Funny, I tried this once when I was on call and I still got called. And for a while after that, whenever someone couldn't reach me on my phone, they would call my wife. So really, it was a lose-lose.

Maybe I don't understand your situation, but screening your calls and staying in airplane mode while you're on-call doesn't seem to be appropriate.

It wasn't on purpose; that particular weekend we were going somewhere my phone didn't get any reception, but my wife's did. So, not exactly the same situation as OP.

That strikes me as wildly out of bounds. I imagine your wife has a job too, and her own work issues to deal with. I'd be very upset with the individual bothering my spouse because I hadn't returned their call fast enough for their tastes.

People in desperation tend not to think things through, especially when customers are the ones telling them that there's an issue. After the second occurrence, I explained to the relevant parties that my wife's phone cannot be used as a secondary contact for myself, and it didn't happen again after that, so I chalked it up to a misunderstanding. It was annoying, yes, but no one was pestering my wife on purpose.

You're somewhat more generous than I am. I'd have told my wife to just block that number, and waited until I got back from vacation to explain that it'll happen to anyone else who calls my wife for anything other than an existential emergency as well.

He also knew he was on-call and went somewhere where he didn't have reception. It sounds like he knew that might be an issue so gave his wife's number as a backup. That's basically training the person who has to escalate to use his wife's number as it's the one he responded on. I don't think he's being generous at all, it seems like an obvious outcome of being on call and not responding on his own phone.

This is accurate, although to be fair to myself, I didn't know I would be on call until after the plans were made. With that said, I take issue with this being an "obvious outcome" and the notion that I was "training" our staff to use my wife's number. I was explicit with the company (at least I thought) about the need to use her number only being applicable for that weekend; the fact that some people tried to use it when I was on call again in the future is on them. Mistakes happen, and everything worked out just fine, but I don't see how that part was my fault.

I suspect "training" here was meant much in the same way the person in the following story "trained" their cat that they're entitled to food when they high-five:

https://the-sky-traveler.tumblr.com/post/152838744627/my-bro...

> my brother is teaching his cat how to high five by giving her a treat every time she successfully taps her hand to his hand, which is all well and good, but now she thinks that she is entitled to food every time she high fives someone. i can’t eat in the same room as her anymore because she’ll just bap my hand rapid fire and then go nyoom straight in for my pizza like no Kelly that’s illegal go finish ur own dinner

Yeah - that's fair. I was responding more to natefox's parent comment, where he was on vacation rather than RussianCow's on-call scenario.

I should have worded myself more clearly...

Is giving them your wife's phone simply to discourage them from calling for non-emergency situations? Because in an emergency I highly doubt it would prevent my employer from getting in contact.

I do agree about unplugging, but I've never had a vacation ruined by having a work-related text or call steal my attention for 5 minutes. If me being reachable (not necessarily _available_) puts my employer at ease then it makes it easier for me to take the vacations I want to take because they're more likely to be flexible with my schedule during busy times.

That's honestly an amazing strategy. Adds a pretty big extra layer of thought about whether the decision to call you would be worth it.

> Adds a pretty big extra layer of thought [..]

I don't think the average <employer/line manager/assistant actually making the phone call> cares about it nearly as much as one might think they would:

Boss: "we need to reach $person urgently, get them on the line for me..." <walks back into office>

Assistant: "Sir, yes, sir"* <looks up numbers, calls $person's wife>

* or local equivalent

Not just that, but they also need to convince your wife that you're needed