Boss Demands Employee Share Personal Email and Phone Number for Work, Gets Offended When He Refuses

Author image for Ally Perry
Ally Perry • Writer and Editor
Jul 10, 2026 7:45 PM EDT

It's not unreasonable to have boundaries between work and personal life.

In fact, many would argue that it is a necessity. Having a job can be stressful enough without feeling like it is encroaching on other areas of existence as well. Unless they work in a role that specifies a responsibility for being on-call, employees have the right to keep their work strictly within their working hours.

Despite this indisputable truth, there are companies and managers out there who will try to work around it. They come up with excuses and methods of making sure that their workers are plugged into the workspace even when they have clocked off. Not all of them make direct demands for this, and sometimes it can be so subtle that you do not realize what is happening until you're doing it. This means that it is important to be vigilant and maintain strong boundaries.

As a general rule, any job that pushes you to be available in ways that you do not agree to is one that it is better to leave sooner rather than later. At the same time, developing the tactics to deal with in the moment is also an essential coping mechanism.

Add as a preferred
source on Google
Advertisement
  • A representation of a manager crossing her arms and smiling while looking to the side behind a MacBook
    via Douglas Fehr

    A representation of a manager crossing her arms and smiling while looking to the side behind a MacBook

  • An employee was feeling the pressure after his company came under new ownership, and the new owners did not seem to know what they were doing. The new boss made his wife his new manager, and it soon turned out to be a decision that was going to make his life difficult.

    This manager had quickly lost several clients for the company, and also refused to respect the personal time of those who worked for her. The employee reached a breaking point when she insisted that she did not want to use his work-assigned email to keep in contact and preferred his personal contact details instead.

  • My "boss" is trying to make me give her my personal phone number and email address so she can contact me....

    The company I've worked for since 2021 got sold last year to someone who has LITERALLY ZERO CLUE what he's doing. And he put his somehow more incompetent wife in charge of the day-to-day stuff. She lost us 4 out of our 22 clients in a single month. It's rough over here.
    via kindofnewonreddit
  • I work fully remote and have never met them in person.. They have a WILD sense of personal/professional space. Like they tried calling me on Teams before 6:30 am this morning... The wife just messaged me on Teams to tell me that she doesn't want to use Teams or my actual work-assigned email
    via kindofnewonreddit
  • addresses to contact anymore, but rather she wants my personal number and email addresses. (They absolutely have/had my email and phone number when I was hired.) This is crazy right? Am I crazy? What?
    via kindofnewonreddit
  • A representation of a female manager sitting behind a MacBook while wearing glasses and holding a mug beside her
    via Douglas Fehr

    A representation of a female manager sitting behind a MacBook while wearing glasses and holding a mug beside her 

  • SweetChaosTitan I had a boss once say "I am going to route the office calls to your personal phone" which I knew would also include personal calls they received at work sometimes. I also knew that meant I would be getting calls after hours on my phone that were work related and
    via SweetChaosTitan
  • my job was not an on call one. I told my boss that I am willing to use a company phone during work hours but that I cannot use my personal phone for those matters. My employment agreement did not have anything. regarding using personal phone for work matters. Boss didn't like it and tried to gaslight me into doing it, but I still refused.
    via SweetChaosTitan
  • Cassandra_Said_So Tell that you need to use work mandated tools because of liability and insurance reasons (worth to look up just to be sure beforehand)
    via Cassandra_Said_So
  • MapMaterial8800 That's insane and you should not give her any personal contact information. She has teams and a professional email to reach you
    via MapMaterial8800
  • mwants Look for a new job.
    via mwants
  • Ddp2121 Tell her you're not going to answer at 6:30 am no matter what number she's using.
    via Ddp2121
  • Old Goat_Ninja Ha, my last boss was like this. You just described them to a T. He didn't know sh about sh, but thought he did and he also put his wife in charge of day to day stuff, which cost us some of our biggest clients. She was absolutely ridiculous and impossible to work
    via Old_Goat_Ninja
  • with. Didn't take long for them to put us out of business. They already had our personal info (not the kind of job that can be done remote) and I had to block them. They'd call or text all the time. Nope, not having it.
    via Old_Goat_Ninja
  • Solid_Mongoose_3269 "I dont do work on my personal phone, please provide one". Then turn it off outside working hours.
    via Solid_Mongoose_3269
  • Appropriate Note2525 My last manager did this. I said "Okay, sure" because I was already job hunting, promptly muted notifications for her on my phone, and read/responded during work hours. Hoo boy she hated that, but couldn't do a thing about it.
    via Appropriate_Note2525

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

employee phone number workplace bad bosses
Scroll Down For The Next Article