My employers new stance on cell phones.....its YOUR responsibility

[Vigilante]

MJ mentioned when I was getting ready to speak to that college class that instances like this motivation from the cell phone policy won't help you succeed as an entrepreneur, but they do serve as a catalyst kick in the a$$ to get you frustrated to the point where you will take the requisite risks to go your own way.

The moment you decide that you're not going to spend the rest of your life working for someone else (not just wish it but really resolve as to what your game plan is to get there) than work becomes more of a game. You can take the blows easier when you have an end game that is bigger than them. You can smile through the bullshit. You can deal with the games, and the politics, and the manipulations. They will wonder why your attitude is so great... and it will actually help you be a better employee. Your end game is bigger. Bigger than your job. Bigger than them.

If a miserable existence is just a stepping stone towards the rest of life, than getting up Monday morning and going back into the office for another week at the grind becomes tolerable. They're now part of YOUR plan vs. you being part of theirs. They're now just a tool you are using to take in an income for today, while you need it for today, while you work on your end game.

Then comes the day. Your freedom day. The day you are able to walk away from it. On the freedom day, you don't need their paycheck any more. That becomes literally the best day of your life. On that day, you hold all the cards. Do you stay? It's up to you. Do you leave? It's up to you. Do you milk the paycheck until they push you out the door? Up to you. It's the last move in the game.

Freedom. Your freedom date. You can get there. It starts with your own resolve. Intestinal fortitude to create your own ending. Makes things like your employers cell phone policy tolerable. Just part of the game, but now it's your game. You want me to do that? OK. You want me to come in at 7:30AM tomorrow? OK. You want me to... OK. Smiling.

This is my world. I am just allowing you to play in my sandbox for a while while I use your money to create my end game. 5 years now, when I come back here, you'll still be here. Passing out cell phone policies to new employees. That's who you are. It's not who I am. This is not where I end... it's where life began for me.

 

[Vigilante]

There's a simple solution. Create freedom.

Right now, you exist to serve at someone else's whims.

You spend 40-60 hours a week making someone else money.

They tell you how to spend your own time, and how to use your personal phone.

And you do it.

So change it.

My employer lets me do what ever I want with my phone.

Let the shit you need to eat as someone's employee motivate you to blaze your own path.

 

[biggeemac]

Yep, thats the new cell phone policy. I guess they figure that it falls into the same category as your car. You buy your car, you pay for your gas and maintenance with AFTER tax dollars, to serve the needs of the employer.

The company decided to stop paying for all cell phone bills. And if you are on the manditory list and oncall, like I am, you are obligated to not only carry a personal cell phone, but answer it. I haven't seen any of the employees draw a line in the sand yet, but our employer sure has. And its a very large corporation.

More motivation for me to get out of here. Between the high deductible health insurance plan and the cell phone bill, i'm wondering what shoe will drop next.

I'm going home to work on validation of my new product.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[MJ DeMarco]

Not an accountant, but personal stuff you use for work might be tax deductible.

 

[biggeemac]

Well, its the fact that a large corporation has the gall to tell you not to use their computers and other equipment for personal usage, but then they turn around and expect you to use YOUR personal cell phone for company business.

I think the point I was more intending is that I need to get busy with my own products. I use this forum to rant from time to time.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[biggeemac]

I dunno, I guess its kind of a slippery slope.....how much more "cost of doing business" is reasonable to put onto the shoulders of the employees that we feel should be privileged to work for the company? I mean, really, we could take this a lot further. Most of us have pens, pencils, paper, toilet paper, water, desk chairs, computers, and other necessities at home as well. I would be ok with it as long as my office can be located at my home.

 

[Vigilante]

 

[Vigilante]

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[biggeemac]

On the freedom day, you don't need their paycheck any more.

Dude, you seriously have no idea how many times i fantasize this very scenario in my head. That day I get to tell the manager and the HR lady that I need to see them in the office.....and proceed to tell them the very thing they have told so many others..... "I'm sorry guys, but your paychecks are no longer needed, and I'm gonna have to let you guys go."

 

[theag]

I dont understand the problem. Get a prepaid phone. Costs nothing to answer. :\

 

[SBS.95]

I dont understand the problem. Get a prepaid phone. Costs nothing to answer. :\

This. I don't get these people that look at cell phones as a big expense.

I pay $35/month for my prepaid phone. Unlimited everything- talk, text, data. And when I'm at home I use Wifi so fast speeds and constant connection for the majority of the time I use it.

These people with $120 monthly contracts with $1000 early elimination fees are insane. As are the people who wait in line for days for the newest iPhone or Samsung. Cell phones are like hammers- they're a tool. I could give a shit what brand my hammer is so long as it works.

 

[biggeemac]

There's a simple solution. Create freedom.

Right now, you exist to serve at someone else's whims.

You spend 40-60 hours a week making someone else money.

They tell you how to spend your own time, and how to use your personal phone.

And you do it.

So change it.

My employer lets me do what ever I want with my phone.

Let the shit you need to eat as someone's employee motivate you to blaze your own path.

Yeah, that was kind of where I was going with this post originally. Thanks for the heavy hand.....you never let me down. Back to my landing page design. I can't afford to stop and keep bitching about my problems on TMFF.

 

[eliquid]

I see both sides of the coin in the situation here.

Some of you that disagree with @biggeemac, I see your point.

However, here is the way I look at it....

What I do behind closed doors is my business and only my business. If I want to go home, drink myself into a stupor, and not answer my personal phone.. so be it. When my employer sets up a new rule 2 years into my employment ( without my input or consideration ) that I must now start answering my personal phone at home ( regardless if I agreed 2 years ago to be on call with THEIR phone or not ), that's someone stepping into my personal life more and more, just like big brother. However, I am not getting paid more for this, I am actually losing money.

I had a situation where I was the only digital marketer for an old employer spanning about 3 years. Knowing how much they relied on me and my performance, I did work late nights from home, weekends, and holidays to start/stop PPC campaigns and fix issues when they came up. I never agreed to this upon being hired and it was something I gradually worked into over the years on my own, but it was needed and I did it. I could have just 9-5'd it, but many times late at night and on weekends ( and vacations ) shit came up only I could fix and I felt like I needed to do it.

Once the company hired on 2 more marketers ( 3 years later ), we split the responsibilities up and I decided to stop working late nights and weekends and for sure stopped working on holidays and vacations. My new co-workers never even attempted to work at those times/days. I finally started being able to "relax" and "breathe" some and enjoy my personal life again with my wife and kids.

After about 4 months getting back into having my personal time back, my employer made it mandatory that we start taking home our company provided laptops and having them for issues that might came up that are work related after hours.

What? Now I am required to fix issues after hours and take home and be responsible for this laptop too and I'm not getting paid more for it?

My attitude was I did this for 3 years already and put in a lot of sweat and tears without being asked or expected. I finally get to the point where I personally hand built up the department and company to be able to hire more people to spread out the work. Now that I finally get to spend time with my family after hours ( which I felt was my reward for doing this for 3 years and building the company up to millions in rev ), I am forced to go back to it without consent AND have to babysit a laptop too without any more benefit?

Not too long after that, several people dropped and "lost" their laptops and the company changed the policy to where you had to use your own computer or laptop at home and also your cell phone at home after hours.

I decided I wasn't going to let someone else dictate my life after that. People and companies will always try to take from you. Keyword is "try". You always have the option to say no to it and move along somewhere else.

Some of you guys are acting like this is no big deal, but for some people this is a clear violation of expectations and space. I didn't agree to take on a job with an employer years ago to where they could control almost 100% of my daily life. It ended up becoming a "bait and switch" situation essentially.

No matter the situation or extreme, no one walks into an initial agreement for employment expecting their life to be micromanaged 100% of the day over the course of a few months/years. Once it happens though, I agree you need to make a stand and a choice in what you really want in life.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[DennisD]

Total first world problem.
Seems super reasonable to me.

You're expected to get to work without a company providing you a driver.
You're expected to wear clean clothes without the company providing dry-cleaning.

You're similarly expected to provide a reliable communication method.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Andy Black]

Lol. One place I contracted into didn't supply stationary. You had to supply your own pen and paper. Fine for me as a contractor, but I did wonder what the employees must have thought.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[RazorCut]

Let the shit you need to eat as someone's employee motivate you to blaze your own path.

This was exactly my thought as I read this thread. Use the feelings of injustice you feel as motivation to get you to where you need to be. The worse they treat you the greater the favour they perform for you.

Time to get your shit together.

 

[RazorCut]

The moment you decide that you're not going to spend the rest of your life working for someone else (not just wish it but really resolve as to what your game plan is to get there) than work becomes more of a game. You can take the blows easier when you have an end game that is bigger than them. You can smile through the bullshit. You can deal with the games, and the politics, and the manipulations. They will wonder why your attitude is so great... and it will actually help you be a better employee. Your end game is bigger. Bigger than your job. Bigger than them......

Superb post @Vigilante

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Contrarian]

My previous employer remote-wiped my personal phone out of vengeance (which, at the time, I didn't even know was possible), without any warning whatsoever or even telling me that they'd done it.

Since then I will never, ever use my own phone for a company's business again.

 

[Even Steven]

The moment you decide that you're not going to spend the rest of your life working for someone else (not just wish it but really resolve as to what your game plan is to get there) than work becomes more of a game. You can take the blows easier when you have an end game that is bigger than them. You can smile through the bullshit. You can deal with the games, and the politics, and the manipulations. They will wonder why your attitude is so great... and it will actually help you be a better employee. Your end game is bigger. Bigger than your job. Bigger than them.

Vig, that was dam near poetic, and you hit the nail right on the head.

For about ten years, I was listening to my boss's visions about how our products were going to take off and make us all tons of money. Massive was always just around the next corner.

After so many years, it made me weary and frustrated. I slowly started to realize that the truck he was driving want going to get me where I wanted to go.

After a couple of things happened (succeeding with a few rental properties and falling in with TFF) the realization crystallized that I really wouldn't be there forever. That I would be free one day.

And what you described is exactly what's happened. The bullshit doesn't bother me any more. Empty promises of success? Okay. Bitching about how our distributor is screwing us over? No problem. Product delays created by adding bullshit features that nobody cares about? Water off a duck's back.

At the same time I've become more productive over the last 6 months then I've ever been. The boss even told me that I would be the first choice to head a new project in the next couple of years.

Looking forward to Freedom Day with all my being.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Ninjakid]

Nope, it's an imprisonable offence. It's also impossible to prove sadly.

a digital forensics specialist would be able to trace to device that did the remote wiping. You should seek one out, then you'd be able to get the evidence to take legal action.

 

[AntEmpire]

My company elimated it's blackberry program this year. In addition to having us return our equipment, we now have to install software on our personal phone that plugs us into the company network (email, calendar, etc.). We get a reimbursement for our compliance with the program, but I was never on board with it. I didn't even like having the blackberry, which I always kept on a charger at home, never used and never answered.

Some of the things that bothers me about the this new BYOM (bring your own mobile) program and the accompanying software is how your company messages, calendar, emails, etc are automatically synced to your phone. I don't want that stuff mixing with my personal information. I also don't like how we have to agree to have our phones wiped if the company deems it necessary. There's no guarantee we'll get a warning either if such a situation should ever happen. You're essentially left to regularly backup your phone and "hope" it never does.

Everyone completely jumped on board with the program except me. I refused to install the software on my phone, instead putting it on a wifi-only tablet that carries no personal information. Should it get wiped I would only have to reinstall some apps and books. No big deal. And I consider the reimbursement I get free money. We are allowed to the install the software on tablets, but the company never specified in its terms of use that tablets have to have data plans and I don't intend to ask for clarification.

 

[biggeemac]

I also don't like how we have to agree to have our phones wiped if the company deems it necessary. There's no guarantee we'll get a warning either if such a situation should ever happen. You're essentially left to regularly backup your phone and "hope" it never does.

Exactly ! I also didnt use activesync which would allow the company to push their email policies onto my phone which would give them the ability to wipe it if they chose to. My boss assured me that they never have, but it was stated in the terms that they reserved the right to do so. Never the less, I installed the OWA client instead, so I could check my company email without them pushing anything onto my phone.

 

[DennisD]

we now have to install software on our personal phone that plugs us into the company network

the ability to wipe it if they chose to

Now I understand the problem.
If the company REQUIRES use of specific software, that's an entirely different story.
I would never get on-board with that.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Vigilante]

Dude, you seriously have no idea how many times i fantasize this very scenario in my head. That day I get to tell the manager and the HR lady that I need to see them in the office.....and proceed to tell them the very thing they have told so many others..... "I'm sorry guys, but your paychecks are no longer needed, and I'm gonna have to let you guys go."

You will get there, and we will all celebrate with you. I know several people on the forum personally that started out as workers and manufactured their own freedom.

 

[Ninjakid]

Well, its the fact that a large corporation has the gall to tell you not to use their computers and other equipment for personal usage, but then they turn around and expect you to use YOUR personal cell phone for company business.

I think the point I was more intending is that I need to get busy with my own products. I use this forum to rant from time to time.

A corporation that creates rules so that everything works out in their favour 100% of the time. That's nothing new.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Ninjakid]

My previous employer remote-wiped my personal phone out of vengeance (which, at the time, I didn't even know was possible), without any warning whatsoever or even telling me that they'd done it.

Since then I will never, ever use my own phone for a company's business again.

Is that even legal?

 

[AntEmpire]

For Android at least, a solution is coming - Android for Work. Basically it lets you "containerize" your work apps and data away from your own personal stuff, so you have multiple profiles/logins instead of just one. I haven't used this yet but I imagine it would make an android device more like a typical desktop computer - log in with multiple accounts and get a completely different desktop, set of personal documents, settings, etc. The company could still monitor/control/wipe this profile/login, but not touch your personal login.

https://www.android.com/intl/en_us/work/

I hope it works. The app we were assigned to use was supposed to containerize our info too, but it didn't.

 

[CommonCents]

i just had an r&d employee leave, violating her agreement and taking vital company info. She thought she was sneaky deleting web history on laptop etc... She was not sneaky enough. $3,000 bucks for a forensic analysis uncovered lots of stuff. It takes companies years and millions of dollars to build up their IP and they must take steps in this digital world to keep it safe from a simple copy and paste.

But yeah, companies make some bonehead moves. I sold a previous co to a fortune 200 and had to stay on a year. Wow, can't believe they are still in business and they are a household brand.

 

[Journey2Million$]

Is that high deductible health care plan part of Obamacare?

 

[GravyBoat]

I'm on Republic Wireless, I pay $10/mo. No data over cellular, but really the only downsides to that are that you can't use maps while driving, and you can't check your data apps outside of wireless. Who cares tho, it's $10.
https://republicwireless.com/