Weird event at work - should I do anything?

While unlikely coincidences do happen, the chances of accidentally mistyping a phone number, and it somehow being the number of your colleague (who you spoke to the evening before) are so low as to be almost impossible.

OP already spoke to IT who have changed it for her.

Literally this. It’s potentially very unprofessional on his part, and would weird me out a bit.

Kindly OP, think you need to overcome your weirdness feeling, and go and ask him directly and see what he says, gauge his reaction.

Maybe even flag to HR to look into it?

Even if harmless in the end, I’m not sure it’s ok…

Perhaps there is a simple rather than fishy explanation.

Maybe he intended to divert to a number that is coincidentally similar to your number and just mis-typed it.

It can happen quite easily.

Just let him know, he may not have noticed he made an error and be a bit embarrassed at his lack of attention to detail but grateful to be able to sort it out quickly.

Let him know as soon as possible to avoid further unwanted calls to you and him missing important work calls.

Have you only recently got your phone number? I've had mine for over 20 years and even the thought of changing it is a little overwhelming with all the people I'd have to notify, all the apps that need 2FA, all the trouble with people not updating their records. I can't imagine ever doing that

Originally I said ask him or report to IT/Hr. Now I personally see this as more a nasty move than one out of fancying her. I’d report it to HR and IT. Let them get to the bottom of why he has done it and discipline him. Then he can’t come at you as you can simply say you assumed HR had given IT the wrong info as he shouldn’t know your personal number to change the forwarding calls to.

Email to HR complaining your personal number is used in someone else’s email.
and I’d probably change my number asap

Very very very odd.

Difficult to believe it was completely random.

You need to ask him and see if he starts flirting with you.

Google your own name. Does anything come up with your telephone number on, that he might have seen if he’d googled you?

Yeah right

He got your personal number then tried to call you from his work phone whilst drunk, accidentally rang his own VM without realising the proceed to dial OP, but instead ended up changing his VM forward deets to OP number instead.

But he's already spoken to her at least twice this week. Why does he need an icebreaker? Particularly one that could get him into trouble at work if he has done something illegal or inappropriate . It just doesn't make sense that he has done this deliberately.

Pull your big girl pants on and talk to the man!

I was thinking this too! You need to ask him Op!

Could it be he was trying to forward his work phone to his personal number and accidentally entered your number? This could be either your number is 1 digit different, as and it was a fluke typo, or somehow he has your number and accidently typed it in.

if it’s the first, you can laugh it off. If it’s the latter, it needs taking further to ascertain how he got your number and why he saved it.

This is quite a stretch

Agreed.

I'm not sure exactly how he got OP's personal number but I'm pretty confident it's an attention seeking move. If he has accessed confidential records I hope he is appropriately disciplined. It would be an extraordinarily stupid thing for him to do when he could have diverted to her work mobile and had the same effect. That would not make it OK but he would have found it easier to explain the "error".

I think the "just ask him" comments are coming from people who have not understood the issue. There seems to be an unusual amount of posters who haven't read the thread or just have poor reading comprehension.

Following the party, he has accessed your HR records to find out more info about you. Then, he made a mistake which led to the call that brought the matter to your attention.

I think that this is serious and that the flippant “just ask him” comments constitute poor advice. HR needs to deal with it.

You shouldn’t have to put up with workplace sleazeballs. I’m sorry.

Bingo!

And it’s a shame so many women on here are gaslighting her into thinking it was an innocent work error.

She clearly stated it was her personal mobile number. So yeah, he’s taken a liking to her at the work social the day before and now done this dumb stunt to initiate her contacting him.

Typical pervy male higher colleague.

Do you have your own work phone number (the one on your header) set to forward to your personal mobile?

Actually, never mind, I was going to assume that maybe your work phone number was similar to his (and that was what was misdialed, but I think you’ve said that the IT department have confirmed that his actual work number was definitely diverting to your mobile number?

Also, how do you set the forward, is it something that you have to do on the phone itself or is it something you do through a browser?

Yeah now we’re getting to the crux of the matter.

It’s very obviously not an innocent error!

Was he flirtatious at the social meet? Men are notorious for doing things like this to initiate a conversation. Knowing you’ll approach and ask how it happened and then he’ll say “whoops” and hope that he can now message you on your personal mobile to say “sorry” and hope it leads onto something more.

Trick as old as time, especially for manipulative older men who are higher up in a company.

Report it. Officially. Not to him

Barry is toast tomorrow.

I know you might feel a bit uncomfortable OP, because of him being high up in the company, but remember you have done nothing wrong and you’re well within your rights to make sure this is looked into (either by IT, HR or by ‘Barry’ himself).
Maybe put it into writing tomorrow, in an email to HR/IT – that way there is a paper trail.

Please read my reply to @SmudgeButt above. Never mind, to save you the trouble, here is what I (and many other posters) have explained (in different words) in earlier posts:

The footer on his emails gives his own number but when people call that number, it diverts to the OP’s personal number. The OP’s personal number is nowhere on his email, and she has never given him her personal number anyway. Hence the mystery.

Does his email signature format copy yours? Why I ask is that everyone in our organisation had to standardise their email signature, we mostly copied somebody else's signature and amended the details. Perhaps he did the same, copied your format, and forgot to change your mobile number?

Do you have an apple work phone?

If you use your Apple ID in your work phone, this is possible.