Google Voice isn’t connected to a phone - it’s a number only. You can use the service from any smartphone, or direct dial from your computer.
Other: I use my personal phone for work. Coincidentally, I’m fighting right now to get my employer to pay the bill, or at least a portion of it. Currently I pay ~$130/month to get called whenever about whatever, and that’s getting tiresome.
I have a work iPhone that I use mostly for email. I have used it for personal communications maybe twice since I’ve had it (2+ years) in emergency situations.
I do not have a personal cell phone.
Starting in 2006 I had a work issues smart phone and of course my own personal smartphone. I would set the call-forwarding feature on my work smart phone to my personal number and then turn it off and toss it in a box. I would just configure my work email/calendar on my personal smartphone and only carry one phone.
A few years ago the company I worked for was acquired by a larger corporation. The new company has much more strict information security requirements. I could no longer access work email/calendar on my personal phone. It is also a violation of company info sec policy to use a work phone for anything non-work related. This includes text messages, application downloads, music/iTunes, etc. So now I carry both phones. It is a minor inconvenience.
I could get a cell phone from work if I wanted to, but I don’t. If you get one then both the office and cell phone numbers get published on Outlook and I would really rather people send me emails than call me. I give my personal cell number to my boss, direct reports and a few others, and that works fine.
No work phone, only personal – work-related calls/messages/e-mails go there. Everyone has been advised that I do NOT have my e-mail on “push” so anything that is immediate has to be informed by call or message. And unknown/unidentified numbers go to voicemail.
Much to everyone’s aggravation our boss is the kind of person that uses the first device/communication method/number/address that crosses her field of consciousness (she also has the habit of issuing instructions through whoever was the first human being she noticed when the thought hit her mind) so in an environment with work/personal phones she’d be sending work documents from an address I don’t associate with her to some personal address I haven’t used in a year, making personal calls on her work phone, etc. and then asking how come we did not make it so it all came in together right.
We salute you. The encroachment of the concept of 24/7 duty on fields that do not require it must be resisted.
Similar situation here.
I work for a law firm, and we basically have two options: either carry a separate Blackberry (which almost no one does anymore), or allow your personal phone to carry work email. I chose the latter after spending some time in the early years carrying a separate Blackberry, which was a pain in the ass. Having work email on my phone is ALSO a pain in the ass because it requires us to have a higher-security password to unlock it, a very short time-out before auto-locking, and the ability for the firm to remotely wipe the phone in the event it gets lost or stolen. But, like with Doctor Jackson’s company, I get reimbursed quite a bit each month for the phone and data usage.
Nope, you would be eliminating your monthly personal cell phone bill and at the same time actually gaining call forwarding/handling functionality. And the $20 one-time fee is only so that you get to keep your current personal phone number by porting it into Google Voice. If you didn’t care about keeping your current number, you could get a new, free phone number from GV and do the same thing, entirely free.
I must look into this Google voice. Interesting, thanks.
I have a personal phone, which I use for the occasional work-related thing. The staff (secretaries/clerks) are not supposed to use their personal cell phones for work related purposes, but I pay for an unlimited plan anyway so if I want or need to text my assigned attorney I’m darn well going to. And with my current assigned attorney (one of the two named partners) communication is difficult at best, so at least if I text him, I have a record that I tried to communicate with him.
I currently only have one phone. At times I’ve had two SIMs, in a single cellphone that let me switch one off if I wanted. One was my usual, the other one was local to my clients.
There have been times I knew my boss would try to call me back into the office and make me spend hours there for exactly zero gain. I switched the phone off.
Since I am the company, any phones I have are company-issued.
everywhere that I’ve worked that issued a work phone, I made it very clear that the phone stays at the office/shop at the end of the day or, if the work flow that day made that not feasible, then was turned off at the end of the workday. Most of those places had a policy of no personal cell phones allowed to be carried though. I don’t answer personal calls during work hours, except during breaks and lunch, so most people just call and leave a message.
I’ve recently been given a work cell phone. The previous employee who had that number used it as a personal phone as well. I’ve got a slew of google contacts with names like ‘Sophies Sister’ and ‘Bread Man’. Someone called ‘Likeit’ called at 10pm last night wanting to speak to someone who used to live in the house of the previous employee - she was using it as a general number. I’m sure it’ll all die down soon.
I have also been fielding her personal emails sent to the work email. Why she didn’t have a personal email is beyond me.
I’m pretty good at keeping the two separate. I certainly do answer my personal phone during working hours, just as I would attend to a work issue outside of working hours. On the other hand, if I don’t want to answer any phone - I don’t!