How many phones are too many?

[raeoflyte]

I use my cell for work 100%. The office I'm in 4 days a week doesn't have a land line, and clients have my cell # which is great for business, but there are times I just need it off. But I need to still be able to get personal calls in that time. (So if my phone rings at 8pm in Saturday I can let work go to voice mail, but know to answer it if its actually my family).

I see 2 options-add a line to our Verizon plan. I could have that forwarded to my work phone during the week so I'm not carrying 2 phones but be able to really unplug from work when needed. Or get a google line that rings on my cell for personal calls. I'd lose the ability to screen personal calls since it would just show up as the Google line no matter who was calling, but cheap and easy.

I'm leaning towards the Google line. Thoughts?

We have a home phone too for the kids and I hate that I'm looking at adding a 4th phone number for us but...I definitely need something.

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[Shooby]

I think it depends on the ratio of work to personal calls.  If you need the cell phone for some personal calls, you can set the ring tone to specifically ring a certain way for kids, family, friends, etc.   That might be an option before investing in another line.

[reader79]

Is the work phone provided by your job? If so, I'd get a separate personal phone. I work with a lot of people who have their own phone plus a company iPhone, it doesn't seem to be a big deal. I've avoided it mainly because replying to emails on off hours becomes 'expected.' But if I had to I'd want to keep my private business off the work phone. The IT guys love to tell me what they find on peoples devices after they hand them back over.

[Shooby]

Yes.  Good point.  But, how available are you supposed to be for work?  Are you on call 24/7?  That wouldn't fly with me unless they were paying me a pile of money.   If they want to own my time out of work, they can pay for it.  So, you might want to just set it down and just let everything go into voice mail and check it daily or whatever and get your own personal phone.  
  Also do you want work to have a cell phone trail of your personal life?  If they pay for and own the phone, they also own however you use it.  Not saying you are doing anything illicit, but if they wanted to access all of your personal texts, pics,etc , then they certainly could.

[raeoflyte]

I'm in sales. I'm not available 24/7 but being accessible, and on the run are part of the gig.

The different ringer for known personal calls is a good idea, but there are personal calls that come from unknown numbers. I hired a guy to rototill for us and instead of knocking he called my cell. By the third call I finally answered, but he almost drove away assuming I wasn't home. Or assisted living calls about 97 dgm, etc.

I hate checking voice mail and if its work when I'm not working then I have to email myself to deal with the voicemail later. Yes, that frustrates me.


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[Shooby]

Well, are the work phone numbers known?  If so, you could put them on the different ring instead.

[raeoflyte]

No. New leads call me, business' involved with existing transactions, etc.

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[Shooby]

  Well, then if you can't really sort that out, then just get another phone.

[Deleted]

100 phones is too many.

[vonna]

Sometimes one phone is too many. Especially when I was working!

[wyouser]

anyone of them that is portable is ONE too many.  (Hey, I'm old, I'm cantankerous, and I remember party lines so I can say that!)

[justme]

You don't lose the ability to screen with calls to your Google number. It shows up as their number, so as long as it's in your phone their number will show up.

Also, if you set it up for Google to be your voicemail and there's a certain set of numbers that are work numbers you can set a more professional out going vm for them and a casual one for others. It can be even as specific as making one just for your mom.

The biggest thing that confuses people is if you're calling them and it's not using whatever # you gave them. Then people don't know it's you calling.

ETA: Google vm also translates your vms into text for free. Sometimes they're horribly wrong, but it's often a good way to get a quick glace and who/why someone called.

[Icelandic Woman]

We have a home phone too for the kids and I hate that I'm looking at adding a 4th phone number for us but...I definitely need something.

Did I misread this? You have a home phone (land line) for your kids? Can't you all use it?

[The Captain]

DH is tech support and is on backup on-call 24X7X365.  We have to have a land line for his job (in order to ensure best connectivity).

His cell phone died awhile back and he's been using my phone.  We normally have two cell phone lines.

When we get him a new phone we'll probably get one for DD who will be 12 next fall.

So for three people three phones plus a wireless modem for me.

[raeoflyte]

May 1, 2014 12:27:31 GMT -5 justme said:

You don't lose the ability to screen with calls to your Google number. It shows up as their number, so as long as it's in your phone their number will show up.

Also, if you set it up for Google to be your voicemail and there's a certain set of numbers that are work numbers you can set a more professional out going vm for them and a casual one for others. It can be even as specific as making one just for your mom.

The biggest thing that confuses people is if you're calling them and it's not using whatever # you gave them. Then people don't know it's you calling.

ETA: Google vm also translates your vms into text for free. Sometimes they're horribly wrong, but it's often a good way to get a quick glace and who/why someone called.

The first bolded section I didn't realize--that is a huge plus.  We use a google # for one of our work support lines and it always shows the google # on caller idea, but I'm sure the boss did that on purpose because any calls from that number need to be answered or called back within 15 minutes and he didn't want people confused on if someone was calling us directly or calling the team line.  

The 2nd bolded section takes away the only downside to the google #.  I was thinking that I'd still have the trouble of checking work voice mails to potentially get to a personal voicemail.  But I could just use the text voicemail.   

I think I just found my answer.  Thanks Justme!  

[justme]

Just double checked, and it does show up as their number. (Though I found out you can answer the call through Hangouts so my phone AND my laptop were ringing at the same time.)

Even if the text sucks, the app interface for voicemail is nice. It shows the number (and if you have it saved in your phone shows up as that) and gives you a preview of the vm in text. You click on the vm to either read the full text or listen to the voicemail and listening to vm is as simple as pressing play and you can stop it whenever you want like a youtube video.