Narrative:

Due to staffing and a recent directive; I was working ZZZ radar while providing watch supervision and working clearance delivery as well. The phone rang which required me to walk across the room turning my back on the radar position I was responsible for. I answered the phone and it was pocc; [pacific operations control center] calling to coordinate planned maintenance activity for a future date. While retrieving the binder to write down the information; an aircraft called with a question. I was forced to ask the pilot to repeat the call; and the pocc person continued talking. I had to ask the pilot to repeat a second time. This made me very uncomfortable to be facing away from my radar position to answer a phone while working position. Staffing priority should reflect first person on duty works one sector with all functions combined. Second person assumes oscic and flight data/clearance delivery. Third person opens second operational sector.

Related reports:

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: TRACON Front Line Manager reported staffing shortage caused them to miss an aircraft call while turned away from scope to answer a phone call.

Narrative: Due to staffing and a recent directive; I was working ZZZ Radar while providing watch supervision and working Clearance Delivery as well. The phone rang which required me to walk across the room turning my back on the radar position I was responsible for. I answered the phone and it was POCC; [Pacific Operations Control Center] calling to coordinate planned maintenance activity for a future date. While retrieving the binder to write down the information; an aircraft called with a question. I was forced to ask the pilot to repeat the call; and the POCC person continued talking. I had to ask the pilot to repeat a second time. This made me very uncomfortable to be facing away from my radar position to answer a phone while working position. Staffing priority should reflect First person on duty works one sector with all functions combined. Second person assumes OSCIC and Flight Data/Clearance Delivery. Third person opens second operational sector.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.