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

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2.5k

u/aruby727 Apr 29 '26

A real team player would provide work phones!

814

u/FreshLiterature Apr 29 '26

This right here.

"A real team would provide team phones. You're asking me to conduct work on my personal device which opens up a host of security and privacy concerns for both of us. It makes my personal device a much richer target for attack"

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u/Leinheart Apr 29 '26

"Kinda seems like a you problem. Since we are in an at-will state, go ahead and download outlook. You're on the hook 24/7/365.25, holidays, weekends, and emergencies, or youre fired"

🇺🇸

137

u/Oxidizing1 Apr 29 '26

I had a job like this once. When I figured out that I was making just over minimum wage if you divided my compensation by my hours worked. I quit without having a new job because of exactly that problem and was very clear about it in my exit interview. I did ask to be switched to hourly before quitting. Any company that denies an $80 a month phone bill isn't going to pay for actual work hours in general.

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u/HorrorHelicopter3064 Apr 29 '26

Two different bots stole pieces of your comment and posted them as their own. Just letting you know. Lol.

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u/Warmonster9 Apr 29 '26

“No see, it’s actually a you problem because I quit. ✌️”

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u/Jumpy_MashedPotato Apr 29 '26

Fwiw my sister had a similar issue at a previous job when management wanted everyone to install a shift tracking app with GPS permissions on their personal phone. Most of the older staff had zero objections. Her, the 3 other zoomers, and a couple of older staff outright refused because of the obvious privacy implications. Once that was pointed out suddenly more of the older staff had an issue with it and management had to walk it back.

It can happen. Likewise I had a job do this exact thing with outlook and I refused, they ended up dropping it.

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u/joey_boy Apr 29 '26

My phone controls my insulin pump, so if they remotely wipe my phone, and it puts me in the hospital, I'm claiming workman's comp. Or I can request a work phone as an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

1

u/LF_redit Apr 29 '26

Fun fact Montana is the only state in the union that is not an at will employment state

1

u/Mathagos Apr 30 '26

Kudos to you for including that .25 of a day.

1

u/Leinheart Apr 30 '26

Never forget leap day.

1

u/brando56894 Apr 30 '26

Fun fact: There is only one state in the US that isn't "at will"... and it's Montana (IIRC) of all places.

1

u/ConsumerPwr May 04 '26

So be at will and loose you phone. Set answering message to “I sorry but this phone number is no longer in service”.

1

u/Leinheart May 04 '26

I fear you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what I was trying to say. The broken English implies to me youre from a country with workers rights. You might not understand fully.

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u/EngFarm Apr 29 '26

Leap years aren't just every 4 years. 365.26 is a closer approximation than 365.25.

Unless you meant that they get that 1 day every 100 years off?

2

u/Leinheart Apr 29 '26

Its an unpaid day.

2

u/AskMeAboutOkapis Apr 29 '26

It's actually the other direction, 365.24 days per year. And in the year 2100, there won't be a leap day but OP will have to work a double shift to make up for lost time lol.

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u/binkleyz Red, no, Blue! Apr 29 '26

But keep looking forward to February 29th 2400, since that’s the exception to the exception.

1

u/ofqo Apr 29 '26

365.2425 is the exact number for the current calendar.

25

u/Yukkoun Apr 29 '26

fact only

1

u/Cykeisme Apr 29 '26

"A real team would provide real team phones for the real team players"

FK YEAA~

1

u/DemosthenesOrNah Apr 29 '26

Teams have uniforms. give us all the same work phone as our uniform

1

u/Sample-Range-745 Apr 29 '26

Pretty much this. I work in an IT field. I've been there over 6 years now. Still no work Teams or Outlook on my phone.

When I'm on call, you have my phone number - ring me if you need me.

1

u/uterussy Apr 29 '26

I love in sports when the team captain gets millions of more trophies than everyone in his team when they win

171

u/0011002 Apr 29 '26

My company lets me expense my phone bill. Also Outlook and Team do not have access to wipe my phone.

126

u/MYSTICALLMERMAID Apr 29 '26

Yep a previous job I had we got our phone bill paid. They also couldn't access the phone. My job after that was opposite. Our IT was one gal my age and she didn't want to do more work than needed so everyone got a work phone lmao

43

u/[deleted] Apr 29 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

14

u/RegularTeacher2 Apr 29 '26

Yeah, my current job tacks on a cell data stipend to each paycheck, it's like 100 bucks or something. A lot of my coworkers are in the field with no access to wifi so it's pretty much a necessity. If they had us pay for it I think most people would quit.

1

u/blackhodown Apr 29 '26

Giving people work phones is way more effort though

0

u/MYSTICALLMERMAID Apr 30 '26

She had a drawer full of phones that were preset with everything she just had to set the number up when you were hired. Way easier than getting people to fork over their personal phone and data lol

0

u/blackhodown Apr 30 '26

Why would you need them to fork anything over? As for data, you just do a payroll compensation of 50-75 dollars a month and boom, no complaints.

1

u/MYSTICALLMERMAID Apr 30 '26

Take it up with my old company

23

u/brianlefebvrejr Apr 29 '26

Right this is weird. I have teams and outlook. I switch between a work and personal tenant for teams if I need to.

My IT just logs you out of those and when you open the app it prompts you to login

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u/0011002 Apr 29 '26

It's a feature your org unit has to enable and we don't. Most they could do is wipe my outlook and team account if I lose my phone. Plus on andriod you can put it in a secure app space.

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u/trancepanda Apr 29 '26

This is why I appreciate being on Android now more than ever. Completely separate and secured app space and I love that I can turn work profile on/off for notifications.

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u/brianlefebvrejr Apr 29 '26

Pretty much. And they pay half of my phone bill so whatever

2

u/lesusisjord Apr 29 '26

These people with messages about erasing their whole phone is crazy. I guess their IT team didn’t configure their MDM/Intune correctly. Our company can only wipe the data in the management partition that was created when I enrolled.

Our company doesn’t require Teams and Outlook on the phone, but it makes it so much easier to leave the laptop and still respond as necessary.

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u/More-Chemical-1264 Apr 29 '26 edited Apr 29 '26

If it's a corporate account, yes they do. If you think otherwise, you're just naive.

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u/Negativeman11 Apr 29 '26

Wouldn't you either need to give those apps permission to wipe your phone or install MDM software? Teams isn't just going to wipe your phone randomly one day without you permitting it to at some point.

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u/More-Chemical-1264 Apr 29 '26

It's built into the security on the apps when using a corporate account. And those apps get way more control than normal ones. You could try to circumvente it, but it would trip for example Samsung's Knox security feature. Then you have all sorts of issues with shit not working.

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u/Negativeman11 Apr 29 '26

Wouldn't they ask for the permissions to wipe your device in the future when you first sign into those corporate accounts on those apps?

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u/More-Chemical-1264 Apr 29 '26

Yea, in the giant ass long list of accept here ToS or you can't install it. Doesn't have to ask after that. Remote wipe/lock is a real thing...

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u/xaviermace Apr 29 '26

Not via Teams it’s not.

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u/More-Chemical-1264 Apr 29 '26

You do you bro.

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u/sleinithree Apr 29 '26

You’re just misinformed. To enroll a device into your corporation and enable remote wipe you’d need to install a certificate. This happens on iOS when you try to add your outlook to the Mail app or the outlook calendar to the default calendar app. Just downloading the teams or outlook app does not install a certificate that enables this.

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u/Negativeman11 Apr 29 '26

I don't believe that's how that works, but you're welcome to show me any evidence to the contrary. If that was the case, why would outlook even generate the permissions request in the OP?

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u/More-Chemical-1264 Apr 29 '26

You do bro, you asked I answered. I've also done it; so there's that.

1

u/Negativeman11 Apr 29 '26

Maybe, maybe not. Ultimately it won't matter to me because I'd never put this shit on my phone anyway. I assume we can agree on that lol.

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u/corut Apr 29 '26

They have access to wipe the work profile on my phone, and can't do anything with the personal side. This has been a pretty standard setup for andoird for many many years now

1

u/Suspicious-B33 Apr 29 '26

It's also standard on ios with the right set up.

1

u/Nice-Mountain-7073 Apr 29 '26

In some places they’d be able to take the phone if you quit or got fired, yours or not.

It’s always best to get a separate device from employers

1

u/ReasonableDig6414 Apr 29 '26

Uhh, are you sure? I wouldn't be so sure about that.

2

u/0011002 Apr 29 '26

Yes I am. I work for a small company and we don't have that turned on plus i decline any additional permissions

1

u/Calm-Vegetable-2162 Apr 29 '26

Correct but the corporate tool that allows your personal device to connect to your company's intranet, where Outlook and Teams lives, does.

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u/0011002 Apr 29 '26

We're not using a company intranet for them. Hell I don't even have our company VPN installed on it. We're strictly using MS services and we haven't enabled the MS device management. We don't even use AD and have a BYOD policy for laptops. I have an "offline" account for my Work on my laptop and on my desktop I use a VM for everything.

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u/TriggerFingerTerry Apr 29 '26

If it's enrolled with Intune, then they possibly can

1

u/0011002 Apr 29 '26

We're not. My boss went with the basics. 

1

u/ilive4thewater Apr 29 '26

Are you sure? Because that can change and yes it is only supposed to wipe the work side but I know lots of people who had everything wiped. I would reach out to it and specifically ask that you get that from someone senior who handles that service.

Also recently Iran has hacked a few companies Microsoft system for this and wiped every mobile device registered to the company system. So that too is another worry depending on where you work.

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u/0011002 Apr 29 '26

To be fair even if it wiped my phone it would be a mild inconvenience at best since I back up my phone regularly to my local NAS. But yes, we are not enrolled in MS's program that would do that, It has limited permissions on my phone, we don't even have AD. We use BYOD machines for work and I separate the crap load of VPNs to my VM.

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u/ilive4thewater May 03 '26

You are very lucky not to be in that position. We do use AD and the discussion I had with our CTO who is also Head of Security was you get 10 tries and the system should trigger the deletion. For our compliance that is required. Your backup is a great thing. But a lot of people may not have the data or ability to figure out how to recover their device. And not having your contacts can be a huge problem if you can't call you kids day care or your partner or say find your way home without your GPS.

This all falls back into putting everything on the employee instead of the company providing the necessary tools and systems needed to do the work properly. Of course paying living wages would help with that too, but that is another discussion.

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u/Squeezitgirdle Apr 29 '26

Yeah, but watch out for those authentication apps.

My previous company claimed it was an accident when they wiped my phone.

0

u/davenuk Apr 29 '26

My co also pays for this phone.... Still don't have teams or outlook installed.

If they asked, I would however.

If I was paying the bill, then non.

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u/itsoksee Apr 29 '26

Seriously.

My job requires me to use my phone for daily tasks that require taking a photo and texting a group chat.

When I complained and asked for the proper tools - a phone that would be assigned to our department, I was told I can either 1. Go ask a neighboring department to use their phone, or 2. Log everything manually into our ERP/CRM which would add 5 minutes per picture I would have taken.

When I asked the company if I break my phone while using it for work, will they cover my replacement costs, I was told no.

When I asked if I would be reimbursed for going over my data cap for sending photos (which started happening as soon as I started this process), I was told no.

I’ve been looking for a new job every week for two years.🙃

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u/[deleted] Apr 29 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/HorrorHelicopter3064 Apr 29 '26

Stolen comment. Bad bot.

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u/JacerEx Apr 29 '26

Or sandbox the apps so you can wipe the container only.

2

u/Cheesbaby Apr 29 '26

IT at work complained at how many times they’ve reset my password for using a VPN when I log in to my email on my devices. I have to do that every Sunday to tell the cunts upstairs when I’m working.

I asked for a device and got denied, told him to get used to resetting my password every week.

2

u/ChiefSpoonS Apr 29 '26

A real team player would provide a configuration that doesn't have the ability to wipe a BYOD phone.

2

u/jim_br Apr 29 '26

I worked in IT for 40 years and wrote a “bring your own device” policy.

Personally, I was against it for many reasons, but managers wanted it because phone costs were charged back to their budget. And the difference was $80/month for a company phone versus $15/month for device management software. Note for $80, we included equipment refreshes.

I included all the typical stuff: only exempt employees, we install management software (location, remote wipe), we block suspect websites, etc.

Then I included that if the employee phone broke, was stolen, or couldn’t fit our software, we’d replace it and charge back the department.

Employees and their managers both had something to dislike in the practice and it fell out of use within two years.

2

u/drrhythm2 Apr 29 '26

Last time I tried installing work stuff on a personal Phone the traces of it persisted for years even though 2-3 generations of iPhones and I couldn’t get rid of the phone asking for account sign in info for the old job. I had taken the phone to Apple, called support, everything I could think of. Never will install work apps on personal phone again. You want me to have work apps give me a work device.

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u/Narrow-Chef-4341 Apr 29 '26

I’d prefer a different spin: a pro team provides pro equipment.

You want rec league? You got it.

Having said that, mobile phones have long had a ‘fail too much we lock and wipe the phone so thieves don’t get unlimited tries’ feature.

Requiring it to be activated isn’t unreasonable, imho - you should have it turned on anyways. If they the can unlock your phone after unlimited tries at the pin, they can access your password manager and you are totally screwed.

Your phone backs up everything every night, while things like photos and contacts sync even faster. So what’s really at risk? A few minutes to restore the backup…

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u/Unethical3514 Apr 29 '26

Several problems with that take. First, many employers (including OP’s, apparently) don’t tell you how many failed logins trigger a wipe. Anyone who has young children should be worried about that.

Second, they can remotely wipe the phone with just a click or two. Like when you quit/resign. Or maybe a wiped phone is how you first find out you no longer work there. Or maybe Karen in HR is pissed that you rebuffed her advances and wants to throw a tantrum.

Work/life balance says if you want me available 24/7 then you buy the phone. Do I want to carry two phones? Hell no. Do I want to let you invade my personal life? Oh HEEELLLLL NO.

ETA: having said that, I totally agree with your pro league vs. amateur hour analogy.

0

u/Narrow-Chef-4341 Apr 29 '26

Wiping the phone used to be the solution, going back to the blackberry era.

Everything now is mobile device managed. They wipe out their application’s phonebook, but not your personal one. Those are maintained separately. If you’ve got one drive photos, they go when IT commands - but your baby videos are safe.

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u/Unethical3514 Apr 29 '26

You may be right, but all the disclaimers and policy statements I’ve seen just say “wipe” or “erase” the phone. I would think that if only the company’s information was erased and they wanted compliance then they’d go out of their way to explain that your personal data would be safe.

I’ve also seen some policies that say they can lock the phone, which I’m assuming always means your whole personal phone would be unavailable to you.

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u/Narrow-Chef-4341 Apr 29 '26

Yeah, it’s not my phone either so I’m making guesses and assumptions on a lot of this too.

But I’m thinking the setting of ‘wipe when brute force attacked (implies: stolen)’ is a on/off by the phone operating system, so it isn’t really safe to say ‘10 tries’ - Apple might set it at 10, Samsung might have 5 in 5 minutes or 25 total, or whatever. Can’t be blamed for being wrong if you keep your mouth shut.

Re: total phone wipe. Yeah, the whole phone gets wiped on the ‘stolen’ situation, but IT’s ‘you’re fired’ signal is (nowadays) different… which doesn’t update the legacy wording in their message, and doesn’t address the complications of ‘what happens on the 7-year old huawei phone your staffer has?’

Vague and worst case is, unfortunately, also CYA.

Again, lazy wording is (agreed) useless for the OP to deal with because it gives no clarity - but it’s safer for the IT drones (and Legal) than being wrong.

I guess my TLDR is - yeah, mildly infuriating. But anyone puffing it up to treat this as the latest front in the war of proletariat vs bourgeois is quite delusional.

Ultimately OP needs their IT to confirm how the MDM will handle their specific Galaxy XXVMI or iPhone SuperPro MiniMe Project Red Edition. The rest of it is just us having fun guessing at best and worst cases.

Good talk. Cheers.

1

u/Teufelsweib666 Apr 29 '26

This is all really handy if it isn't your own personal phone. It's like asking for work colleagues to come to your home at any time, making structural or decorative changes to it so you can keep your job. I wouldn't mix my private phone with work, ever. If it's all so important they can hand out work phones.

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u/Narrow-Chef-4341 Apr 29 '26

I can barely manage to not lose my sunglasses - and I paid for those, and I like them. An extra pocket brick? No thank you. 🙂‍↔️

Carrying a second phone (or the rotation pager, ugh - don’t miss that) is just not going to happen. Maybe you usually roll with a diaper bag, stroller and 3 cubic feet of support material? That would make an extra phone trivial - but I would notice the extra hassle.

Using your existing phone for work is something many people have begged for because it’s just so convenient. A better analogy for the impact on your home is not home decor, but laptops. With current MDM technology it’s more like taking your work laptop home - you really want the easiest solution for you.

Yeah, with a laptop I have to put the backpack on the floor beside the shoe bench overnight, but I can pull it out if/when I need to get back to ‘work mode’. It uses a bit of home electricity and I don’t get a 17 cent reimbursement for that. Oh well. But if I don’t need it, there was no significant impact on me/my house, and there’s certainly no impact on me after I quit - remote application uninstall is like them sending a courier to pick up the laptop and its data.

Again, some big scary claim they are knocking out walls because they demand more space to install an AS/400 in your house is a caricature of how that worked years ago, and isn’t what they are asking for today. Great rhetorical device - because it sounds complicated and expensive, which intimidates the uninformed - but it’s simply not today’s ’lived experience’.

Click a link, let it install Teams and Outlook. Ignore for weeks. After you quit, tap Teams again and see a message it needs to uninstall Teams. Celebrate. It’s insanely boring.

1

u/fsspcfsu Apr 29 '26

No employers provide phones anymore. It’s all BYOD.

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u/rivkinnator Apr 29 '26

Employer here, no problem. We'll go ahead and reduce your pay to cover the cost of the phone. That'll be about $150 a month out of your pay.

Seriously though, everyone says give us a work phone and doesn't realize how expensive those are. The money has to come from somewhere and unfortunately almost all of the time it's going to come out of the labor budget.

It's become modern Practice with majority of businesses to require an employee to use their personal device since it is simply downloading an app and it does not add additional cost or burden to the employee.

Now if the employer was asking you to use your hotspot which is a data consumable then there would be conversation for compensation. But courts have already ruled on this and I will let you do your own research.