Boss demands employee to give them their personal phone number so that they can contact them after work hours and just use that form of contact: 'This is crazy, right?'

Author image for María Cetra
María Cetra • Writer
Jul 16, 2026 5:15 PM EDT

As if working 9-hour shifts wasn't enough.

Some bosses are starting to demand more and more from their employees, as if they were overachieving machines that can't stop for a second. They already check if the status in Teams is always green, which is over-controlling in its final form. But now they are also requesting your personal phone number so they can call you anytime they need you, even if it's outside of your working hours. That is completely insane for several reasons. Firstly, nothing is so urgent to need to contact an employee on a Sunday or when they take vacations. Secondly, it proves that this is just another way of micromanaging that, instead of focusing on the amount of work done, it deems more important the fact that the employee is ALWAYS available. And lastly, it is another way of exploitation to have workers work even more while still getting paid the same salary each month. 


This Reddit story got me thinking about how much everything has changed in the last decade. Before, it was unthinkable to pretend that an employee was available after their shift. Maybe all these new technologies that make us available to contact everywhere have become too much. Now we are always traceable, as if we couldn't escape our work life, not even in our free time. As if we weren't allowed to take breaks, to not work every single second. 


People deserve free time. We deserve to be away from work for at least one day a week. We already overwork ourselves with insane amounts of tasks that seem to never end. We are always perfecting ourselves and looking to be the most perfect employee. As if that was even possible to begin with. We already do SO much. Why would it be needed to have us work even after hours? Some employees already work after hours to try to have better metrics. Why would you now force them to do those hours just to not even pay them for them? Bosses have too high expectations of their employees. They are not robots. Everyone deserves a break. 
 

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  • 01
    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. 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
    via kindofnewonreddit
  • 02
    Visual representation of a person holding a black phone.
    via Jonas Leupe

    Visual representation of a person holding a black phone. 

  • 03
    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 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
  • 04
    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 my job was not an on call one. I told my boss that I am willing to use a company
    via kindofnewonreddit
  • 05
    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 kindofnewonreddit
  • 06
    Model image of a man in a train holding a cellphone in his hand.
    via Rasheed Kemy

    Model image of a man in a train holding a cellphone in his hand. 

  • 07
    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 kindofnewonreddit
  • 08
    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 kindofnewonreddit
  • 09
    mwants Look for a new job.
    via kindofnewonreddit
  • 10
    Ddp2121 Tell her you're not going to answer at 6:30 am no matter what number she's using.
    via kindofnewonreddit
  • 11
    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 kindofnewonreddit
  • 12
    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 with. Didn't take long for them to put us out of business. They already had our
    via kindofnewonreddit
  • 13
    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 kindofnewonreddit
  • 14
    Solid_Mongoose_3269 "I dont do work on my personal phone, please provide one". Then turn it off outside working hours.
    via kindofnewonreddit
  • 15
    TinktheChi It sounds like they want to contact you 24/7. I would not give either of them my personal information. Work and personal lives are separate and need to stay that way.
    via kindofnewonreddit
  • 16
    Cheezburger Image 10646515968
    via kindofnewonreddit
  • 17
    CoolWarning4475 How do you work somewhere that doesn't have any personal contact information for you?
    via kindofnewonreddit

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