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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To refuse to use my personal phone for work?

75 replies

MyNewFr · 12/10/2020 15:35

I am WFH (not through my choice, but work insisted due to me being vulnerable).

I work as a paralegal.

The majority of my work can be done on the computer, by responding to and sending emails and working from our system.

One thing I can't do from home is answer or make telephone calls as I have not been provided with a work phone.

I have now been asked if I will speak with some clients using my own phone as some of them wanted to get in touch with me via phone but couldn't.

AIBU to say no? If they want to provide me with a separate phone that is fine. But I know that clients will not respect privacy or working hours if they have my mobile number and I'll be receiving messages and calls well into the evenings and at weekends.

I just also don't want to use my phone for this and don't feel like I should have to mix personal and work like this.

I assist a solicitor on their matters so I am not the only person with knowledge of these matters and so said clients could speak to them on the phone if necessary but they are very busy.

OP posts:
Berthatydfil · 12/10/2020 16:08

My work direct line is forwarded to my personal mobile.
Fortunately I don’t get many calls at all and none are outside office hours. But I have colleagues who worked on some projects that generated a huge amount of queries from businesses and the public. They were getting calls all hours and were finding it very difficult to police particularly if they had leave or were off sick and if they turned off their phones they were missing personal calls and just had voice mail messages left.

The project they were allocated in April and May was very contentious and some callers were not always polite.

They have now been given work mobiles which can be switched off when not working.

Your work is being very unreasonable - they could supply you with a cheap non smart phone handset and a sim for talk time only.

sueelleker · 12/10/2020 16:09

Are they offering to pay towards your phone/contract, or are they expecting you to cover it all? YANBU by the way.

lanthanum · 12/10/2020 16:11

If they can't set you up with skype for business or some other means of having calls to a work number, ask about expensing a cheap payg mobile (~£20). If it's for clients to call you, you won't need much in the way of credit on it. In fact, you don't need it to be a smart phone, so if you have an old one at the back of a drawer, all you need is a free SIM. You can turn it off when you're not "at work".

BashfulClam · 12/10/2020 16:12

We use a phone app on our system. It can be used for messaging and calls. You could also do webex calls too.

MoreToExplore · 12/10/2020 16:12

YANBU if your colleagues and clients don’t respect working hours, and if you’re not paid to compensate being 24/7 on call (as some lawyers implicitly are).

shoofly · 12/10/2020 16:14

I would point out that your work are already benefiting from your personal laptop and there is no way in hell I'd be allowing use of a personal phone. They can sort out a cheap contract one if they want. One of my colleagues gave a client my personal phone number... I honestly believe it was a mistake but now a piss taker with no boundaries thinks it's fine to call me when he's drunk on a Saturday evening...

BobsyerUncleFannysyerAunt · 12/10/2020 16:14

Please don't do it, it will end badly
Get them to provide a separate phone

MiniCooperLover · 12/10/2020 16:15

Be proactive OP, suggest the VOIP option. You can download a free programme to run the phone through your laptop and get some headphones to use with it. Don't be 'computer says no' because it's never been done before at your firm.

Babyboomtastic · 12/10/2020 16:18

What about a Giffgaff simcard, and you just switch the sim cards during working times (if you don't have an old spare phone).

IntermittentParps · 12/10/2020 16:18

Nope. Have to use my laptop although it's logged onto their server.
I think they're on very shaky ground, with this as well as with expecting you to use our personal phone.

I'd have thought a firm in the legal world would be more au fait/careful with this stuff.

Call ACAS, get all the info you can and then approach them. There are GDPR and security issues as well as the ones you mention such as boundaries.

DGRossetti · 12/10/2020 16:27

I would point out that your work are already benefiting from your personal laptop

Quite aside from privacy issues (is the hard drive encrypted ?) there's also the delicate matter of backups.

Or lack thereof.

I repeat my pondering about a new line of work "Remote working IT consultant".

AliMonkey · 12/10/2020 16:43

I have my work direct dial number diverting to my mobile - is that possible? Depends on your system though whether it’s something you can control remotely.

I use my phone to pick up work emails. It mainly helps me to do my job part-time as sometimes my team or a client need to ask me something in my days off or helps me to not stress about what might otherwise be going wrong. My choice and I am very well paid for it so not an issue. Until I happened to mention to my boss that my family know my phone password so it’s a bit of a grey area re security and he told me I had to change it and not tell them what it was and that he couldn’t understand why I’d share my password with family. I refused to do that as doesn’t suit my family and suggested we got a secure mail app. He initially said no so I told him I’d have to remove emails and would be only contactable three days a week 8.30-5.30 but his choice if he wanted to risk me being unable to respond to key clients and projects overrunning. He fairly quickly realised a mail app was a good idea. So if it’s going to harm their business hopefully they will provide a solution.

Purplewithred · 12/10/2020 16:45

They should provide you with a work phone - goodness knows they are cheap and simple enough to set up.

Pumpkinnose · 12/10/2020 17:04

Are you hoping for a training contract? Is your job secure?

If you see a long term future with the firm then I’d suggest you agree to this. If not, then make clear you require a work phone.

Puffinhead · 12/10/2020 17:08

Stand firm. I wouldn’t do this either. When I work from home I do use my mobile but I’m able to hide my ID. I don’t receive phone calls though (I phone in to pick these up).

BGDino · 12/10/2020 17:10

They should definitely give you a work phone.

I’m a consultant in a public hospital, when I started there work hadn’t organised a phone for me so I had to use my personal number. When I finally got one switchboard was told to use that instead.

In the end I got an iPhone 11 for myself so I could run both personal and work lines out of the same device because carrying 2 phones all the time was annoying me a lot (at least this how I justified getting it Wink).

I’m on maternity leave at the moment and a couple of weeks ago I got a call from a GP who wanted me to send her the discharge papers for a patient I looked after 6 months ago and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t do it. I’d turned my work line off with a message saying I was on leave but switchboard obviously still had my personal line and had put her through on that Hmm (I gave her the number for the ward).

blueluce85 · 12/10/2020 17:10

Just withhold your id.. Its not hard and saves a pain having 2 phones

MsEllany · 12/10/2020 17:10

YA absolutely NBU.

I had a situation about a year ago where I was told my corporate phone was going to be removed. I said fine, but that meant I would be uncontactable by phone, which is fine for meetings and stuff but not for on the hoof catch ups or whatever. Also, I was travelling a lot at the time - how would I be able to keep in touch if I was going to be late?

I told them I didn’t have a personal phone to use and left the decision up to them. Shockingly, they allowed me to keep it.

nosswith · 12/10/2020 17:12

Even if the costs were paid I would still say no. The point that people would phone you at any time of day (more convenient for them, lack of respect for boundaries, anxious for some information or any other reason) is enough for me.

SpaceOP · 12/10/2020 17:22

Why can't your work phone at work be forwarded to your mobile? The client wouldn't even know they were ringing your mobile? It's also possible with even fairly simple work phones to set this up so that it's done at different times so that it forward to your mobile at certain times and your voicemail at others. Even fairly simple landlines all have these featueres these days. Or, ask your company to get you a VOIP phone (you may well find you already have one, just don't realise it). This can then just be plugged in at your home. I pay £14/month for mine. If your phone at work is already VOIP, then they just need to courier your phone to you and possibly pay for a converter plug (it has to be plugged into the router or into a converter plug that uses regular power lines - I think they're about £20 on amazon). And viola, problem solved.

Original poster
MyNewFr · 12/10/2020 17:23

@blueluce85

Just withhold your id.. Its not hard and saves a pain having 2 phones
I've already said why I can't just do this.
OP posts:
AgreeableEagle · 12/10/2020 17:31

@MyNewFr can your work transfer calls from the switchboard to your mobile? Ours can do this and the person on the other end cannot see your number. As far as they're concerned they've just called your office. You could then withhold your number for calls you have to make out.

YANBU though - some clients have no idea of boundaries and will abuse it. A few of my clients have my mobile number but I'm very careful about which ones as some of them could most definitely not be trusted!

Having said that I hit reject on one call late one Friday evening, only to later listen to the voicemail to discover they were calling to invite me to use their box at the O2 the following night. Strangely enough I returned that call!! Grin

IntermittentParps · 12/10/2020 17:34

If you see a long term future with the firm then I’d suggest you agree to this.
No. Really, no.

AgreeableEagle · 12/10/2020 17:35

On the laptop thing. We have some staff using their own computers. We had to as not everyone had a work laptop and it was all a bit short notice to get everyone home. We're now gradually replacing them all with work laptops now it seems a longer, more permanent set up.

All staff are under very strict instructions, however, that nothing must be saved or stored on their own personal computers or unencrypted memory sticks. We use OneDrive with our Office365 subscriptions, so using the One Drive is the equivalent of saving it within a work environment. That way it's backed up and safe and client information is covered for GDPR purposes.

DGRossetti · 12/10/2020 17:40

All staff are under very strict instructions, however, that nothing must be saved or stored on their own personal computers or unencrypted memory sticks.

It would be interesting when a data breach happens if "strict instructions" are enough to let an employer off the hook.

If the UK took data protection seriously, I'd be concerned.

The very minimum should be an employer-supplied machine with full disk encryption and curated access to some sort of certified backup regime. Depending on the access to the main systems, a configuration that disables the local network when the VPN is up too. Plus decent logging software at the data centre end to watch out for dodgy data transfers.

Although it seems what is becoming known as the Gove approach is more popular in the UK ...

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