[natefox]

I give my boss/coworkers my wife's phone number when I go on vacation. I tell them you have to talk to her to get to me. I then put my phone in airplane mode 95% of the time and use it as a camera. I'll occasionally undo airplane mode to upload photos or check the internets for something, but vacation for me is usually unplugging as well.

I've yet to be called with this strategy.

[RussianCow]

Funny, I tried this once when I was on call and I still got called. And for a while after that, whenever someone couldn't reach me on my phone, they would call my wife. So really, it was a lose-lose.

[rcfox]

Maybe I don't understand your situation, but screening your calls and staying in airplane mode while you're on-call doesn't seem to be appropriate.

[RussianCow]

It wasn't on purpose; that particular weekend we were going somewhere my phone didn't get any reception, but my wife's did. So, not exactly the same situation as OP.

[chucksmash]

That strikes me as wildly out of bounds. I imagine your wife has a job too, and her own work issues to deal with. I'd be very upset with the individual bothering my spouse because I hadn't returned their call fast enough for their tastes.

[RussianCow]

People in desperation tend not to think things through, especially when customers are the ones telling them that there's an issue. After the second occurrence, I explained to the relevant parties that my wife's phone cannot be used as a secondary contact for myself, and it didn't happen again after that, so I chalked it up to a misunderstanding. It was annoying, yes, but no one was pestering my wife on purpose.

[bigiain]

You're somewhat more generous than I am. I'd have told my wife to just block that number, and waited until I got back from vacation to explain that it'll happen to anyone else who calls my wife for anything other than an existential emergency as well.

[viscanti]

He also knew he was on-call and went somewhere where he didn't have reception. It sounds like he knew that might be an issue so gave his wife's number as a backup. That's basically training the person who has to escalate to use his wife's number as it's the one he responded on. I don't think he's being generous at all, it seems like an obvious outcome of being on call and not responding on his own phone.

[RussianCow]

This is accurate, although to be fair to myself, I didn't know I would be on call until after the plans were made. With that said, I take issue with this being an "obvious outcome" and the notion that I was "training" our staff to use my wife's number. I was explicit with the company (at least I thought) about the need to use her number only being applicable for that weekend; the fact that some people tried to use it when I was on call again in the future is on them. Mistakes happen, and everything worked out just fine, but I don't see how that part was my fault.

[bigiain]

Yeah - that's fair. I was responding more to natefox's parent comment, where he was on vacation rather than RussianCow's on-call scenario.

I should have worded myself more clearly...

[bradenb]

Is giving them your wife's phone simply to discourage them from calling for non-emergency situations? Because in an emergency I highly doubt it would prevent my employer from getting in contact.

I do agree about unplugging, but I've never had a vacation ruined by having a work-related text or call steal my attention for 5 minutes. If me being reachable (not necessarily _available_) puts my employer at ease then it makes it easier for me to take the vacations I want to take because they're more likely to be flexible with my schedule during busy times.

[sq_]

That's honestly an amazing strategy. Adds a pretty big extra layer of thought about whether the decision to call you would be worth it.

[logifail]

> Adds a pretty big extra layer of thought [..]

I don't think the average <employer/line manager/assistant actually making the phone call> cares about it nearly as much as one might think they would:

Boss: "we need to reach $person urgently, get them on the line for me..." <walks back into office>

Assistant: "Sir, yes, sir"* <looks up numbers, calls $person's wife>

* or local equivalent

[hanniabu]

Not just that, but they also need to convince your wife that you're needed