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Hey Soylentils,
One of my least favorite parts of my job is on call work. I'm wondering if there are any standard practices when it comes to afterhour on call work. At the moment, I am on call 50% of the time. (I share it with one other person). When I am on call, I am expected to answer the ticket within 15 minutes, which means:
- I can't leave the city
- Going to a restaurant/movie/etc is a gamble.
- Sometimes I have to drop whatever I'm doing and answer a call.
Thankfully, I don't get many calls -- Maybe one per week that I can resolve in 30 minutes. In exchange for carrying the pager, I am paid a flat rate of $250CAD/week. After taxes, it works out to more like $150. I am sick to death of carrying the pager. I hate being restricted in my movements on my time off. I like to get out to the mountains, and because of pager, I can't.
Now, there are rumors that the company might remove that $250/week because of "the economic times". That basically would mean that I am giving up my freedom 50% of the time for nothing, and that I should be happy to have a job. Needless to say, I'm a little upset at that prospect...
So, Soylentils, what are your pager practices? Do you get paid for on call work? What happens if you miss a call? Do you have a backup on-call person? Do you get time off in lieu?
(Score: 2) by tynin on Thursday December 10 2015, @09:37AM
I'm oncall for a week once every 6 weeks. They "pay" us by giving us a 1/2 day off, generally expected to be taken on the Friday at the end of your oncall. I grin and bare it because the pay is rather nice. To make matters worse, not everyone that is in the oncall rotation is expected to know the same level of stuff as others, so we end up with situations where a couple guys always get called if certain problems arise, which pisses me off to no end. We've tried to get them to enforce a certain minimum of knowledge but management doesn't really care. We've tried to get a full day off, again, they'd prefer we just did it for free, as part of being salaried employees. It is to the point where if I'm not oncall, and work is calling me, the person calling me better be someone with a clue that just needs to be pointed in the right direction, and doesn't expect to drop the problem in my lap, as it isn't my job to own every problem that arises.
I swear if the pay wasn't what it was, I'd be looking for a job elsewhere.
(Score: 2) by tynin on Thursday December 10 2015, @09:40AM
Sort of comically (at least to me in my current tired state), I'm oncall right now, and got called at 2:30am, fixed issue by 3am, couldn't get back to sleep, so I drove into work early. At least I can get some work done before the noisy hordes get in, and the non-stop fires keep me from getting any of my projects done. Half day tomorrow! Woo!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Kromagv0 on Thursday December 10 2015, @01:28PM
In situations like that I've found it useful to make it very clear to management what my expectations are. I had a former manager who liked to micro manage (more like pico manage) and one year I was taking 2 weeks of vacation up in the north woods of Minnesota. At that point I wasn't on call but he insisted that he needed a way to get a hold of me. Asked if I would take a loaner laptop with a cell card and was shocked when I told him there isn't any cell coverage where I was going. He then tried coming up with ideas of how to get a hold of me until I provided him with one that would work. My response was I told him where I would be leaving my car and walking into the woods. Then I told him to hire a trained tracker and a team of dogs and start there, but to be careful as I would be armed as I was going hunting. I have made it very clear that unless I am on call (maybe a week or 2 a year) I do not expect to be contacted outside of work.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 11 2015, @04:00AM
Yeah, I did something similar. Road trip in the Appalachians. Told my boss best of luck hoping that I'd be in reach of any kind of tower. He kept on joking about Deliverance and crazed hicks, but he eventually, reluctantly had to accept that I was about as available as an honest politician for two weeks.
He got over it - until I got let go, not too much later. Fortunately, I expected it and already had another job lined up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 11 2015, @11:16AM
"...grin and bare it..."
That would be "grin and bear it". I doubt I'd grin if you bared it at me!