Utterly ******* dumb work policies

[Del Lardo]

Originally Posted by Le Hoff

If I was your boss and you were ignoring calls/emails and I knew you had a bb, I'd either take out a disciplinary with you, or take away your blackberry and you'd be less likely to be trusted and certainly wouldn't rely on you.

Why give you a BB if you'rew going to ignore it? It defies the whole point of been given one!

Seriously? I want a BB so that when I'm in a situations like airports or customer sites where I do not have e-mail access because I cannot get an internet connection or have to pay for one I can access my e-mail and respond to customer issues.

Out of hours I would turn it off/ignore it because I am not working then and therefore am not expected to answer e-mails.

[Will]

In my previous contract it stipulated that I had to leave my phone on at all times. You can waive your rights to any EU directives if you're happy about it - i.e. the 48hr week directive etc...

Paul - in your situation to be able to download email at airports or at a client site it's great! Until people know you're contactable that way. Some companies have a read receipt policy, and have a maximum reply time rule. Others you have to stipulate or put an "out of office" message when you're "off duty". In my last job I never turned off my phone and was never off duty so to speak. Similar in this job (though I haven;'t got a company mobile yet!!). I leave my personal mobile on all the time too. I haven't switched it off in about a year! Well except taking it on a plane (but then it's on flight mode).

I guess it's just down to your company's policy. If I offered you a blackberry it would be for you to be VERY contactable and able to act on important emails immediately. Obviously if you're asleep that's allowed! It depends how time critical your business is. Mine was absolutely imperative to be contactable - I was also monitoring our IT systems and got emails/texts if there were any problems.

Each company has it's own policy. In your case Paul, I'd agree it might be useful - but then again most phones can download emails now anyway so why give you a blackberry?

[Garp]

Originally Posted by Le Hoff

In my previous contract it stipulated that I had to leave my phone on at all times. You can waive your rights to any EU directives if you're happy about it - i.e. the 48hr week directive etc...

Actually, you can't. That's what was believed when the Working Time Directive came into place, and lots of companies got their staff to sign wavers, but it has been proven in court that the waiver isn't worth the piece of paper it was written on.

[Will]

Well I don't think European Business Law has jurisdiction here in the UK does it? Besides you're incorrect I'm afraid employees DO have the right to waive their 48hrs if they are non-mobile workers. I'm pretty sure the 48hrs which isn't allowed to be waived is for road haulage.

Eitherway 1000s of employees currently waive their rights - as I attended a DTI meeting exactly on this matter. The HSE even support it given reasonable breaks etc... I do well over 48hrs a week - I'm sure most of us do here anyway.