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Phone monkey is a term which derogatively refers to a Receptionist or Secretary charged with receiving or vetting Phone Call s that are intended for a person higher up in the organisation, usually a professional person such as a lawyer or surgeon. Because of the high value placed upon the latter person's time, most organisations strive to minimise direct phone contact from incoming callers (generally clients) and instead try to have the phone monkey relay messages or deal with administrative tasks to the fullest extent possible. The system can fail where the often oblivious phone monkey fails to properly prioritise communications which are in fact quite pressing or urgent and should probably be handled directly by the person in charge. Often, also, phone monkeys can make statements or representations that can bind the firm in unexpected ways. An Australian High Court case of Legione v Hately involved an instance where a monkey had said to another firm "That should n't be a problem", when asked whether their client would be prepared to grant a sublease of a large commercial premise, when in fact there were several large problems with that proposal. Another of the failings of the system is that professionals are often inclined to let monkeys deal with contentious or unpleasant clients, when in fact it is advisable for the principal to directly deal with and closely monitor those clients in particular. The phrase "phone monkey" was used by a receptionist character to refer to himself in the American situation comedy Just Shoot Me , although it was somewhat established in usage by that time. It is rumoured that the phrase originated from a popular apocryphal story amongst lawyers concerning a notoriously defensive phone monkey that often refused to allow important phone calls to go through to her principal. On one such occasion, a lawyer was said to have remarked: "I don't want to talk to the monkey, I want to talk to the organ grinder". SEE ALSO |
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