My employer made my cell phone ring

[Indiana Mike]

when it was turned off!


So I am driving home today after a long day that started very early . I turned my work phone off as I am finished and it is Friday . I get a page and see my supervisors name . I know for a fact I had my phone turned off as I had to turn it on to respond to the page. Our service is "sprint /nextel"

Really creepy.

Is nothing private anymore?

[MatticusMania]

Ask him if he has the activation codes. He has the activation codes. Your privacy is not your own.

[jaywa]

I find that very disturbing. But if it is a phone the company is providing and paying for, it wouldn't surprise me. Which still doesn't mean your supervisor isn't a tool for activating your phone and paging you if you are supposed to be off the clock. This whole thing of people thinking everyone needs to be "connected" and working 24x7 is wrong on so many levels and will be the undoing of our society.

OTOH if it is your personal phone, you need to be talking to a lawyer.

[Chunk-O-Funk]

How did you respond?

I might have answered the phone something like: What the hell do you want?!?
Or maybe, Domino's Pizza!! One of the two. Depends on my mood.

[NJL]

.

[jaywa]

Hopefully he didn't respond at all. He's off the clock, ergo, has no obligation to respond again until he's back on duty. Sounds to me like his supervisor is a bully playing a little game of manipulation and control.

[RWP]

Hold on a minute. If the phone is OFF, it isn't receiving, therefore can not be commanded to turn on. What type of phone is this? I must be missing something.

[UnsungZeros]

Not trying to call you a liar, but how can you be so sure that it was off?

[jaywa]

Originally Posted by RWP

Hold on a minute. If the phone is OFF, it isn't receiving, therefore can not be commanded to turn on. What type of phone is this? I must be missing something.

Exactly, and that's where it gets creepy. If off isn't really off, what else do we not know about?

[Jimmy Bones]

We don't know what his contract of employment is. Plenty of jobs have on-call stipulations. Nurses, doctors, dentist, orderlies, cops, military, high level execs, store managers, etc.

[jaywa]

Right, I understand the on-call thing. My brother's a surgical technician and there's times he's "on the clock" even when he's not on site. But from the original post I take it that the OP had turned off his phone, i.e. was off the clock for the weekend or at least, the rest of today.

[RWP]

This is a creepy thing about cell phones too. You can set some cell phones to auto-answer. That means answer when it rings without touching it. Leave your cell phone somewhere you want to listen in on later. Set it to silent and auto answer. You call it and then listen to what is happening in the room and no one can tell you are doing so. A business owner friend of mine learned about this the hard way.

[UnsungZeros]

Originally Posted by Indiana Mike

[b][size="5"] So I am driving home today after a long day that started very early . I turned my work phone off as I am finished and it is Friday . I get a page and see my supervisors name . I know for a fact I had my phone turned off as I had to turn it on to respond to the page. Our service is "sprint /nextel"

Just reread this. This doesn't add up or is missing something.

So your work phone is off. You then receive a page on what? Your personal phone, a separate pager or the work phone? At what point does the work phone ring? If you received the page on your work phone, how do you view it first and then turn it on?

[TheSuzie]

Off isn't off unless you REMOVE THE BATTERY. Your phone can be hacked into even if it is off. I have read about instances of privacy violation - people turning on phones remotely and listening via the phone or using the camera. This is especially true if the phone software is written to support Java and has some sort of data connection enabled at the provider.

I'm sure your boss didn't have to use a hack. Unless it was a real emergency IMO they were just being a jerk by using the activation code.

Hope you have a boss free night


BTW: Maybe some providers have an "urgent" paging mode that can get through. This is something I am not sure about but certainly is possible.

[jaywa]

Originally Posted by RWP

This is a creepy thing about cell phones too. You can set some cell phones to auto-answer. That means answer when it rings without touching it. Leave your cell phone somewhere you want to listen in on later. Set it to silent and auto answer. You call it and then listen to what is happening in the room and no one can tell you are doing so. A business owner friend of mine learned about this the hard way.

I'm going to bet a few marriages have ended cause of this as well.

[NJL]

pffft how about this:

http://www.flexispy.com/

[coreyfyfe]

Originally Posted by TheSuzie

Off isn't off unless you REMOVE THE BATTERY.

This. My blackberry is still active even when shut off. If you turn it off but have an alarm set, it will turn itself back on when it's time. Not sure how you go about sending a message when it's "off" but I'm sure it can be done.

[XtreO]

If you got a flip-phone, perhaps you pressed the botton then clapped it shut before it actually turned off? I do that all the time.

[Dirk Diggler]

I've got a simple solution that will improve your life, get rid of the cell phone, believe it or not there are modern people that can live without them.

Unless they are paying you a salary for 24/7 and paying for the phone, they have no rights.
Dirk

[Pilgrim]

If it was a company phone, I'm not sure it's a big deal. Their phone, their option to call. Your option to answer.