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> Basically, when you quit, you have to go through this process of getting your number released from their mega-account with ATT or whatever, and that's just on

> Basically, when you quit, you have to go through this process of getting your number released from their mega-account with ATT or whatever, and that's just one more bit of turmoil in a time when you just want to be done with it. I did this about a month ago at the same company Rachel is talking about. It was dead simple. I created a task where I mentioned my personal email account. The next day they mailed me a porting key, which I relayed to my new carrier. It started working within a day. Haven't had an issue so far. I always felt that some of the writing on this blog had a tendency to make mountains out of mole hills. I can't say for sure about the rest of it, but this is definitely a mole hill.

gnicholas 5y ago
Agree that it's not hard to port numbers. I think the larger potential issue is if you are working for a smaller company that is not as smooth with these transactions, or if you end up with an acrimonious situation where — whoops, we forgot to give you the porting key and now your phone number has been lost and there's literally no way to pull it back.
- nindalf 5y ago
  Like I said, it might be different at other companies. I only pointed out at the specific company Rachel mentioned, the process is smooth.
wafflespotato 5y ago
As someone who no longer shares devices / numbers / ... with employers partly due to NDA shenanigans in the same vein as in this article and when I left that company they tried to make my life as difficult as possible and tried to withhold compensation and so on. Sure, in the happy path porting number is easy. But this assumes that * the company will be ok with you porting it out (and not just hold onto it out of spite, which I believe the company I worked for might have done) * the company will handle that kind of tickets in a reasonable amount of time * the company will not need to escalate this sort of request to levels where they will then be ignored * the company will be technically competent to handle this sort of request I'm not saying that all or even most companies will have these problems but the issue is that if the first thing you do when joining the company is port your number over, how can you know what the internal company culture is and if they will make it feasible for you to get your number back later on? This also ignores the big selling point of keeping your work accounts / numbers separate: being able to disconnect. Just being able to put your work laptop and phone away and know that you won't get called has it's own fairly large value.
- nindalf 5y ago
  I have nothing to say about companies in general. I only spoke about that particular company Rachel and I both worked at. My experience was smooth.
  - wafflespotato 5y ago
    Sure. My point was more "how would you know the experience would have been smooth" before you worked there for a while? edit: sure, her description of the hurdles etc might not be representative of things at that specific company, to be clear. Just saying that it's a risk to connect your personal stuff to any company.
  - ggm 5y ago
    This one aspect aside (porting out barriers/risks/complexities) do you disagree with the advice to separate personal and work accounts and devices? I don't. I've disburdened my personal apple ID and made a work one about 3 years ago, and separated my Google identity precisely so that I don't face these risks. (Google can be ferocious about closing off access to your life, if they deem e.g. you abused advertising norms and t&c, and my company had some risk of this) BTW you replied in about 5 places to re state your experience of this porting thing. That read as slightly obsessively detailed and specific hence my question because not once have you stated a view about the rest of her piece, except mildly disparagingly.
    - nindalf 5y ago
      Yes I actually disagree with the advice. This might seem crazy, but maybe I’ll just prefer to work for people who aren’t complete psychopaths. Like the company that apparently assigned all IP till the day the employee died. It’s a point of view. Certainly there are people who feel that every interaction with their employer needs to be contentious. I prefer to trust and assume good intent. Will I be disappointed on occasion? Definitely. I’m ok with that. I didn’t reply in 5 places. I replied once and then sent a similar response to 3 people who said pretty much the same thing. I can’t help it if they don’t read the other responses and rush to comment identical things.
insulanus 5y ago
Good point, but incomplete. It's safe to assume the company improved their process over time. The point stands that it may be a hassle at other companies. Furthermore, you are beholden to the company until then.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
ldoughty 5y ago
your company made it easy... If you left on bad terms, or with an immature company/boss/process, you might need days to go through the process... Or the company might argue and say your number is on to many cards/documents/etc and want to fight you to keep it... Even if it's clear on paper the number is yours. I get where Rachel is coming from here. I think a decade ago when I had a separate phone for work was my least stressful time working... Unfortunately (in this case) I work for a University which I also attended school as a benefit, so the work/personal line got blurred for 6-7 years. Even though I finished my masters degree, it's become familiar to have "work" on my personal device now, when I used to be like Rachel -- separate work phone for the first 7-8 years I was working. I'm happy she wrote this article, it's encouraging me to consider a low cost provider like Google Fi with an old phone and going back to the work/personal separation.
- nindalf 5y ago
  Like I've pointed out to others, I have nothing to say about other companies. I speak only about this one company where Rachel claimed that it would cause turmoil if you attempted to transfer your number out. Rachel didn't actually raise a request for number transfer, so this was conjecture. I've gone through the process, and it was smooth. That's why I think it's a mole hill. Everyone is saying "yes but at other companies...". Sure. I concede that. Just not at this one company.
  - chenmike 5y ago
    You don’t think that claiming this is a non-issue (or mole hill) requires unjustifiably generalizing your good experience at your one company?
    - nindalf 5y ago
      Normally no. But it’s based on the exact same company that OP made the assertion based on. And the relevant bit is this - I actually used the process, they didn’t. They were sharing conjecture, I was sharing experience.
id5j1ynz 5y ago
> I always felt that some of the writing on this blog had a tendency to make mountains out of mole hills. I can't say for sure about the rest of it, but this is definitely a mole hill. The thing is that the "fast path" or "happy path" of things is always nice and streamlined. It's when things start going wrong that it matters. If you marry yourself too heavily to a company you start losing your leverage. Depending on where you are and who you work with, things can get real dirty, and if your stuff is all intertwined with their stuff, that can add up to a lot of pain and suffering.
asveikau 5y ago
At a big co, competence of whoever you are dealing with in HR might vary a lot depending on who you happen to be working with that day. Maybe they could also have improved some processes since she worked there. I share an employer in my work history with her. I feel she captures some things I didn't like about the place pretty well, without hyperbole.
shuckles 5y ago
This is not a universal experience. I had to go through this recently with a large technology company, and it took multiple weeks of back and forth between the company and a major US carrier to confirm that the company wanted to release the number. If I had lost access to the internal ticketing system in the meantime, I am not sure what I would have done short of asking a coworker to take on the cause. Most importantly, I had no idea a priori how long and involved the process would be.
nijave 5y ago
Besides the complexity, I think there's still merit in keeping the path the to the exit clear If you're considering leaving a company, it's just another irem to have to deal with on the way out

gnicholas 5y ago

Agree that it's not hard to port numbers. I think the larger potential issue is if you are working for a smaller company that is not as smooth with these transactions, or if you end up with an acrimonious situation where — whoops, we forgot to give you the porting key and now your phone number has been lost and there's literally no way to pull it back.

nindalf 5y ago
Like I said, it might be different at other companies. I only pointed out at the specific company Rachel mentioned, the process is smooth.

wafflespotato 5y ago

As someone who no longer shares devices / numbers / ... with employers partly due to NDA shenanigans in the same vein as in this article and when I left that company they tried to make my life as difficult as possible and tried to withhold compensation and so on. Sure, in the happy path porting number is easy. But this assumes that * the company will be ok with you porting it out (and not just hold onto it out of spite, which I believe the company I worked for might have done) * the company will handle that kind of tickets in a reasonable amount of time * the company will not need to escalate this sort of request to levels where they will then be ignored * the company will be technically competent to handle this sort of request I'm not saying that all or even most companies will have these problems but the issue is that if the first thing you do when joining the company is port your number over, how can you know what the internal company culture is and if they will make it feasible for you to get your number back later on? This also ignores the big selling point of keeping your work accounts / numbers separate: being able to disconnect. Just being able to put your work laptop and phone away and know that you won't get called has it's own fairly large value.

nindalf 5y ago
I have nothing to say about companies in general. I only spoke about that particular company Rachel and I both worked at. My experience was smooth.
- wafflespotato 5y ago
  Sure. My point was more "how would you know the experience would have been smooth" before you worked there for a while? edit: sure, her description of the hurdles etc might not be representative of things at that specific company, to be clear. Just saying that it's a risk to connect your personal stuff to any company.
- ggm 5y ago
  This one aspect aside (porting out barriers/risks/complexities) do you disagree with the advice to separate personal and work accounts and devices? I don't. I've disburdened my personal apple ID and made a work one about 3 years ago, and separated my Google identity precisely so that I don't face these risks. (Google can be ferocious about closing off access to your life, if they deem e.g. you abused advertising norms and t&c, and my company had some risk of this) BTW you replied in about 5 places to re state your experience of this porting thing. That read as slightly obsessively detailed and specific hence my question because not once have you stated a view about the rest of her piece, except mildly disparagingly.
  - nindalf 5y ago
    Yes I actually disagree with the advice. This might seem crazy, but maybe I’ll just prefer to work for people who aren’t complete psychopaths. Like the company that apparently assigned all IP till the day the employee died. It’s a point of view. Certainly there are people who feel that every interaction with their employer needs to be contentious. I prefer to trust and assume good intent. Will I be disappointed on occasion? Definitely. I’m ok with that. I didn’t reply in 5 places. I replied once and then sent a similar response to 3 people who said pretty much the same thing. I can’t help it if they don’t read the other responses and rush to comment identical things.

insulanus 5y ago

Good point, but incomplete. It's safe to assume the company improved their process over time. The point stands that it may be a hassle at other companies. Furthermore, you are beholden to the company until then.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

ldoughty 5y ago

your company made it easy... If you left on bad terms, or with an immature company/boss/process, you might need days to go through the process... Or the company might argue and say your number is on to many cards/documents/etc and want to fight you to keep it... Even if it's clear on paper the number is yours. I get where Rachel is coming from here. I think a decade ago when I had a separate phone for work was my least stressful time working... Unfortunately (in this case) I work for a University which I also attended school as a benefit, so the work/personal line got blurred for 6-7 years. Even though I finished my masters degree, it's become familiar to have "work" on my personal device now, when I used to be like Rachel -- separate work phone for the first 7-8 years I was working. I'm happy she wrote this article, it's encouraging me to consider a low cost provider like Google Fi with an old phone and going back to the work/personal separation.

nindalf 5y ago
Like I've pointed out to others, I have nothing to say about other companies. I speak only about this one company where Rachel claimed that it would cause turmoil if you attempted to transfer your number out. Rachel didn't actually raise a request for number transfer, so this was conjecture. I've gone through the process, and it was smooth. That's why I think it's a mole hill. Everyone is saying "yes but at other companies...". Sure. I concede that. Just not at this one company.
- chenmike 5y ago
  You don’t think that claiming this is a non-issue (or mole hill) requires unjustifiably generalizing your good experience at your one company?
  - nindalf 5y ago
    Normally no. But it’s based on the exact same company that OP made the assertion based on. And the relevant bit is this - I actually used the process, they didn’t. They were sharing conjecture, I was sharing experience.

id5j1ynz 5y ago

> I always felt that some of the writing on this blog had a tendency to make mountains out of mole hills. I can't say for sure about the rest of it, but this is definitely a mole hill. The thing is that the "fast path" or "happy path" of things is always nice and streamlined. It's when things start going wrong that it matters. If you marry yourself too heavily to a company you start losing your leverage. Depending on where you are and who you work with, things can get real dirty, and if your stuff is all intertwined with their stuff, that can add up to a lot of pain and suffering.

asveikau 5y ago

At a big co, competence of whoever you are dealing with in HR might vary a lot depending on who you happen to be working with that day. Maybe they could also have improved some processes since she worked there. I share an employer in my work history with her. I feel she captures some things I didn't like about the place pretty well, without hyperbole.

shuckles 5y ago

This is not a universal experience. I had to go through this recently with a large technology company, and it took multiple weeks of back and forth between the company and a major US carrier to confirm that the company wanted to release the number. If I had lost access to the internal ticketing system in the meantime, I am not sure what I would have done short of asking a coworker to take on the cause. Most importantly, I had no idea a priori how long and involved the process would be.

nijave 5y ago

Besides the complexity, I think there's still merit in keeping the path the to the exit clear If you're considering leaving a company, it's just another irem to have to deal with on the way out