Commuting to work: Are phones the new cars?

[theprestige]

Generally speaking, in the US, how you accomplish your physical commute to your workplace or jobsite is not your employer's concern. You're not on the clock. They don't owe you mileage. It's expected and understood that you'll get to and from work using your own equipment and resources.

Meanwhile, there's a (growing?) trend of requiring employees to install certain work-related apps on their personal phones, rather than providing them with a work phone the company pays for.

Now, for my generation (X), and probably for a lot of millennials, this practice of making you use your personal phone for work-related purposes is somewhat... repugnant. We might grudgingly go along with with such a policy, but we don't like it. Our sense of justice insists that a personal phone is personal, and not work equipment you pay for and your employer benefits from.

But I wonder about the younger generations. I grew up in a world where a mobile phone was first a rarity, then a luxury. Now they're ubiquitous. Gens Z and Alpha have grown up in a world where having a phone is as commonplace to them as having a car was commonplace to me.

The US is often criticized for having a car-centric society. In this new era, where everyone is always online by default, and the world becomes more and more "phone-centric", is there a congruency between commuting by car and "commuting" by phone?

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I should note that there have been great improvements in non-intrusively securing work apps on personal devices. Gone are the days when the employer had no choice but to brick your phone if it got compromised. My employer uses an app that creates a separate, firewalled VM on the phone, and uses it to launch CIS-approved versions of certain work-related apps. If a phone gets compromised, they just remotely wipe the VM, leaving the rest of your phone untouched.

 

[TragicMonkey]

My work gives us a choice: either they provide us with a company phone, or we can use our own personal phone with company software and get an extra $40 a month in our pay for it. I chose the latter since my current role involves very little phone use. Back when I was in support I chose the company phone. So I could throw it at people.

 

[Thermal]

My Z kids don't view their phones as their 'things'. They view them as their interface to the planet. Us Xers used to pay for minutes, so started out thinking of them differently. The the Zs and Alfs, they are just your voice and hands, and everyone is in them. They don't mind Google's tentacles, either.

 

[theprestige]

My Z kids don't view their phones as their 'things'. They view them as their interface to the planet. Us Xers used to pay for minutes, so started out thinking of them differently. The the Zs and Alfs, they are just your voice and hands, and everyone is in them. They don't mind Google's tentacles, either.

I kind of suspected as much.

I also had an epiphany recently, when I realized that Z and Alpha are used to a world where everybody carries an aura of online metadata with them wherever they go. Part of getting to know someone is taking the time to read their aura. It's expected that as you do things and things happen to you, your aura will reflect these events in some way.

 

[PitPat]

Generally speaking, in the US, how you accomplish your physical commute to your workplace or jobsite is not your employer's concern. You're not on the clock. They don't owe you mileage. It's expected and understood that you'll get to and from work using your own equipment and resources.

Meanwhile, there's a (growing?) trend of requiring employees to install certain work-related apps on their personal phones, rather than providing them with a work phone the company pays for.

Now, for my generation (X), and probably for a lot of millennials, this practice of making you use your personal phone for work-related purposes is somewhat... repugnant. We might grudgingly go along with with such a policy, but we don't like it. Our sense of justice insists that a personal phone is personal, and not work equipment you pay for and your employer benefits from.

But I wonder about the younger generations. I grew up in a world where a mobile phone was first a rarity, then a luxury. Now they're ubiquitous. Gens Z and Alpha have grown up in a world where having a phone is as commonplace to them as having a car was commonplace to me.

The US is often criticized for having a car-centric society. In this new era, where everyone is always online by default, and the world becomes more and more "phone-centric", is there a congruency between commuting by car and "commuting" by phone?

---

I should note that there have been great improvements in non-intrusively securing work apps on personal devices. Gone are the days when the employer had no choice but to brick your phone if it got compromised. My employer uses an app that creates a separate, firewalled VM on the phone, and uses it to launch CIS-approved versions of certain work-related apps. If a phone gets compromised, they just remotely wipe the VM, leaving the rest of your phone untouched.

Well I certainly can't speak for the younger generation. I don't like having tentacles to reach me at every hour of the day and night. Sometimes it's just part of the job to be available whenever needed. Like you're a homicide detective. I don't really like to have those constraints if I just work an office job and can go home at night and not worry about anything until the morning.

As for physical commutes, the time in traffic jams should be paid for. As well as the work nightmares you have between days, though that would be difficult to explain on your timesheets.

 

[gabeygoat]

i've only ever had to specifically use my phone for work for time cards. In a couple of manufacturing postions I've had, it was a bit creepy, because the time card app would keep track of when you were on or off campus. At my current job we use some MAGA* online time card thing. it's pretty damned straight forward though. it not only doesn't care if I'm on or off campus, I can literally just put in whatever time in/out I want. I have no incentive to cheat it, but it's nice to have at least some trust in me.

*I'm guessing. It is very conservative Christian, but not in your face. You actually have to look for a link on the main site to see their principles, and that link suggests that if you don't care to read about it, you may as well skip it. It's got a very MAGA style name.

 

[Puppycow]

Meanwhile, there's a (growing?) trend of requiring employees to install certain work-related apps on their personal phones, rather than providing them with a work phone the company pays for.

Now, for my generation (X), and probably for a lot of millennials, this practice of making you use your personal phone for work-related purposes is somewhat... repugnant. We might grudgingly go along with with such a policy, but we don't like it. Our sense of justice insists that a personal phone is personal, and not work equipment you pay for and your employer benefits from.

I do have one work-related app installed on my phone, but its only real purpose is for two-factor authentication. It's to be extra sure that I am who I say I am when I log into my work computer remotely. I see it as a fair trade-off for being able to work from home several days a week. If I chose to commute to the office every day in the traditional way, I wouldn't need this app.
Funny enough, in Japan it is common practice for the company to pay for your commute. Typically this is by buying you a train pass between your house and worksite. (You buy it yourself, and they reimburse you.)

 

[Hercules Rockefeller]

I have had work phones and I have never had a job where I was told to use my own. I've had one boss who would text me in my free time. I told him to knock it off.

 

[theprestige]

I have had work phones and I have never had a job where I was told to use my own. I've had one boss who would text me in my free time. I told him to knock it off.

The premise is that it's a generational thing, not a widespread practice that everyone has encountered at least once in their career.

I myself have never even been texted by my boss on a personal device while off the clock, but I do understand my experience is not universal, and that there are other things going on in the world than just my life.