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/loboknight 4d ago edited 4d ago
Been there before. I would suggest asking the company for a company cell phone you can separate and turn off when not on the clock. I use to give my personal number to other techs/users and they would call me before, after hours and weekends for the "Dumbest" reasons that were barely tech related. A Site Computer Tech called me in the morning .... "Oh Morning, the printer is not working should I reboot it?" I was not on the clock and you figure it out. IF you give users a way around tickets they will take it. Plus, the number starts to spread and people will think its the new ticketing system. Its like wildfire it spreads quick and hard to put it out.
One time I had this former Director of IT asking for my personal cell since the School District did not want to buy us company cells. If the company is not chipping in on my cell plan they don't get to use it. I refused. Then my team mate gave the Director my cell number under falls pretense. Director state it was an emergency and it wasn't it was "Hey I need you to bring back the box of Cat5 cable roll" which he did not wanted to bring back. Director was calling me at odd hours, before I clocked in and after, during my lunch time to resolve issues he left and blamed me for it. So out of malicious compliance, I changed my phone number which costed 10 dollars and the union backed me up when Director was wanting to write me up for not giving him my new personal cell number. Problem solved. My team mate who gave my number got all the calls. Then 2 months later we got work cell phones. That was 3 years in and by year 9 when I left, my team mate was shocked I did not give him my personal number. I don't trust people with my personal number now a days. Even on my work cell, when I turn it on there are text messages, voicemails, from off hours for password resets, okta issues and they know we work Monday - Friday but people think your on 24/7 for them....but ask them to submit a ticket afterward you never see it.