The Male Unbonding

[CM Hooe]

If your personal phone is an iPhone, recent versions of iOS allow you to set up Personal focus time which will only allow notifications from whatever people and apps you want to interact with. It's similar to Sleep focus, but its own distinct layer not associated with any sleep tracking functionality in the iPhone's Health app.

While Personal focus is enabled, the iPhone's operating system will literally lock you out from viewing text message threads in the Messages app from contacts not in that whitelist you set up, and you will not receive notifications from contacts not in that whitelist until the Personal focus time expires.

Set up that focus time and then literally do nothing. Look under the Focus heading in the Settings app and it should be straightforward. Once you've got that taken care of, your colleague will eventually take the hint that your personal time is your personal time after you go radio silent during off hours.

I have to imagine that Android phones have similar options, but I wouldn't know them because I have never owned an Android phone.

[JHamilton9]

In my Android, I can go into Settings > Notifications > Do not disturb.
From there, I can mute calls and alerts for specific times. I can also make exceptions for other contacts/family members, so I won't miss out on "more important" conversations.

[EUBlink]

Tell him that you approach life with the intentions of keeping your private life private and your work life just work-related. You could explain to him that there are many studies that have proven a more intentional separation of our work and home lives can lead to a more fulfilling life in general, and that you mean no hard feelings about it in the least, but this is something you just feel you need to do right now at this point in your life.


If that doesn't work, start talking about things that could turn him away in disgust, such as your collection of fingernail clippings you keep at home, your ever-growing ball of dryer lint that you roll around the house for fun or the idea that you like to see how many days or weeks you can go without flushing the toilet at your house to test your smell sensitivities. These are all gag-worthy ideas we would throw back and forth when I was a cop and we had downtime and would just be messing around. You're welcome.

[ODogg]

Quote: Originally Posted by EUBlink

Tell him that you approach life with the intentions of keeping your private life private and your work life just work-related. You could explain to him that there are many studies that have proven a more intentional separation of our work and home lives can lead to a more fulfilling life in general, and that you mean no hard feelings about it in the least, but this is something you just feel you need to do right now at this point in your life. If that doesn't work, start talking about things that could turn him away in disgust, such as your collection of fingernail clippings you keep at home, your ever-growing ball of dryer lint that you roll around the house for fun or the idea that you like to see how many days or weeks you can go without flushing the toilet at your house to test your smell sensitivities. These are all gag-worthy ideas we would throw back and forth when I was a cop and we had downtime and would just be messing around. You're welcome.

While a lot of what you say seems to make sense I disagree because it seems as if you're putting him in a position where he has to justify not taking the texts.

He doesn't have to justify anything.

All he has to do is politely tell him that he is only going to answer emergency texts as he values his private life.

That's it. Then ignore anything not an emergency. He'll eventually stop texting once you ignore him. My guess is it won't even take very long before he does.

[EUBlink]

Quote: Originally Posted by ODogg

While a lot of what you say seems to make sense I disagree because it seems as if you're putting him in a position where he has to justify not taking the texts. He doesn't have to justify anything. All he has to do is politely tell him that he is only going to answer emergency texts as he values his private life. That's it. Then ignore anything not an emergency. He'll eventually stop texting once you ignore him. My guess is it won't even take very long before he does.

I recommended that because it would more likely keep from the supervisor from being able to make any incorrect assumptions that he has an employee that is being rude in any way. As he said, the supervisor has a longer tenure at the business than he does and is likely better respected by those in HR and others within the company, so if he formed a judgment toward GotY, no matter how incorrect that judgment is, he could possibly make his professional life hell if he wanted to. I just considered that my recommendation would put a certain play of words into the supervisor's mind that could, instead, make the supervisor think this is a healthy mindset to have and may even consider establishing the mindset for himself, which could be a win-win for them both. Trick the supervisor with a little psych and have peace at home and in his private life in the process.

[l3ulvl]

[jbd345]

If it’s work related I’ve come to find out one word responses work best that you don’t want to have a conversation and most people can figure it out. If it’s unrelated to work ignoring sends a message just a well. If he confronts you at work about it, then you can go to HR.

[Ghost Of The Year]

Thanks everyone, lot of good input here.

Quote: Originally Posted by ODogg

... Then ignore anything not an emergency. He'll eventually stop texting once you ignore him. My guess is it won't even take very long before he does.

Quote: Originally Posted by jbd345

If it’s work related I’ve come to find out one word responses work best that you don’t want to have a conversation and most people can figure it out. If it’s unrelated to work ignoring sends a message just a well. If he confronts you at work about it, then you can go to HR.

So these two above posts are pretty much what I ended up doing, leaving every text unanswered (these were all non-work related texts by the way. Work related texts, I actually have no qualms about). And every morning ''Did you see my text?", I would always say I just saw it a few minutes ago. And then my boss went away on vacation for a week, and he little by little stopped sending them. He came back to work yesterday and didn't mention those unanswered texts yesterday or today. So I guess he moved on. In fact, he spoke very little to me today. Maybe we're on our way from ''nod's to nothing'', to steal another quote.