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I don't know what our official policy is, but I'm sure we have one. I'm 57 years old, professional, married and male, and have been working here for a long, long time so I'm not too concerned with policies.
We owned our Janitorial business for 20 years, and I’ve gone from a pager to a cell phone. It’s now considered mandatory to have on hand and now it’s not good enough to say a the door near unit x is off it’s hinges, everybody wants pictures emailed.
And because we have a computer in our hands, everything is an emergency.
A lot of people in maintence jobs off all sorts have to have smart phones, and have to use them. Most of the places I know don’t provide a phone, but give you an allowance for your personal phones use.
I check my email several times a day, usually when I call the elevator, I push the phone buttons to bring up my email and on the ride up or down read what’s there. If I have to write one and send pictures, I settle down on a stair and tap tap tap, and then send. And wait. I’ve discovered if I hit send and take off to my next task, the email fails. And with my bad knees, standing is out, I can walk miles, but if I stand for five minutes, my knee will lock, stiffen, and be very painful.
I get paid $50/month to use my personal cell phone for business use. It is cheaper for the company than providing me with another cell phone just for business use.
Although be careful when accepting this perk! My daughter-in-law had her personal phone forcibly swiped by Security to remove all contact information when leaving a job that paid her a stipend for business use of her personal phone. She lost all her personal contact information too.
Nobody cares, because we're not teenagers or untrustworthy, entry-level pee-ons in the work force.
Neither am I (or my colleague) - in fact, most of us are post-graduate degreed and trustworthy adults. BUT we also happen to work in a heavily scrutinized area of public services, so it's just not professional or smart to be using phones in view of our patrons. Not to mention, it's pretty hard to enforce "quiet standards" on the patrons, if library staff is yakking or tapping away too.
So it often has little to do with employees' ages or trustworthiness, and more to do with the specific nature of your job. Would you be okay with a doctor texting their friends, or answering personal phone calls, while you were in their office for an exam? Think about it.
My son is working in a factory where cameras are not allowed, so if your phone has a camera your phone isn't allowed. It is apparently something they will fire employees over, so some of the employees carry flip phones for emergencies.
My sister's good friend used to work for the CIA, and had to leave ALL mobile devices at home or in her car before entering the office... no cell phones, pagers (this was a while back), personal laptops, eReaders, cameras, iPods, NOTHING. She was completely "off grid" during work hours, and I'm pretty sure she was also not allowed to give out the inside/landline numbers to anyone. There was probably an emergency number for family, but that would be it.
I have no idea what she even did for them, either - guess if she'd told us, she would have had to kill us. She does speak fluent Mandarin, so perhaps that gives us a clue?
The only restriction my employer has on cell phones is they are not allowed in the secure areas of the facility. If I have to enter one of those areas, there are little lock boxes on the wall for people to leave their phones until they come out.
I work in the kitchen of a school cafeteria, not an office. Cell phones are filthier and more germ ridden than a public restroom...this is covered under all safe food handling seminars we have to attend. Talking on or touching a phone requires immediate hand washing, so we're discouraged from having them in the kitchen. However, if we need to have the cell phone handy if we're awaiting news in a a family emergency or other situation, we can keep it in a pocket.
Why are cellphones "filthier and more germ ridden than a public restroom" ? That does not make any sense to me. Do people let the general public use their phone similar to a public restroom???
As for the poll, we are in the boat, "Use your personal phone as much as you like (as long as you're doing an excellent job in your work.)"
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She does speak fluent Mandarin, so perhaps that gives us a clue?
