> I really can't imagine most people would be like "huh your phone only works in this one very peculiar way, I guess there's just nothing else that can be done

> I really can't imagine most people would be like "huh your phone only works in this one very peculiar way, I guess there's just nothing else that can be done about that." Think about it like: I'm already on vacation, that my boss three levels up (CEO) approved, including explicitly approving / encouraging-as-company-policy my use of this device/service during my vacation. Now boss-two-levels-up (some VP) is trying to cover their own ass for something they didn't do, by telling me to do urgent work during my vacation. The only way to actually get them to go away in a way that doesn't result in awful office politics happening to me, is to make it technically impossible for me to be reached, or for me to do synchronous work. Thus the device, and the public/institutional knowledge that I'm only reachable through such a delayed mechanism. That way, rather than me having to make waves (which could get turned around on me, since I'm not there to defend myself), the VP would have to make waves about me not responding — which would expose publicly to the rest of the company the fact that they're trying to make me work on my vacation, and cause the CEO to come down on them. Very likely, they'd realize that, and just give up on the idea of shirking their responsibility off to me. (This is all hypothetical; I don't even have a boss.)