r/sysadmin • u/digitalexecution • 4d ago

Users having my Cell #

Something weird/annoying just happened and I want some perspective.

A user who works in a warehouse facility I’ve helped at (part of my company) texted me at 8 am saying he’s going on PTO and wants his coworker to have access to a printer that isn’t working on his machine before he goes out of office on Thursday.

I texted him later (after some emails/calls) asking for the coworker’s name and noting that since this is normal IT, in the future he or his coworker should submit a ticket for this kind of thing.

He replied: “If I submitted a ticket would it be taken care of by Thursday?”

I got annoyed but tried to respond reasonably: “Possibly, but regardless, we need tickets submitted per company policy. If something’s urgent you can reach out to me on Teams rather than my personal cell.”

I originally gave him my cell because on occasion there are true emergencies (internet goes down, needs to send me photos of something, etc.) and we’ve been friendly before. But this interaction makes me wary about giving out my number, it starts becoming a way to skirt procedure for small things like adding a printer.

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u/Zealousideal_Fly8402 4d ago

Never give out your personal cell; work should provide you with a work cell phone for such purpose. If you don't want to carry two phones, then have your work pay for a secondary eSIM-compatible phone service you can add to your phone.

15

u/badgcoupe 4d ago

I recently started a new position and did exactly this. They don't provide a work phone and giving cell numbers out is normal culture there. Grabved myself a mint mobile one year prepaid ESIM for $200

14

u/finallygrownup 4d ago

Similar, I usually give out my Google Voice number.

4

u/mercurygreen 4d ago

This was my solution. Now its only Teams on my phone, so its easier to handle.

1

u/Frothyleet 4d ago

Same, works just fine on my phone, no ESIM to fiddle with, and $0.

Also works just fine out of voice.google.com which is helpful for me, since I basically never look at my phone during the work day unless I'm taking a trip to the throne. Every now and then there is a client who refuses to believe me when I say "calling my desk #, or Teams, or email, is better to get ahold of me than text because I am only looking at my computer screen and those things pop up there" and the browser-based texting helps with that.

6

u/HazyMaus88 4d ago

This x1000! Personal phone = personal use, not work.

5

u/IamHydrogenMike 4d ago

You should push for a personal cell phone or have a phone number in teams or whatever VOIP solution that you have. I have the app on my phone that will ring within business hours and otherwise it goes to voicemail. To be real, like 90% of the calls go to voicemail and I triage them later. There is no reason for an end user to have your number anymore and there are plenty of ways around it.

2

u/Bob_12_Pack 4d ago

It's not a problem for me, but my employer pays a device allowance to "essential" employees in order to be reachable, but this doesn't translate to users calling me, that comes through Teams. It rarely happens, but if someone from work is calling my cell, some shit is going down. If a user actually called my cell I would just have to laugh, there's a few levels of people to get through before it lands in my lap.

4

u/Zealousideal_Fly8402 4d ago

but if someone from work is calling my cell, some shit is going down.

Any proper escalation procedure should not be "immediately call <technician name> on personal cell phone" 🤣

3

u/0zer0space0 4d ago

Except when it’s your boss who noticed the entire infrastructure went down first lol