Yeah. I was encouraged to take the lump-sum money my company paid (like most happily did - not taxed; amount equalling latest base iPhone cost) and get MDM installed on the personal phone so that we could access email and everything on that. Laptop was company issued anyway. I, and very few, chose company phone and I got a new SIM just for the company and set it up (they had to pay the SIM bill as well).

A nice side effect of that was I could clearly control when the phone won't even be on me and I had set that expectation - like treks, or short personal vacations, sleeping hours (yes!). I had championed the "follow the sun" policy in my company when it came to on-call rotation, but somehow some of my fellow country men/women colleagues took pride in "being available". Anyway, their time, their choice.

Later some of my colleagues were surprised when they couldn't install certain apps, couldn't do certain things and often used to wonder "does the company take screenshots of my phone?" because the permission was present :D

Company IT policies really got it the wrong way around with “bring your own device”. My personal phone is the last device where I would want them to have a presence. Conversely, having them manage a laptop and workstation for me is never going to give me a device as nice as I’m used to at home.

It’s as if they had two choices:

“we’ll provide clothes but you can bring your own lunch!”; vs

“wear your own clothes and we’ll provide lunch!”

and they chose the weird one not the helpful one.

I am extremely picky about keyboards, screens, and OS configuration as a result of being partially deaf, having poor eyesight, and honestly being a bit of an old stick in the mud. It would be lovely to set aside some space on an old Thinkpad for work tasks. It would be comfortable and easy to isolate and be just like my personal machine.

Instead I get a choice between a MacBook with a fixed alternate key layout or a Windows machine with a locked down bright white wallpaper and a non admin account.

In my early career, I used my work computer (off hours) to do personal work. I never made any money, but it was still wrong.

At some point, I couldn’t live with myself, and purchased my own computer (better than what work gave me, anyway).

I never used my personal cell for work. The closest thing was coordinating meetups, when traveling.

Many years ago my mom chose to have the company pay for her private phone number.

When she stopped working for them, they informed her, that the number legally belonged to them.

It was not a problem for her, because she wanted to get rid of the number anyway, else too many old clients would call.

But it was an interesting situation nonetheless.