7 ms·

I wouldn't be incorrect: it's not even a matter of opinion. It literally is the definition of labor: being available to work on you employer's products and syst

by sidlls 4y ago

I wouldn't be incorrect: it's not even a matter of opinion. It literally is the definition of labor: being available to work on you employer's products and systems. This isn't debatable. And not every tech company has Google's on-call policy. The company I work for has team-defined shifts, generally these are one or two week rotations where the person on call is on call 24/7 during their rotation.

joshuamorton 4y ago
This thread is about how Google's oncall policy is phenomenal. If you're complaining about other oncall policies, you're in the wrong place. "being available" is not in any definition of labor I've ever read. Reading a piece of fiction on my couch is not labor under any reasonable definition, because I am not working. Like if the trade off is Google's policy (2/3 time but freedom) or time and a half but you have to actually work the full weekend and you're expected to write code when not responding to incidents, which do you pick?
- MereInterest 4y ago
  > "being available" is not in any definition of labor I've ever read. If you're a firefighter, is it labor to be at the station playing cards, just because there aren't any calls coming in right now? If you're an ER physician, is it not labor to be waiting for patients on a quiet night? > Reading a piece of fiction on my couch is not labor under any reasonable definition, because I am not working. If it's a Saturday and being on-call is preventing you from buying groceries or going to the movies, then being on your couch reading a piece of fiction is labor. If it's the Fourth of July and being on-call is preventing you from having a beer at the barbecue, then that's labor. "Labor" isn't just the activities for which you are actively producing value for somebody else. Labor is any time your allowed options are restricted as a result of your employer's decisions. Sometimes, those restrictions dictate only a single option of being on-site working on a specific task. Sometimes, those restrictions allow multiple options have some flexibility to them, but the existence of those restrictions at all means that it is still labor being required of you.
  - joshuamorton 4y ago
    > "Labor" isn't just the activities for which you are actively producing value for somebody else. Labor is any time your allowed options are restricted as a result of your employer's decisions. Like I said, this is an abnormal definition of labor. It would mean, for example, that I am laboring 24/7, because there are some thing that my employment agreement does not allow me to ever do. If you'd like to work under that definition of labor, that's fine, but then you cannot square it with an hourly-wage based definition of compensation for labor, so "time and a half for additional hour beyond 40" makes no sense in such a context. I fully support people being compensated for such inconvenience. I don't think it makes sense to expect a greater-than-normal-work-time compensation for a lesser-than-normal-work-time inconvenience.
    - sdf4j 4y ago
      What do you mean by lesser-than-normal-work-time inconvenience? Congratulations if you don't feel the inconvenience of pausing everything waiting for a call. For me that's more inconvenient than predictable 9to5 duties.
      - ornornor 4y ago
        I don’t know why it’s so hard to get your point across. 100% agree with you.
      - joshuamorton 4y ago
        To clarify, do you mean that you would rather be required to work all day Saturday than to be oncall all day Saturday?
        krageon 4y ago
        What's the difference?
        Morgawr 4y ago
        Are you genuinely asking what is the difference between having to occasionally fix an outage/alert from the comfort of your house vs having to consistently sit *in the office* dealing with all kinds of non-urgent task like answering emails, reporting bugs, writing code, attending meetings, responding to chat pings, etc with the expectation that you will be doing that for the entire 9 to 5 duration of your shift before you are allowed to go back home to your family?
ajkjk 4y ago
It is literally... not... the definition of labor. Labor would be doing work on your employer's products and systems, not _being available to do so_.
- devoutsalsa 4y ago
  It’s maybe not technically labor, but it’s definitely work to be inconvenienced. Last time I was on call, I had to change my lifestyle pretty significantly so that I could drag around a laptop and maintain internet connectivity. Hiking? Nope. Driving through dead zones? Nope. Going to the movies? Not really. Bike riding? Maybe, if you can hear your phone, haul around a heavy laptop, and stick to areas with phone reception. Being on call is work. Call it labor or don’t, I don’t care about the semantics. Work is work.
  - Morgawr 4y ago
    That's why you are being paid for it. Just not your full/standard/normal rate because you are not fully working. You're just available to work in case of emergencies.
    - waynesonfire 4y ago
      does the rate go up to 1x when there is an issue, and you are then "fully working" ?
      - Morgawr 4y ago
        Does your salary normally go up in busy (non-overtime) periods during the day? Or do you, maybe, get paid a general smoothened out curve based on the average for your work expectations over a certain period of time? You get bonuses, raises, promotions based on how well you perform your job as your salary gets adjusted (ideally at least) according to that (+ end of year bonuses, stock/options, etc). This all also contributes to your total compensation including oncall (which is based on your normal work rates). Usually how it worked in my team at least, if someone had a tougher-than-usual shift (lots of alerts, large scale incidents, etc) we'd get some extra "rest time" (unofficially) or we'd be told to just take some time off in lieu, etc (on top of your oncall pay already) at discretion of your manager. On the other hand if your team's oncall stats (pager alerts, SLOs metrics, etc) were bad over a long period of time with a lowering trend, you'd have to restructure the way you approach/monitor your system and deal with releases and change management practices because something clearly isn't working. This is all encoded in the principles[0] of what it means to be a good SRE and design good systems and is already taken in consideration as part of your stipend. [0] - https://sre.google/sre-book/part-II-principles/ https://sre.google/sre-book/part-II-principles/

by sidlls 4y ago

joshuamorton 4y ago

This thread is about how Google's oncall policy is phenomenal. If you're complaining about other oncall policies, you're in the wrong place. "being available" is not in any definition of labor I've ever read. Reading a piece of fiction on my couch is not labor under any reasonable definition, because I am not working. Like if the trade off is Google's policy (2/3 time but freedom) or time and a half but you have to actually work the full weekend and you're expected to write code when not responding to incidents, which do you pick?

MereInterest 4y ago
> "being available" is not in any definition of labor I've ever read. If you're a firefighter, is it labor to be at the station playing cards, just because there aren't any calls coming in right now? If you're an ER physician, is it not labor to be waiting for patients on a quiet night? > Reading a piece of fiction on my couch is not labor under any reasonable definition, because I am not working. If it's a Saturday and being on-call is preventing you from buying groceries or going to the movies, then being on your couch reading a piece of fiction is labor. If it's the Fourth of July and being on-call is preventing you from having a beer at the barbecue, then that's labor. "Labor" isn't just the activities for which you are actively producing value for somebody else. Labor is any time your allowed options are restricted as a result of your employer's decisions. Sometimes, those restrictions dictate only a single option of being on-site working on a specific task. Sometimes, those restrictions allow multiple options have some flexibility to them, but the existence of those restrictions at all means that it is still labor being required of you.
- joshuamorton 4y ago
  > "Labor" isn't just the activities for which you are actively producing value for somebody else. Labor is any time your allowed options are restricted as a result of your employer's decisions. Like I said, this is an abnormal definition of labor. It would mean, for example, that I am laboring 24/7, because there are some thing that my employment agreement does not allow me to ever do. If you'd like to work under that definition of labor, that's fine, but then you cannot square it with an hourly-wage based definition of compensation for labor, so "time and a half for additional hour beyond 40" makes no sense in such a context. I fully support people being compensated for such inconvenience. I don't think it makes sense to expect a greater-than-normal-work-time compensation for a lesser-than-normal-work-time inconvenience.
  - sdf4j 4y ago
    What do you mean by lesser-than-normal-work-time inconvenience? Congratulations if you don't feel the inconvenience of pausing everything waiting for a call. For me that's more inconvenient than predictable 9to5 duties.
    - ornornor 4y ago
      I don’t know why it’s so hard to get your point across. 100% agree with you.
    - joshuamorton 4y ago
      To clarify, do you mean that you would rather be required to work all day Saturday than to be oncall all day Saturday?
      - krageon 4y ago
        What's the difference?
        Morgawr 4y ago
        Are you genuinely asking what is the difference between having to occasionally fix an outage/alert from the comfort of your house vs having to consistently sit *in the office* dealing with all kinds of non-urgent task like answering emails, reporting bugs, writing code, attending meetings, responding to chat pings, etc with the expectation that you will be doing that for the entire 9 to 5 duration of your shift before you are allowed to go back home to your family?

ajkjk 4y ago

It is literally... not... the definition of labor. Labor would be doing work on your employer's products and systems, not _being available to do so_.

devoutsalsa 4y ago
It’s maybe not technically labor, but it’s definitely work to be inconvenienced. Last time I was on call, I had to change my lifestyle pretty significantly so that I could drag around a laptop and maintain internet connectivity. Hiking? Nope. Driving through dead zones? Nope. Going to the movies? Not really. Bike riding? Maybe, if you can hear your phone, haul around a heavy laptop, and stick to areas with phone reception. Being on call is work. Call it labor or don’t, I don’t care about the semantics. Work is work.
- Morgawr 4y ago
  That's why you are being paid for it. Just not your full/standard/normal rate because you are not fully working. You're just available to work in case of emergencies.
  - waynesonfire 4y ago
    does the rate go up to 1x when there is an issue, and you are then "fully working" ?
    - Morgawr 4y ago
      Does your salary normally go up in busy (non-overtime) periods during the day? Or do you, maybe, get paid a general smoothened out curve based on the average for your work expectations over a certain period of time? You get bonuses, raises, promotions based on how well you perform your job as your salary gets adjusted (ideally at least) according to that (+ end of year bonuses, stock/options, etc). This all also contributes to your total compensation including oncall (which is based on your normal work rates). Usually how it worked in my team at least, if someone had a tougher-than-usual shift (lots of alerts, large scale incidents, etc) we'd get some extra "rest time" (unofficially) or we'd be told to just take some time off in lieu, etc (on top of your oncall pay already) at discretion of your manager. On the other hand if your team's oncall stats (pager alerts, SLOs metrics, etc) were bad over a long period of time with a lowering trend, you'd have to restructure the way you approach/monitor your system and deal with releases and change management practices because something clearly isn't working. This is all encoded in the principles[0] of what it means to be a good SRE and design good systems and is already taken in consideration as part of your stipend. [0] - https://sre.google/sre-book/part-II-principles/ https://sre.google/sre-book/part-II-principles/