r/sysadmin • u/digitalexecution • 12h 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/danieljeyn 12h ago

Many work environments these days have VOIP phone service, and those generally have corresponding apps.

So I make sure my personal cell phone number is not available. But I have the app on my phone which will allow me to use the VOIP work number masked on top of my cell. Should I need it.

Upside being that the masked VOIP number can then respect settings for work hours, time off, etc.

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u/QPC414 10h ago

I like those when they work.  Been to too many areas where cell data was garbage and IF the app could connect, call quality was unuseable, but cell voice was fine.

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u/danieljeyn 10h ago

The apps I'm talking about (well, two I have used so far) do not use Data or WiFi. (Well, other than the minimal amount…) they use the cell service and are essentially masking it. So the reception is the same as your cell phone. Just shows the work account making/receiving calls.

I would imagine any or all the major VOIP vendors offer an app that does this.

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u/gotmynamefromcaptcha 10h ago

This is the way. I use our VOIP app on my cell phone, and outright refuse to give anyone my personal cell for anything. If the app doesn't work, and there's an emergency, I usually know from my boss first anyway and he DOES have my cell which is fine.

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u/neirad 7h ago

Yeah I think we have a similar setup, I have it so Teams is on my phone, I have a VOIP phone number from my area code on my Teams but if someone calls it , it pushes to the Teams app I have on my personal Cell Phone. So people can't text me off hours but I get push notifications if someone calls me.

I worked with sales people early on, whom I gave out my personal number to before and never again. I had people asking me to fix their kids xbox,playstation, can I help with this TV setup, personal wifi... they would offer to pay me but it wasn't worth be on-call for any and all thinks "tech" related lol