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Antiwork

Issued a company phone…I don’t want it. Fuck that. Ideas?

I have a new boss, after having the same one for almost 10 years. My boss's boss mentioned that I'll be issued a company mobile phone soon. I've never had one before. I've learned my lesson at other companies to not use my personal phone for work – I need to actively separate personal life and work life. Out of the few thousand people at my current company, only a small handful of people have my personal number. And those are people I hang out with outside of work. This is a very recent discovery, so I'm trying to figure out a way to discretely force them to decide it was a mistake. I have a suspicion my new boss is a sneaky micro-manager, which is a huge problem imo. I need to keep busy at work, by personal preference. Meaning, I'm almost always working to make progress for the…


I have a new boss, after having the same one for almost 10 years. My boss's boss mentioned that I'll be issued a company mobile phone soon. I've never had one before. I've learned my lesson at other companies to not use my personal phone for work – I need to actively separate personal life and work life. Out of the few thousand people at my current company, only a small handful of people have my personal number. And those are people I hang out with outside of work.

This is a very recent discovery, so I'm trying to figure out a way to discretely force them to decide it was a mistake. I have a suspicion my new boss is a sneaky micro-manager, which is a huge problem imo. I need to keep busy at work, by personal preference. Meaning, I'm almost always working to make progress for the company. Those times I'm not, it's usually because I got stuck in a conversation I have no desire to be in (have you figured out I'm an introvert yet?) It's a boring job for me (one of the least challenging mentally), but it pays reasonably well. Either way, with this latest development, I'll be more actively looking for something new.

I respond to all emails as soon as I have an answer I'm confident in. I'm an engineer, so data/facts are king. My previous boss always told me to keep doing what I'm doing. Yearly reviews were always positive. Hell, the mid-year review I had with the new boss was positive too. Zero negatives.

So, the reason my boss's boss said I will be issued a company phone is so I can be reached more readily. I'm the only engineer on my shift, so I end up handling the issues from several departments, outside of normal duties. I put out fires. That's essentially what I was brought on to do, so my boss's boss doesn't get phone calls late at night. From what he's told me previously, that all stopped when I started. He seems happy with my performance. I became a go-to person quickly after I started. Whatever.

My initial plan is to only have the company phone on while I'm within the turnstiles (basically whenever I'm being paid for my time), but I don't want to always have two phones on me while at work. One personal, and…one to keep tabs on me? I don't need yet another hurdle to prevent me from doing my job at the level I want. There's enough that preexist as it is. Fwiw, I'm not great at responding to friend/family texts on my own time, in general…I'm very occupied. Lots of projects. That, and fuck carrying more shit in my pockets. Over the years, I've minimized what I consider is necessary to carry on my person – personal phone in my left/front pocket and very slim wallet in my right/front pocket. Keys in my ass. Still reading? I'm sorry.

Yes, I probably have ADD, maybe some autism. Nothing official. I make things work with what I have.

TL;DR: I'm being issued a company mobile phone and want to figure out a way to make them realize it's a dumb idea without being offensively obvious. I can think of plenty of those fun ideas on my own, but I'm welcome to those ideas anyway.

Also, I tried searching (for a while) for similar threads…nothing. Just lots of results about using the company phone as your personal phone. Fuck right off.

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