Personal phone and work....

[A930Rocket]

I use my personal phone for work and do not get reimbursed for it. I’m ok with that, as I do not want them looking at what I do, who I talk to, etc. and I don’t want to carry a 2nd phone for work. I have a work email on it and text people as well.

That said, this POS small company (9 people) threatens to sue everyone for everything when it doesn’t go their way. They are proud of it. They’ve never lost a case they said.

They want to download off my phone the texts between myself and a trade that they are going to sue. I’m not happy with the trade, but we have had some private texts I don’t want the company to see (mainly the owner is an ass and I’m out of here soon type stuff). I could delete them, but the trade has them on his phone.

What would you do?

Tell the company to stuff it or what?

[flipper35]

This is why I don't use my phone for work even though I do not have a work issued phone.

Since it is work related you may have to give them the info they are looking for. Our policy here is that those texts would belong to the company but it is spelled out in our policy very clearly. Does your employee handbook address this at all?

[Instrument 41]

Something doesn't smell right. Comply or warm up the resume.

[LakeCleElum]

Pick and choose which ones you want to forward to your company......You can delete all you want, but if they go to your phone carrier, they are still on record.....Ask Hillary.....

[stomachmonkey]

Give them what is relevant to the specific deal.

Personal venting they are not entitled to.

If they get it from the trade then maybe you are out of there sooner than you thought, oh well, move on, life is too short.

[RKDinOKC]

You should never say anything you wouldn't say in the board room.

[ckelly78z]

Send every text that is pertinent to the case, don't let anyone handle your phone, and keep the offending texts. If pushed to losing your job, you can produce the texts if you want (looking elsewhere anyway), or explain that these are not pertinent, no they can't have them, and piss off.

[A930Rocket]

I imagine I won’t be here another month anyway. It’s been a total cluster**** since I got here in May. We are building 10 bldgs with 152 apartments. The owner didn’t make any selections until six months after I got here and interior trim. Then it was...HURRY UP AND GET IT DONE! WHAT’S TAKING SO LONG!

There is no company handbook.

Maybe I’ll just delete the texts I don’t want them to see. It’s not that many. After I’m gone, I don’t care what the owner thinks.

Edit: can I download the texts to my laptop, then delete on my phone what I don’t want them to see? By the time this comes to court, if it does, I’ll be long gone and I wouldn’t be a friendly witness anyway.

[Sooner or later]

Stop using your personal phone for business use

[matt930s]

Just factory reset your phone, tell them it crashed.... they have no recourse.....

A company issued/paid phone is a different animal. They can lock you out and have full access to everything.

MattR

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by A930Rocket

Edit: can I download the texts to my laptop, then delete on my phone what I don’t want them to see? By the time this comes to court, if it does, I’ll be long gone and I wouldn’t be a friendly witness anyway.

Yeah, back up the phone.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by RKDinOKC

You should never say anything you wouldn't say in the board room.

Or that would be spelled out on the front page of the New York Times

[stealthn]

Read their policies or anything related to BYOD, they cannot unless part of the policy ask for this unless it’s a legal hold. You right to privacy will outweigh the lawyers anyway.

I would not comply and look forward to that legal battle

[wdfifteen]

Delete this thread. Start a new thread, “My phone is locked up, all I get is a black screen!”
Hopefully MattR will respond with the 1st line of post 10 again.

[HardDrive]

The best move you can make is talking about your situation on a public web form.

[cstreit]

Originally Posted by stealthn

Read their policies or anything related to BYOD, they cannot unless part of the policy ask for this unless it’s a legal hold. You right to privacy will outweigh the lawyers anyway.

I would not comply and look forward to that legal battle

I doubt a 9 person company has a BYOD policy much less an employee handbook. Bottom line is... never say anything electronically that you want private.

[sc_rufctr]

IMO: It's your phone and therefore your txt messages so what you do with them is up to you.

In your situation I would forward the relevant txt messages only. If you refuse they could fire you for it and HR will be on their side.

This needs asking: What were you thinking when you were engaging in a txt conversation with a customer? They are not your friends.

I use txt messages to give basic info only to my customers. Things like "I'll be there in 20 minutes" Nothing more than that and it's never personal.
If they ask me a question via txt and they often do, I wont answer it using a txt message. I instead call them back as soon as I can.
Also, If a customer makes a derogatory statement about their or my organization I make a record of it after the conversation is over.

Never let yourself get ambushed. If you can see it's a customer calling only answer it when you're ready to.
I never answer a call that is a "Private Number". I always let them go to VM. If they choose to not leave a message it's not my problem.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by sc_rufctr

If you can see it's a customer calling only answer it when you're ready to.
.

You must work for a cable TV company.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

You must work for a cable TV company.

Any utility really... Gas, electric, tel/data... They're all horrible.

[flipper35]

Here, once you connect to exchange and accept the policy all communications to partners are company property. But we also have a handbook that spells it out.

With no written policy you should be able to just forward the pertinent messages.