phone calls. That 5 minutes to answer a phone call is costing the company a minimum 15-20 minutes of your productivity. 20 minutes times your salary/hourly rate times the number of calls you handle per day equals a significant expense to the company.

@notme 20 minutes of developer time vs. 5 minutes of boss time - unless the boss makes 4X the developer's salary, it's still a net loss. Or maybe the line can just go to a receptionist's voicemail to be handled when they return.

@alroc Sending calls to voicemail is completely nonsensical if the company has a demonstrable need for a receptionist. In small companies regular employees sometimes need to cover the phones. Very small companies cannot justify a dedicated receptionist so phone duty typically rotates. Even if you want to drag in concepts like being "in the zone" (which is not developer-exclusive), the occasional interruption simply does not compare with the cost of adding an FTE.

Don't tell them he isn't there until after you've asked what it is regarding otherwise you are making the suggestion that he will sometimes be directly available.

@alroc Even if it's demonstrably true that this is a misallocation of resources, it doesn't always matter. Welcome to the wonderful worlds of corporate hierarchy and accounting. Could be they don't want to or can't take on new expenses for a full-time receptionist, could be that the boss would rather spend someone else's money in the form of reduced productivity than be bothered with sales calls. Could be something like this classic Dilbert strip. Proper/efficient allocation of resources is not always the goal.

You should probably ask what the call is about first before mentioning the manager isn't available - and explain that you can't forward the message unless you know what the call is about. Otherwise, it just sounds like you're putting the call off until the manager is available.

"Caller: When's Manager Y available?" "It depends" "It depends on what?" "It depends completely on what you want to talk about and who you are."

Is it possible/allowed for you to have their number blocked?

@alroc in this case our company is small (a startup that's a few years old) so we all have to pitch in with the day-to-day stuff. answering the phone occasionally is part of my responsibilities since we don't have staff dedicated to manning the phones all the time. my boss does try to keep someone around to answer so I can concentrate on my job, but I do need to cover now and then.

Hi @jammypeach, I do have the same issue as I work for a small company, me too. What I usually do is to say to the caller that if they need to reach your man-a, they can send him/her an email and ask that person if he/she has her/his email. Be sure to ask before if it is ok for your man-a to give his/her email...

@alroc Your statement only really applies in situations where the employee is paid hourly. In many places salaried developers are exempt from over time; if the dev gets their work done, the interruption is inconsequential, otherwise the dev works a little late to make up the difference (particularly true in start ups where working an 8 hour day is less common). Also, many companies plan for less than 8 coding hours per dev day (I've seen it as low as 5 hours per day), with other duties like email and phone calls coming from the remainder.

@alroc: It's much worse than that. Interrupting a developer can cost them their productivity for the remainder of the afternoon.

@LightnessRacesinOrbit I was being (very) conservative. I agree, I've had large swaths of my day lost to "drive-bys" and unexpected calls. You & I are apparently in a minority here though.

@alroc: Everybody else is clearly just not working hard enough when they're not being interrupted ;)