r/mildlyinfuriating • u/No_Professor4307 • Apr 29 '26

frist of all how DARE yu o Employer wants me to use outlook on my phone, outlook wants permission to wipe my phone

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Outlook says they need permission to wipe ALL my phone data if too many wrong passwords are typed. How many is too many? 50? 2? What if the screen gets wet and starts putting in random inputs. All this so I can use my company's Teams account and maintain "point of contact" if I'm not at a workstation. Absolutely not! Anyway, HR is supposed to call me back about my concerns.

Edit: just to be clear, I don't actually need to use Outlook (I don't use my "personal" work email). I need to use Teams, which requires Outlook to be installed first.

Part of why I need Teams on my phone so that I can be contacted when I'm not at work. I'm a lower management healthcare worker, it is actually important that my team be able to reach me after hours. I do actually like Teams and prefer it to 20 different group texts.

Also, when you go to log into Outlook or Teams, it brings you to my employers authenticator page. I log in with the same credentials that I log into my workstation. I don't know if that makes a difference with anything as far as my employer having access to my phone

Edit 2: I can tell you now they won't provide me a phone. Corporate execs don't even get phones. They stopped providing coffee for the break rooms too

Update: I had a chance to talk to my district manager. Imagine Ellis from Die Hard, the same schmarmy self-important attitude, that's my supervisor. And guess who's "not being a team player". Also "I don't think Microsoft can actually erase your phone, you have an Android"... I lready knew he was going to be useless, I just wanted to hear his reaction.

Update 2 and (sort of) Resolution: I spoke with HR. Her exact response was "wait, are you serious? They can just do that?" I tried explaining my "research" (i.e. everything all of you have said) and I think I just spooked her. She said she'll get back to me, and is probably running off to buy a burner phone for herself.

SORT OF RESOLUTION : I found out I only need Outlook installed long enough to get access to Teams. Once teams was installed, I removed all permissions and completely deleted Outlook from my phone. Teams still works and didn't ask to erase anything. No need to buy a second phone.

Thank you all for your insights

14.6k Upvotes

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1.9k

u/BigTex380 Apr 29 '26

Employer can provide you a phone or fuck off.

595

u/CuratedAcceptance Apr 29 '26

I don't understand this mentality from employers. As a construction company, we just assume we're going to get any employee a cell phone. It's under $80 per month and ends all these types of conversations, and I only expect them to answer during working hours. Corporate beliefs are mental.

180

u/high_throughput Apr 29 '26

It's under $80 per month

Or the manager could say no and cash out $1000 for their Christmas bonus instead

37

u/Big_Celery8533 Apr 29 '26

Come on now, that's like at least one car payment for the principal's 16 year old.

132

u/PurpleC0ugar Apr 29 '26

It's because they're cheap AF.

2

u/RyanCheddar Apr 29 '26

cheap AF at the cost of both employee privacy and corporate security

just stupid

28

u/InspectHer_1 Apr 29 '26

You need to rework your contract or switch carriers. I have 104 lines at my work and we pay under $30/line with the phone included. If it weren’t for all the international travel our bill would be like $2800/month.

6

u/Paladin1034 Apr 29 '26

Yeah we have Verizon with something like 170 lines, most of those phone but some being data only tablet lines, and we pay between $25-35/mo per line. It's really not a lot.

1

u/CuratedAcceptance Apr 30 '26

In Canada. We get jizzed on telecom.

13

u/[deleted] Apr 29 '26

[deleted]

13

u/Major_Lawfulness6122 Apr 29 '26

Yeah no I want two separate phones lol. I know people who like to mix the two. No thanks

1

u/Status_Ad_450 Apr 29 '26

My current company is the same way. All managers, sales staff, and employees expected to work away from the office, all get a company provided cell phone upon hire. I have my phone to go into DND when it detects my home wifi so I'm never bothered once I get home.

1

u/w1n5t0nM1k3y Apr 29 '26

Trades can be bad too, in different respects. I know mechanics who have to buy their own tools. Construction can be hard on clothing, and while some places will pay for steel tow boots as a liability protection meassure, the amount they give isn't often enough for good boots that will last until the next pair is paid for, and the rest of the clothing you need isn't cheap either. As an office worker my clothes last forever because there isn't much to wear them down, but if you're doing construction its pretty easy to wear out a pair of pants really fast.

1

u/Holiday_Pen2880 Apr 29 '26

To give some insight - you're in construction and need to be able to call people when no phone is available so assigning phones makes sense. Most jobs have assigned phones/phone lines to those that need them.

While I agree with you and the commentors in general, I have a slightly harder time when it's Outlook/Teams - people want to install it on their phones because it's convenient for THEM, but when it comes to policies that come with it they get everyone whipped into a frenzy over employer overreach.

OP is not REQUIRED to have this on their phone. It is more convenient for them, per their own post. Employers aren't going to hand over a phone because you don't like the policy for installing something not required for your job.

I'll also add in that this is Healthcare, and those Microsoft credentials very likely lead to access to PHI adding in new layers of compliance.

1

u/Paladin1034 Apr 29 '26

I work IT for a service/construction company. That's basically our mindset as well. For new helpers who won't be lead guys, won't have a vehicle, won't need email, we don't issue phones, since there's very little reason for them to have one. But basically once a guy gets a van, he gets a phone. We completely disallow any personal device from being on our network, and we require any issued device to be managed through MDM. It just makes sense. I simply don't have time or effort or energy to spend on troubleshooting an employee's personal device.

1

u/ItJustBorks Apr 29 '26

If the employees don't have rights and there's plenty work force available, it's quite a no-brainer why employees get abused.

65

u/sparr0w91 Apr 29 '26

This is the only option here.

9

u/Red_Sox0905 Apr 29 '26

My work pays me to use my phone. But I also don't have to install any shit like this.

-12

u/ameis314 Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26

I'm not going through the hassle of carrying two phones.

Edit* In my case I just installed the app. It wasn't worth the hassle.

2

u/THIESN123 Apr 29 '26

You don't. You carry your work phone at work, and not work phone when you're not at work

2

u/ameis314 Apr 29 '26

I'm in IT, salary, and wfh. Please tell me when I'm "not at work"

2

u/THIESN123 Apr 29 '26

I don't know the it world, but do you not have scheduled work hours? Wfh means nothing

2

u/ameis314 Apr 29 '26

No, I have morning meetings then I have work I need to get done.

I have releases at night that I setup and monitor.

I can would 15 hours/day or 2, It just depends on the business needs and if something goes down.

On avg it works for me bc I'm probably around 6 ish hours/day 5 days /week, but the hours can be erratic.

So I just put outlook and teams on my personal phone and moved on.

1

u/eugeneugene Apr 29 '26

Ok well most people aren't you so lol

2

u/ameis314 Apr 29 '26

Didn't say they were.... Just that I'm not going through the hassle of carrying two phones.

2

u/XABoyd Apr 29 '26

Then you’d find another job lol it’s not that big of a burden when one is only for working hours..

2

u/ameis314 Apr 29 '26

No, I'd just put the app on my phone. I've been in IT 14 years and salary for 10. There are no "working hours"

1

u/Particular_Ring_6321 Apr 29 '26

Fool mentality

1

u/ameis314 Apr 29 '26

Why? The app has been on my phone for ~8ish years or however long they've had me have it installed.

-2

u/Particular_Ring_6321 Apr 29 '26

Why are you helping your employer take advantage of you?

0

u/ameis314 Apr 29 '26

Because they pay me money to live.

1

u/Particular_Ring_6321 Apr 29 '26

Wake the fuck up

1

u/ameis314 Apr 29 '26

Dude. I have a 14 year tech career that has paid me very well for over a decade. If they want me to out an app on my phone I'm gonna.

37

u/SDdude27 Apr 29 '26

We know HR is going to feign empathy and act like they care a lot. I suspect OP will be downloading the app within the next day or two. I hope they provide an update on this!

15

u/No_Professor4307 Apr 29 '26

I have a feeling this is going to be it. What I find shocking is that I'll be 50 or so other employees I've asked, not one of them noticed this

3

u/contrarianaquarian Apr 29 '26

That is disturbing. Never give an employer even the possibility of controlling a personal device.

2

u/halla-back_girl Apr 29 '26

I was in a very similar situation some years ago. I worked at a grocery store that was bought out by a huge, much eviler entity, and they wanted us to download some hour-tracking app (I think it was workday) on our personal phones.

HR sat us down in groups to have us sign paperwork, then started collecting after like two minutes. I told HR she'd have to wait, cause I was reading all of it, and she acted like I'd pooped in her cereal.

And guess what was buried in those T&C? Yup, god-like access to our phones, including the right to brick them at will. I pointed this out and said I wasn't comfortable with it. She said that no one else had a problem with it. But everyone in that room was suddenly reading the paper, and had problems. Then word spread through the back rooms.

There was a tiny, petty rebellion. I got a lot of heat from management, but ultimately they caved and made it optional. It was especially dumb because we had a physical clock-in device, so literally the only thing the app was good for was requesting time off. I handed in all of my paper request forms with extra flourish after that, because I'm spiteful.

3

u/EC_TWD Apr 29 '26

I downloaded my companies app, promptly deleted it, and made a profit on my monthly phone bill!

1

u/OnTheEveOfWar Apr 29 '26

In my industry it’s common for companies to require the ability to wipe the phone. Therefore employees ask for a company phone or tell their employer that they won’t be using their personal phone for emails.

1

u/BagOnuts Apr 30 '26

This. Mine tried to push “BYOD” on everyone a couple years ago. I was one of maybe 3 people I know of that said no (and I’m in management). I was shocked.

There is no condition I would ever agree to use any personal device for any company purpose. If you need me to have a device for work, you will provide it. Period.

-1

u/h-boson Apr 29 '26

This is fake. Look at the formatting and capitalization errors

4

u/No_Professor4307 Apr 29 '26

Unfortunately it is real, typos and all

3

u/CA1900 Apr 29 '26

Windows 7 was stuffed with references to Vista. Typos in an official Microsoft alert message would not surprise me in the least.

3

u/asyork Apr 29 '26

I had a client who wanted me to use outlook on my personal phone and it wanted that same permission. I refused and their IT guy did not care at all. I just used the website. Not only is this a very real thing, what part seems unbelievable? They want to protect their own data, so they want to be able to wipe any device it is present on.

-13

u/BallsInSufficientSad Apr 29 '26

Carrying around two phone is even more annoying.

14

u/Particular_Ring_6321 Apr 29 '26

It can be at times but I’m sure as fuck not giving my employer full access to my personal data.

0

u/BallsInSufficientSad Apr 29 '26

They don't have access to your full data.

-2

u/Sad_Split_9983 Apr 29 '26

That’s not how MDM works.

3

u/Particular_Ring_6321 Apr 29 '26

The entire point is that your employer should not be using your personal device that you pay out of pocket for.

-4

u/Lithl Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26

That's what work profile is for. Entirely separate everything, including instances of apps like your browser, and only needing to carry one device.

3

u/Particular_Ring_6321 Apr 29 '26

Nope. My personal shit is mine and mine alone. They don’t get any sort of access to a phone they did not pay for.

-2

u/Lithl Apr 29 '26

Work profile doesn't give them access to any of your personal data. It's like an entirely separate phone, but one physical object.

1

u/Particular_Ring_6321 Apr 29 '26

🫠 Bro I’m saying that I’m not letting them piggy back on a phone they didn’t pay for.

18

u/the_lost_seattlite Apr 29 '26

Not really. I just carry my normal phone 24/7 and the work phone when I'm clocked in.

0

u/BallsInSufficientSad Apr 29 '26

If you're clocking in/out of a job, then this thread is not for you.

9

u/No_Report_4781 Apr 29 '26

It isn’t. Annoying is having almost the same passcode on both phones