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Business Phone?

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Mid-Level Data Engineer at Instacart4 months ago

My onboarding buddy is getting a business phone for email + slack. He says it's important for keeping good WLB and mental health.

Is this standard practice?

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    Founding ML Engineer @ Lancey (YC S22)
    4 months ago

    I suggest looking into software solutions

    For an internship I had to use Microsoft Intune which applies a software partition to download work apps and use work email. I had an option on my phone to silence the notifications from that work profile if I wanted to.

    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.windowsintune.companyportal&hl=en_US

    Another option is just adding in workflow/routines on your phone to mute notifications from apps after a certain hour using a quiet mode/DND feature

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    Tech Lead/Manager at Meta, Pinterest, Kosei
    4 months ago

    I heard both arguments at Meta:

    • Combine personal and work phones: easier to be responsive for pings and checking the status of something, e.g., a code review.
    • Keep the personal and work phones separate. This is better for work-life balance and distraction. Ergonomically, it's worse to have to carry around two phones.

    I ported my personal number into Meta's phone plan for the 4.5 years I worked there and felt like it was the right decision for me. Meta (Facebook) also paid for it, including my data usage :) the only slight annoyance was moving the phone number back to my ownership when I was leaving the company.

    If I recall correctly, most people on my team kept their work and personal separate, but there was a meaningful number of engineers in both camps.

    This boils down to how comfortable you are having your work life bleed a bit into your personal life. That was totally fine for me, it's the normal mode of operation! (at least in this phase of my life). But if you need clearer boundaries, there are some great tips here: How can I have less burnout and better work-life balance?

Instacart is an American company that operates a grocery delivery and pick-up service via a website and mobile app.
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