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I 100 percent agree. I'm sorry you feel the need to post under a throwaway, but I'll put my name on this to back your point up. On call is a deal breaker for m

by flax 10y ago

I 100 percent agree. I'm sorry you feel the need to post under a throwaway, but I'll put my name on this to back your point up. On call is a deal breaker for my future job searches, and I am considering leaving the company I just joined because they sprung it on me while never mentioning it in the interview process. On call is justified in my opinion only if someone will die if the problem isn't handled. Or if compensation is dramatically increased and agreed upon in advance.

softawre 10y ago
Did you ever ask about it during the interview?
beachstartup 10y ago
as someone who runs an on-call team, and is woken up frequently still as a co-founder, if someone sprang that on you, you should quit asap, and tell them why. people need to know that on-call is a decision, not a mandate. the only reason my team puts up with it is because we're 100% remote. they never leave their families, so that's the trade-off.
- ianai 10y ago
  Grumble grumble. There are times I'm treated as oncall despite being hourly. Figure that out.
  - beachstartup 10y ago
    consultants charge double during on-call hours. it's standard practice.
    - brazzledazzle 10y ago
      Unplanned == big $$. If you have to travel to the customer you can charge double your hourly rate and an emergency trip fee + expenses.
      - ianai 10y ago
        No just an hourly employee. Support technician at that.
        brazzledazzle 10y ago
        That sucks, but hey, at least you get compensated for it. I think in some states they even have to pay you for a certain amount of time at minimum even if you only work for 10 minutes.
        ianai 10y ago
        It happens very rarely. The times it does they do it under the guise of me being potentially fired if I answer wrong. Ie they want immediate clarification of what I did in some crisis but really just want info. Not paid and I'm actively searching for work.
        beachstartup 10y ago
        find a new job buddy. nobody is going to stick up for you but yourself.
Johnny555 10y ago
On call is justified in my opinion only if someone will die if the problem isn't handled. Or if compensation is dramatically increased and agreed upon in advance. What if the company will die if the problem isn't handled? Many companies (mine included) provide a service that needs to be highly available 24x7 (customers run automated tasks 24x7 against our service). If our site regularly went down for hours at night (or even for an entire weekend) because of a software problem that no one could fix because the developers weren't picking up the phone, we'd lose customers and eventually, the company would go out of business. Even a 10 minute outage is a significant event and requires a full RCA for customers. We try hard to architect for high availability, but bugs do happen.
- dsp1234 10y ago
  The answer here seems simple. Include on-call time in compensation, and fire developers. Note that for some developers, you're never going to be able to compensate 'on-call' hours appropriately due to their evaluation of the opportunity cost of their time.
  - vkou 10y ago
    > Include on-call time in compensation... I'm glad you brought this up - there's a quick conclusion to this conversation: "On-call time compensation is part of your salary."
    - mjevans 10y ago
      Yeah, the labor laws are broken. Salary shouldn't be a thing that a company can ever hide behind. Labor laws really do need to cover the maximums that an employee can be expected to work. They should also make going above those maximums exponentially more expensive in 'bonus time'; and the accumulation rate shouldn't magically reset after time, but only after time back on normal/reduced work load and duration. Also, while I'm on this subject, 'full time' work should really begin at more like 24 hours / week. Benefits for part time work should be pro-rated. (It should never be more cost effective to split a full time job in to part time jobs. That is defrauding the economy and making others pay for the costs of your labor.)

by flax 10y ago

softawre 10y ago

Did you ever ask about it during the interview?

beachstartup 10y ago

as someone who runs an on-call team, and is woken up frequently still as a co-founder, if someone sprang that on you, you should quit asap, and tell them why. people need to know that on-call is a decision, not a mandate. the only reason my team puts up with it is because we're 100% remote. they never leave their families, so that's the trade-off.

ianai 10y ago
Grumble grumble. There are times I'm treated as oncall despite being hourly. Figure that out.
- beachstartup 10y ago
  consultants charge double during on-call hours. it's standard practice.
  - brazzledazzle 10y ago
    Unplanned == big $$. If you have to travel to the customer you can charge double your hourly rate and an emergency trip fee + expenses.
    - ianai 10y ago
      No just an hourly employee. Support technician at that.
      - brazzledazzle 10y ago
        That sucks, but hey, at least you get compensated for it. I think in some states they even have to pay you for a certain amount of time at minimum even if you only work for 10 minutes.
        ianai 10y ago
        It happens very rarely. The times it does they do it under the guise of me being potentially fired if I answer wrong. Ie they want immediate clarification of what I did in some crisis but really just want info. Not paid and I'm actively searching for work.
      - beachstartup 10y ago
        find a new job buddy. nobody is going to stick up for you but yourself.

Johnny555 10y ago

On call is justified in my opinion only if someone will die if the problem isn't handled. Or if compensation is dramatically increased and agreed upon in advance. What if the company will die if the problem isn't handled? Many companies (mine included) provide a service that needs to be highly available 24x7 (customers run automated tasks 24x7 against our service). If our site regularly went down for hours at night (or even for an entire weekend) because of a software problem that no one could fix because the developers weren't picking up the phone, we'd lose customers and eventually, the company would go out of business. Even a 10 minute outage is a significant event and requires a full RCA for customers. We try hard to architect for high availability, but bugs do happen.

dsp1234 10y ago
The answer here seems simple. Include on-call time in compensation, and fire developers. Note that for some developers, you're never going to be able to compensate 'on-call' hours appropriately due to their evaluation of the opportunity cost of their time.
- vkou 10y ago
  > Include on-call time in compensation... I'm glad you brought this up - there's a quick conclusion to this conversation: "On-call time compensation is part of your salary."
  - mjevans 10y ago
    Yeah, the labor laws are broken. Salary shouldn't be a thing that a company can ever hide behind. Labor laws really do need to cover the maximums that an employee can be expected to work. They should also make going above those maximums exponentially more expensive in 'bonus time'; and the accumulation rate shouldn't magically reset after time, but only after time back on normal/reduced work load and duration. Also, while I'm on this subject, 'full time' work should really begin at more like 24 hours / week. Benefits for part time work should be pro-rated. (It should never be more cost effective to split a full time job in to part time jobs. That is defrauding the economy and making others pay for the costs of your labor.)