Company App on Your Personal Smartphone?

[OSUJillyBean]

OP, I believe you said your co-worker deleted the app and I would love to know if there has been any comeback on that. I just can't fathom the thought process that went " Oh, let's send IT around to mess with people's private property" without any realisation that this goes so far beyond ethical, acceptable behaviour as to be in an entirely different solar system. I just want to understand what your higher ups were thinking, so that I can unflabber my ghast.

Our boss has been out all week but the second-in-command (2IC) has okayed the deletion and was mystified that the IT guy installed it without permission in the first place.

And this sort of thing is par for the course at my work place.  We've been bought out and are transitioning to new management, which I'm hoping will be for the better.  *fingers crossed*

[starry diadem]

OP, I believe you said your co-worker deleted the app and I would love to know if there has been any comeback on that. I just can't fathom the thought process that went " Oh, let's send IT around to mess with people's private property" without any realisation that this goes so far beyond ethical, acceptable behaviour as to be in an entirely different solar system. I just want to understand what your higher ups were thinking, so that I can unflabber my ghast.

Our boss has been out all week but the second-in-command (2IC) has okayed the deletion and was mystified that the IT guy installed it without permission in the first place.

And this sort of thing is par for the course at my work place.  We've been bought out and are transitioning to new management, which I'm hoping will be for the better.  *fingers crossed*

Thank you for letting us know. I hope the new management is better, too, but at least the 2-i-c sounds sensible.

[nayberry]

OP, I believe you said your co-worker deleted the app and I would love to know if there has been any comeback on that. I just can't fathom the thought process that went " Oh, let's send IT around to mess with people's private property" without any realisation that this goes so far beyond ethical, acceptable behaviour as to be in an entirely different solar system. I just want to understand what your higher ups were thinking, so that I can unflabber my ghast.

Our boss has been out all week but the second-in-command (2IC) has okayed the deletion and was mystified that the IT guy installed it without permission in the first place.

And this sort of thing is par for the course at my work place.  We've been bought out and are transitioning to new management, which I'm hoping will be for the better.  *fingers crossed*

i'm a little puzzled, why did she have to ask to remove it if she didn't give permission in the first place?

i'd have deleted it as soon as i realised it was there

[Twik]

OP, I believe you said your co-worker deleted the app and I would love to know if there has been any comeback on that. I just can't fathom the thought process that went " Oh, let's send IT around to mess with people's private property" without any realisation that this goes so far beyond ethical, acceptable behaviour as to be in an entirely different solar system. I just want to understand what your higher ups were thinking, so that I can unflabber my ghast.

Our boss has been out all week but the second-in-command (2IC) has okayed the deletion and was mystified that the IT guy installed it without permission in the first place.

And this sort of thing is par for the course at my work place.  We've been bought out and are transitioning to new management, which I'm hoping will be for the better.  *fingers crossed*

i'm a little puzzled, why did she have to ask to remove it if she didn't give permission in the first place?

i'd have deleted it as soon as i realised it was there

Because as much as it's in her rights, deleting it without comment might have seemed disrespectful to her employers. Seeing as they're daft enough to put it on in the first place, they're likely to also take offense if someone removes it without authorization.

[jedikaiti]

When my job decided it was time to give me a phone, I had 2 options - they would pay for my bills for my existing personal smartphone, or they would buy me the same one they got for everyone else with a new number, completely separate from my personal phone. I chose option #2, and amuse my friends that I run around with 2 different smart phones pretty much all the time. :-)

[OSUJillyBean]

OP, I believe you said your co-worker deleted the app and I would love to know if there has been any comeback on that. I just can't fathom the thought process that went " Oh, let's send IT around to mess with people's private property" without any realisation that this goes so far beyond ethical, acceptable behaviour as to be in an entirely different solar system. I just want to understand what your higher ups were thinking, so that I can unflabber my ghast.

Our boss has been out all week but the second-in-command (2IC) has okayed the deletion and was mystified that the IT guy installed it without permission in the first place.

And this sort of thing is par for the course at my work place.  We've been bought out and are transitioning to new management, which I'm hoping will be for the better.  *fingers crossed*

i'm a little puzzled, why did she have to ask to remove it if she didn't give permission in the first place?

i'd have deleted it as soon as i realised it was there

She did delete it, with overstepping-my-bounds coaxing from me.  Afterwards, she okayed the deletion with 2IC to make 100% sure she wouldn't get in trouble and also to ask what was the deal with the privacy invasion in the first place.

[nayberry]

OP, I believe you said your co-worker deleted the app and I would love to know if there has been any comeback on that. I just can't fathom the thought process that went " Oh, let's send IT around to mess with people's private property" without any realisation that this goes so far beyond ethical, acceptable behaviour as to be in an entirely different solar system. I just want to understand what your higher ups were thinking, so that I can unflabber my ghast.

Our boss has been out all week but the second-in-command (2IC) has okayed the deletion and was mystified that the IT guy installed it without permission in the first place.

And this sort of thing is par for the course at my work place.  We've been bought out and are transitioning to new management, which I'm hoping will be for the better.  *fingers crossed*

i'm a little puzzled, why did she have to ask to remove it if she didn't give permission in the first place?

i'd have deleted it as soon as i realised it was there

She did delete it, with overstepping-my-bounds coaxing from me.  Afterwards, she okayed the deletion with 2IC to make 100% sure she wouldn't get in trouble and also to ask what was the deal with the privacy invasion in the first place.

thanks for clarifying

Twik - i saw it as disrespectful to her that it was installed without permission

[Surianne]

So did she ever find out what the app was for?  I'm super curious.

[doodlemor]

[Cue scary music.........]

Are you 100 % sure that the thing is fully deleted?  I actually asked an IT tech about this, and he said that one would *think* it was gone, but that with the weird things out there that he's read about he'd never be completely sure.

[GwenB]

So did she ever find out what the app was for?  I'm super curious.

The mention of "tokens"makes me think it may be something similar to an app we use at my work.  If you want to log onto the company network from outside the office, either from a company laptop or a personal computer, you have to provide a "token code" as well as your password.  The token code is just a string of numbers - you either have the app on your phone or a little key fob that generates the numbers.  They change every minute or something, and are somehow linked to the server, so it is sort of a password that is always changing.

[VorFemme]

I signed in to work from home on the night shift when I worked for the car insurance company (short term due to upcoming consolidation of Southeast and Midwest offices about three months after I transferred in and the previous person moved to another job in the company and the night shift guy retired). 

It was easier to set me up with a token to generate passcodes, the software to use on my home computer, and wait until we relocated to the joint office rather than train someone for a month or so to work for less than two months...

It didn't take that long to train me - I was used to using Windows - but the company's proprietary software for in-house bore no resemblance to Windows.

I think that it could have been done more quickly - but apparently there were a few people who wanted to write free-form replies to send without running them by Legal and they NEEDED much better filters on their inner snarky selves than they had.

My Snarky learned to be quiet when in the same room with a general officer and a bunch of full colonels - most people seemed to have Snarkies that only learned to keep quiet around teachers in middle school or high school - not nearly enough pressure to stay covert at all times when at work. 

But my token was about the size of a credit card - I did not have a smartphone - this was in 2000 or early 2001....smartphones were probably not THAT smart yet.

[Twik]

Twik - i saw it as disrespectful to her that it was installed without permission

Of course it was. However, if one wants to keep one's job, one sometimes has to sacrifice righteous indignation for self-preservation. In other words, the Pointy-Haired Boss who decided it was a good idea to put programs on other people's personal phones might be idjit enough to get upset if one of the owners decided to delete them.

[nayberry]

Twik - i saw it as disrespectful to her that it was installed without permission

Of course it was. However, if one wants to keep one's job, one sometimes has to sacrifice righteous indignation for self-preservation. In other words, the Pointy-Haired Boss who decided it was a good idea to put programs on other people's personal phones might be idjit enough to get upset if one of the owners decided to delete them.

and that is why i'm glad that in the UK if you were fired for that it would be a 99.999% probability that you'd win an employment tribunal and damages. 

[Danika]

Twik - i saw it as disrespectful to her that it was installed without permission

Of course it was. However, if one wants to keep one's job, one sometimes has to sacrifice righteous indignation for self-preservation. In other words, the Pointy-Haired Boss who decided it was a good idea to put programs on other people's personal phones might be idjit enough to get upset if one of the owners decided to delete them.

and that is why i'm glad that in the UK if you were fired for that it would be a 99.999% probability that you'd win an employment tribunal and damages.

Nice. In the US, each state has different laws. I live in what is called an "at will" state. They can fire you, or an employee can quit, for absolutely any reason except for the protected ones (gender, race, religion, se*ual orientation, age). So the company could just fire you and then to win a lawsuit you'd not only have to prove a paper trail showing that the company disliked you because you didn't want them messing with your personal phone, but that they also fired you because of it. Good luck with that.

[OSUJillyBean]

So did she ever find out what the app was for?  I'm super curious.

I've since found out!  It's completely silly.  All the app does is generate a random password that you need to log into the new (merged) system.  If you don't put the app on your phone, they give you a lanyard with a small plastic thumb-drive-looking thing on the end of it that can also generate the password.  Passwords are changed every few minutes.  Apparently new owner-company is much more serious about security than old company.

So me and Earbud-Coworker both have lanyards now and it would seem the drama is finished.

And I'm the same as Danika - in our area we're technically employed "at will".  However I can speak from experience that the state unemployment office will give out UE funds to anyone who applies, regardless of the circumstances!