It is an option, believe me, youāre just doing what your employer tells you to.
But they canāt force you to use WhatsApp unless you signed a contract of employment stating so? And if you did that the onus falls on you.
My employer is me.
Iām doing what my clients tell me, because itās generally considered to be a good business practice to not argue with oneās clients unless you have a good reason to do so.
And thatās why if I was self employed Iād use another phone entirely or promote the usage of some other way of contacting me/us. Never would I have WhatsApp installed on my personal device (Dual SIM and all) since itās my choice, which I can make.
Peer pressure, social norms, and even ābosses demanding you join their WhatsApp to communicateā is a non starter here.
I think it annoys my immediate boss that I use our corporate email for everything, or even simply calling them telling them the most menial of things.
Oh, itās my choice to approach every potential client with a long-winded pitch about why Iām off the grid and donāt believe in telephones.
Itās just terrible for business, and since I do like to consume food to keep this sack of meat running, I donāt do that.
Look, there are two things happening here:
One, you donāt seem to get to what extent Meta has entirely replaced key parts of the communications infrastructure in several parts of the world. You may as well be advocating communication via carrier pigeon.
Two, you get a kick out of being the difficult contrarian weirdo that refuses to submit to the mainstream of modern tech because you work for some boss that thinks itās worth getting your skills despite that song and dance, so there is no immediate downside. I know. Been there, done that. When you freelance you get way less precious about that, by necessity.
And yes, by the way, I do keep separate hardware and software environments to isolate some predatory applications to work hardware. That is viable. Justā¦ not for Whatsapp. Because EVERYBODY uses it and I like my friends and family to keep talking to me, too.
