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I think the whole point of the article and the discussion is that many people don’t want to do it even when paid enough. Nobody on any of the threads is argui

I think the whole point of the article and the discussion is that many people don’t want to do it even when paid enough. Nobody on any of the threads is arguing that you should not be paid more for being on call.

atoav 5y ago
The issue with being on call constantly is, that you have to basically give up any private life you should have. Your daughters theatre play? Sad to interrupt! Your long awaited weekend trip with your girlfriend? Would be a shame if you had to cancel! The quality of life lost by being on call is not insignificant. This is why being on call should always be the absolute exception and not a reliable, planned in, tool at your companies disposal. If you regularily fail to organize your core business around business hours, maybe you should get someone who is good at planing projects and communicating these plans and put them in charge? Or maybe just close your company and search for a different career path if you are unable to plan your projects?
- emodendroket 5y ago
  This is kind of absurd. The point of on-call is not to have regular off-hours work, but to have someone available for emergent situations. Since anybody who intends to operate a service with constant availability must always have someone who can respond to emergencies, on-call is the system used by the world's most successful tech companies, not just two-bit upstarts. It's hard to imagine anybody serious about running any kind of online business who is going to respond to an outage on Friday night by saying "we'll look at on Monday at 9:00 PT." It's unfortunate, but it's really not that different from ER doctors, firefighters, utility workers, and numerous other workers working with similar constraints. Besides that, the rotation is known, and planned for, long in advance. So your "long-awaited weekend trip" shouldn't have been scheduled during your on-call shift in the first place.

atoav 5y ago

The issue with being on call constantly is, that you have to basically give up any private life you should have. Your daughters theatre play? Sad to interrupt! Your long awaited weekend trip with your girlfriend? Would be a shame if you had to cancel! The quality of life lost by being on call is not insignificant. This is why being on call should always be the absolute exception and not a reliable, planned in, tool at your companies disposal. If you regularily fail to organize your core business around business hours, maybe you should get someone who is good at planing projects and communicating these plans and put them in charge? Or maybe just close your company and search for a different career path if you are unable to plan your projects?

emodendroket 5y ago
This is kind of absurd. The point of on-call is not to have regular off-hours work, but to have someone available for emergent situations. Since anybody who intends to operate a service with constant availability must always have someone who can respond to emergencies, on-call is the system used by the world's most successful tech companies, not just two-bit upstarts. It's hard to imagine anybody serious about running any kind of online business who is going to respond to an outage on Friday night by saying "we'll look at on Monday at 9:00 PT." It's unfortunate, but it's really not that different from ER doctors, firefighters, utility workers, and numerous other workers working with similar constraints. Besides that, the rotation is known, and planned for, long in advance. So your "long-awaited weekend trip" shouldn't have been scheduled during your on-call shift in the first place.