Texting for many people is the preferred way to communicate. It is convenient and to the point, unlike phone calls or speaking face to face. I text every day but mostly with family and friends.

Texting should not be used to communicate with your employer before a work injury and to communicate with your employer and others after a work injury.

Here's why:

1. If your workers' compensation claim goes into litigation, the employer/insurer will request copies of the texts. It is difficult to automatically filter out the relevant texts. Therefore, the employer/insurer will request ALL of your texts for a specific (usually overlarge) period of time from the cellphone company. This means that the cellphone company will produce the texts between yourself and the employer AND all of your personal texts.
2. Even if you can filter out the relevant texts, the workers' compensation judge may still require you to produce the other texts just to make sure none are missed.
3. It's difficult to produce copies on your own. Getting them out of the phone can be tricky.

If you have to communicate in writing with your employer (before or after a work injury), do it with emails or written messages, and keep copies of them. It's easier to keep track of and easier to produce if necessary.

Avoid texting. You'll thank me later.