Most Tech Workers Would Ignore a Call From Their Boss Outside Work Hours (zdnet.com) 184
In this age of instant communication, there is pressure on employees to be "switched on" all hours of the day. But do we really have the mental attitude to totally disconnect from work? From a report: A new study by UK-based HandsetExpert has revealed that almost two out of three tech workers would ignore an out-of-hours call from the boss. It surveyed 1,850 mobile device users in the UK to find out how we deal with the pressures of being an "always-on" society. This number might be the roll-up of various reasons -- from being on the toilet, in the bath, or in other compromising situations. The survey showed different behaviours from different job roles. Healthcare professionals seem to be most connected to their place of work. They were the least likely to cancel any calls from their boss, with only 42.5 percent stating they would not pick up the call. At the other end of the scale, real estate agents -- who already work some of the longest hours in the industry -- are least likely to respond. Almost three out of four workers (72.6 percent) in that industry sector would not respond to calls from their boss.
pfft. (Score:5, Funny)
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I do too, but it's because he'll leave a message. If it was urgent, he'd be in my office.
Now a call outside of office hours? Definitely I'll pick it up, something's critical is down (but the service monitor called me before it called him).
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I had a boss that would email, then IM, then text, call, then come over. usually within a 5 min period. FOR EVERYTHING
I work in support, and we have customers that are pretty similar. Open a ticket, then open a chat to tell you about the ticket. Now the guy that just picked up your ticket is being asked by the guy with your chat "wtf is up with this ticket".
While they've occupied those two guys they decide they should also call about the lack of a resolution to their ticket and lack of answers about the ticket in their chat. So now a guy is on the phone with them also asking two other guys "wtf is up with this chat about t
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I don't have a boss in the traditional sense, although the myth of no-boss self-employment evaporates quickly when you realize that now every customer is your boss.
The litmus test is this: Although emergency is also in the eye of the beholder, what carries the weight in the consideration of after hours service is, "What kind of customer are you?" Do you pay our bills year round? Are you considerate and a pleasure to work for or a pain in the arse?
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Re: pfft. (Score:1)
Hell if my boss needs something from me during work hours, all he has to do is call the bar down the street and have the bartender hand the phone yo me.
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We all had our desk phones taken away, and software phones substituted. I figure there's no more than a 50% chance that I'll be able to answer the thing, and accessing stored messages requires some sort of code I don't remember ever being given.
I would pick up (Score:5, Insightful)
I know my boss respects my private life and work balance, so if he's calling me then it must be something dire.
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I've had both types of bosses. The good ones I would happily take out-of-hours calls from - and it almost never happened. The bad ones called semi-regularly until I simply stopped answering. They weren't happy about the situation but by that stage I was usually actively seeking work elsewhere, so meh.
Re:I would pick up (Score:5, Interesting)
Same here but there's another reason. If he calls me during off-hours, it means the situation is indeed dire (be it technically or politically) AND he will make sure that I get double pay for that day.
Re:I would pick up (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't care, capitalism, contracts, don't work for free. They get a few calls, just a few in the entire contract life, no matter how many years, any more than that, want that call answered and reacted to, the fucking pay for it. Want standby responce, then fucking pay for standby response on a roster, and you pay for each and every hour of standby and when called, straight up double time, from the second the call starts until after I return home to standby pay, if I am rostered, not rostered fuck off. Fuck working for free, I ain't no fucking slave, what is it with you people. Standby is not for free, it is something that is contracted and bloody paid for, sitting at home, sober waiting, something a company has to pay for, not a bloody freebie. You people either need backbones or a union.
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No, it is way weirder :)
I am Romanian, my boss is Danish, I work in Romania for an US corporation, and most of my direct customers are from the States.
Somehow this all works very well.
Re:I would pick up (Score:5, Interesting)
"I know my boss respects my private life and work balance, so if he's calling me then it must be something dire"
This.
If it's important, I get an email. If it's VERY important I get a "HIGH IMPORTANCE" flagged email. If it's something really REALLY important (like needs to be fixed/addressed NOW rather than Monday or next morning I get a phone call. Then usually comp time in the very near future.
Wouldn't call without reason. Others break things (Score:5, Interesting)
Same here. My boss wouldn't call without a darn good reason. In addition, if the shit hits the fan I'd MUCH rather fix it than have someone else TRY to fix it and leave me with a much bigger mess to clean up in the morning.
I've told my boss PLEASE call (or message) me because it's much easier for me to spend 10 minutes properly diagnosing a problem and fixing it, rather than try to figure out wtf all a co-worker did while randomly trying this and that at random hoping to make the problem go away.
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Heck, even my FORMER my boss, as I was leaving that job, I told them several times - you'll probably run into one or two situations where you have this choice:
A) you spend five hours trying to figure out what Ray did
B) I spend five minutes answering their email, answering their question
I'd much rather me spend 5 minutes answering their question than they spend 5 hours trying to figure it out without asking me.
Of course the old employer left me on as a "hourly employee" at a high rate of $xxx/hour, just in case they needed a couple hours of my time. At well over $100/hour, I'm happy to leave open the possibility of doing a little work for them. Even giving them a few minutes of my time for free.
As it turned out, I think they had one five-minute question for me, and once I asked them to send me a copy of a bit of code I'd written for them because it was a good example of a concept I wanted to demonstrate.
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Same here. My boss wouldn't call without a darn good reason. In addition, if the shit hits the fan I'd MUCH rather fix it than have someone else TRY to fix it and leave me with a much bigger mess to clean up in the morning.
I've told my boss PLEASE call (or message) me because it's much easier for me to spend 10 minutes properly diagnosing a problem and fixing it, rather than try to figure out wtf all a co-worker did while randomly trying this and that at random hoping to make the problem go away.
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Heck, even my FORMER my boss, as I was leaving that job, I told them several times - you'll probably run into one or two situations where you have this choice:
A) you spend five hours trying to figure out what Ray did
B) I spend five minutes answering their email, answering their question
I'd much rather me spend 5 minutes answering their question than they spend 5 hours trying to figure it out without asking me.
Of course the old employer left me on as a "hourly employee" at a high rate of $xxx/hour, just in case they needed a couple hours of my time. At well over $100/hour, I'm happy to leave open the possibility of doing a little work for them. Even giving them a few minutes of my time for free.
As it turned out, I think they had one five-minute question for me, and once I asked them to send me a copy of a bit of code I'd written for them because it was a good example of a concept I wanted to demonstrate.
Now, THIS ^^^ is how a boss/employee professional relationship should work.
I, too, am privileged to work for a fair, knowledgeable boss, and we respect each other's skills and abilities. If he calls me on the weekend, it's important, and I don't mind taking a little time to straighten out whatever it is. In earlier times, this kind of responsibility was taken into account at salary review time, but in the past 15 years, the MBAs have infiltrated themselves into management and the review process so thoroug
Re:I would pick up (Score:5, Insightful)
What exactly is a "tech worker" defined as? Obviously, this answer really depends on the job.
I program videogames for a living. No matter how important an issue at work is, there's absolutely nothing that would be so important that it can't be handled tomorrow.
If I was a tech ensuring Amazon.com stayed online and operational, I'd expect that being available 24/7/365 would be part of the job.
Re: I would pick up (Score:1)
If you were responsible for a billion dollar a day in revenue website, I'd expect you to have at least five people to have 24/7/365 coverage at all times without needing overtime. Six even, to handle people who quit, die, move, etc.
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If you were responsible for a billion dollar a day in revenue website, I'd expect you to have at least five people to have 24/7/365 coverage at all times without needing overtime. Six even, to handle people who quit, die, move, etc.
People here on slashdot love to believe that they are unique special geniuses who are single-handedly responsible for keeping their organisations running. Must be a dream for cynical managers who get 40 hours+ free overtime a week out of them and can churn the savings back into their own bonus pot.
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This is obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
With healthcare, there are literally lives on the line. "Did you give Mrs. Abernathy her heart medication or is the lack of entry in the chart an oversight? I'm calling cause I need to give it to her in the next 2 minutes if you forgot"
With real estate people: it's not the boss who buys the property and it takes quite a long time for a sale with all the bureaucracy. There is just no real urgency.
IT worker: for some it can be important cause the server might fall down and the downtime might be very expensive. E.g. some Amazon AWS downtime or maybe a nuclear power plant. But most IT workers work cupholder replacements or such, there it doesn't really matter.
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There is a kind of an urgency and excitement and if you stop when the clock stops you are basically a Wally type (See Dilbert.)
Try doing that when working for Steve Jobs at apple, you will be fired. So it depends on your Boss.
I have had the boss ask me at about 6pm at night, can you be on the flight tomorrow leaving at 8:20am to China. My answer was yes, went to china for a week to
Re:This is obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Try doing that when working for Steve Jobs at apple, you will be fired.
Fortunately for me, I live in a country where everyone has rights, not just the extremely wealthy, so if my boss sacked me because I went home when he stopped paying me, it would cost him a lot of money.
I am also not prepared to act like some sort of servile lackey.
What country? (Score:3)
Genuinely curious because it's damn sure not the US. Most of us are "At Will" employees in "Right to Work" states (I bet you're English so you can appreciate our Orwellian double speak). At least that's how it works in the Bible Belt wasteland.
I.e. you can be fired for any reason that isn't EoE protected (LGBTQ/race/religion/sex) which is extremely hard to prove. Oh, and if you get fired you get no unemployment benefits because the state will invariably side with the employer and you have no choice but to l
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This shows an inherent misunderstanding of how employee protections work in the EU/UK.
You can be fired for many things, incompetence, underperformance, and others, but unless it's gross misconduct, generally speaking they can't just fire you out of hand. They also specifically can't fire you because the boss doesn't like you, on a whim because it's Tuesday, or because they think they found somebody better (as long as you are performing within your contract, to the level specified.) Most companies will gener
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I was once called into the office because I did not yet take my two hours extra time I was entitled to.
No offence, but you're a fucking idiot then.
Re:This is obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
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A lot of tech jobs are working on products that are going to be released and delays mean product is not released on time.
This is solved in the planning phase. That is when you decide that a timeframe is unreasonable. If at that point, I'm expected to stick to an unreasonable schedule that's when I'm out the door.
Re: This is obvious (Score:2)
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> This is solved in the planning phase.
That is a _Very_ optimistic view. It can be very, very expensive to pre-plan and pre-allocate resources for all contingencies, and it can delay release by months if not years. when planning a release, all predictable factors may not be known or even knowable. One can spend many times as much money and time on QA, more money than the cost of an entire new project, and _still_ have an unexpected problem when a system goes to production
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I work in a design company. I have yet to work on a project where the planning phase accurately described the work required. Since we're always working on something that's never been done before, "stuff" comes up during the design process, and quite often, the customer's anticipated requirements need to change. Ideally, this would be a scope change, and we'd modify the dates accordingly. This sometimes happens, but as often as not, there's some kind of hard deadline: a trade show, investor meeting, or t
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With real estate people: it's not the boss who buys the property
Indeed. RE agents work AT a brokerage, not FOR a brokerage. The broker they work with is not really their "boss" in any meaningful sense, and more a provider of administrative services. The agents are a source of income for the broker, not the other way around. Agents can easily leave for another brokerage and take their clients with them.
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The healthcare sector I worked in was software development for medical devices. There was nothing I worked on that had immediate consequences with day to day patient information. I worked supporting the global engineering group the created the hardware and software used in the devices. Yes, the software engineering environment was global, EU, USA, Israel, India and Australia. If the software support server environment went down, it would cost a lot of money but no one would die.
The devices that were in the
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Healthcare vs tech (Score:5, Insightful)
Healthcare: if you ignore a call, people can actually be harmed or die.
I.T. outside of nuclear power plants and healthcare: if you ignore a call, people might not be able to use the latest fart app for two hours.
In one instance, selfless dedication is appropriate, in the other, less so. Also, was the 2 out of 3 number for techies for the US or the UK?
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"I.T. outside of nuclear power plants and healthcare: if you ignore a call, people might not be able to use the latest fart app for two hours."
Lol, yeah, no. See, there's this thing called feature creep. And IT has it. So the people who are only supposed to be in charge of the computers end up running the elevators, electrical systems, plumbing, etc.
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Yup. These days, even the fart apps are doing useful business functions.
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Hire extra workers for the night shift then. You can't legally force people to work 24 hours a day in the US, and being on call is essentially working for 24 hours. The companies are abusing the workers here and they need to stand up for their rights.
Also, as the article mentions UK workers, they already have lots of workers rights. Often you'll get a security guard upset if you are staying at the office late as it can annoy the unions. If they asked the same question in the US, I suspect there would be
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In which case, people can actually be harmed or die for a variety of reasons.
I might be seriously ill or injured. I might not have transportation. I might be far away. I might have connectivity problems or a dead battery.
If you, as a manager, put me in a position where someone's life depends on me, specifically, receiving a call and coming in, you should be fired.
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Healthcare IT over here - if it's out of hours and I'm not on call then it better be something major.
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snpp is like that. When I have night shift I just rig an bird to hit y all night long.
I Answer (Score:5, Funny)
Half the time it's because he wants to hang out and have a beer.
It's complicated (Score:3)
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I don't even know who's calling me anyway, I don't know the boss' phone number and he's not in my contacts. There is sooooo much spam and robot calling now that I don't answer the phone anymore. If they leave a voice message that isn't spam then I'll call back. The modern telephone is now useless for phone calls because of this.
And even if I did have my boss's number show up on caller ID, I could still just claim I didn't know who it was. Time outside of work is MY time.
All things in moderation (Score:1)
If it's done judiciously, it's reasonable to respond. Bleep happens. However, if the causes of after-hour problems are preventable but org resources are not devoted to prevention, then the org is dumping the results of their sloth into you.
If they are playing those games, it's time to fight back. Tell them you are too drunk to drive to the office, for example. If they keep it up, it's time to either ask for a raise to compensate, or move on to a different gig.
Re: All things in moderation (Score:4, Insightful)
Had so many employees not seen it all before, they wouldn't be so eager to jump ship when they smell fire.
Here's a tip: your company views you as a replaceable asset. You should view them the same way, unless you want to get a nasty surprise one day.
True story: in my last position, my entire department essentially stopped talking to me because I told key opinion makers that I suspected our department was getting cut due to too few investments and a lack of direction and interest from the stakeholders. I was told no way, the CEO loves us, and perhaps I didn't fit the culture. 6 months later, pink slips.
If you think your company cares about you, you're a fucking sucker that bought HR boilerplate bullshit.
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What "attitude"? I don't understand your complaint a bit. It's just balance: the org takes reasonable steps to prevent/reduce after-hour problems and you accept occasional off-hour calls. If they DON'T take reasonable preventive measures, it means they are irrational and it's time for you take stronger counter-measures or leave.
If I am available, I'll answer. (Score:3, Insightful)
If I am available, I will answer the phone if my colleagues call outside work hours. But when I am out on my bike in the forest I put it on silent and place the phone in my backpack, if I feel stressed I'll put it on silent when I go to bed. If they want a guarantee that I answer, sober and ready to help, I want to get paid to be on standby because it is so bloody taxing, even if the phone doesn't ring, I once were on 45 minutes standby for a year 24/7(45 minutes to start problem solving/login remote)
My boss knows this and agrees. The same goes for my other colleagues. :) In other words, we answer if we can, but there are no guarantees and that is accepted.
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I've spent 10 years providing 24/7 365 support for multiple clients. All night, All weekend if needed.
Wife/kids/dogs and I go to the beach or mountains, I have my laptop. And have had to frequently tackle issues while on vacation.
I bought a mini Asus laptop when we last went to Disney World, Sea World and water park. I thankfully didn't have any issues during that week, but I was prepared.
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If someone does come in to fix a problem, they should get an extra day off without it coming out of their vacation.
Sometimes I do come in, rarely, but that's usually because if I don't there will be giant headaches and extra work when I do show up. It's very very rare because everyone knows that it pisses people off to call them in at night or on the weekend, and if you piss off workers then you lose workers.
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if I feel stressed I'll put it on silent when I go to bed
You don't have your phone on silent when you go to bed anyway? How do you sleep?
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There is reception in pretty much every forest these days, even in sparsely populated countries like Sweden and Finland. This is not tge 1980s.
It's an indirect way of saying that the US has the best and bigliest forests, so there is no phone reception there, you're two days' march from the nearest civilization, etc.
I don't get paid to be working 24/7 (Score:2, Insightful)
So you don't get any of my time outside of business hours.
Europe (Score:1)
I wonder how many Chinese high-tech workers would ignore a call from their boss after hours? Assuming they have any off-hours to begin with. I don't think the results would be the same in America (I hope anyway). In a globalized economy a country's competitiveness is really important to its long-term financial stability and viability. Europe has been a laggard in this regard for 200+ years so the results are not surprising.
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You are ready to work 24/7 in China.
The mil controls your life and grants good housing, education, international education, wage and advancement.
Not doing what your told in China results in every granted part of a good city workplace getting removed.
Who? (Score:1)
Seriously, do you actually leave your cell phone on during events?
If it's that important, it's Monday.
I'm in IT and don't care after hours (Score:1)
I worked in a 24/7 high-stress environment where I was one of 3 people on call all the time. We had trouble with a vendor's system and were only authorized to reboot it when it failed. Anything further resulted in a suspension or getting fired. Most of the stress was from political B.S. (Surprise!)
One night, I got called at 11:00pm, 2:30am, 4:00am, and at 6:00am by the same people to reboot the same shitty system. I was written up because I wasn't cheerful and happy on the 6:00am call. After that, I s
Never answering the phone again (Score:5, Interesting)
I was 2 hours out of town on a Sunday at a friend's birthday party and my boss calls. He demands I come in and work on an issue that he believes I caused. And berates me for 5 minutes on the phone after I refused with the reason being that I'm out of town.
When I get into work Monday, I get reamed out further and put on a PIP (performance improvement plan). I was never told I was "on-call" for that weekend. And later on Monday, once I finally got to look at the problem. I discovered someone committed changes without running it through the mandatory integration process.
Those changes conflicted with my weeks old change and causes numerous test failures. In short, not my fault. Not even my responsibility to diagnose what went wrong. Needless to say I was out there quickly due to the PIP and my total dickishness with telling everyone at work I've been wrongly accused of such bullshit and how poorly the management handled it.
(not posting as AC, because you know who you are)
Re:Never answering the phone again (Score:4)
I've been in similar situations at work.... in my experience, it's better to just pretend like you want to help people that you have no ability to (or interest in) than it is to just flatly refuse.
Had I been in that situation, I would said that because I was out of town, there was no way for me to get in to work right now, but I'd tell them in the most assuring voice I could muster that I'd look into the matter on Monday.
At the very least, if people believe that you want to help them but have no ability to, they are more willing to be forgiving of things that they think are your fault.
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Had I been in that situation, I would said that because I was out of town, there was no way for me to get in to work right now, but I'd tell them in the most assuring voice I could muster that I'd look into the matter on Monday.
Almost exactly what I said. Then i got reamed out for 5 minutes for "leaving town right after breaking the build" and being "a blocker to for the entire team". Waiting until Monday was "totally unacceptable".
The kicker was it was after 4pm, and it would take about 2 hours to get there. He didn't want to hold the two people after 6pm to wait for me. So rather than flatly refusing I was curt with him and told him that "since I can't get there in less than 2 hours, and you won't wait. then I won't be able to c
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The mistake I think that you made here was trying to reason with someone who was clearly being unreasonable.
I don't blame you for a second here... but in my experience the best thing to do w
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If that involves insincerity, sympathy, flattery, or even outright dishonesty (provided reward exceeds cost) then that's the tactic to use.
It probably would not have worked if I said I'd be there in 15 minutes, and it takes me 2 hours to get there. I was PIP'd before I even got into the office the next day.
And remember: if the other party shows no respect or acts like a d**k then they've done you a favour by removing the standard requirement that you treat them with respect in return.
Apparently if your boss is totally unprofessional you still are required to treat them with respect. I got that as part of my Monday lecture.
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I wasn't around long enough, I was fired through a PIP. Even though the PIP was, as far as I can tell, because I wasn't available to drop everything and drive 2 hours to work on a Sunday afternoon. I'd say management was hostile, and I'm not certain upper management was ever made aware that it wasn't my fault. I think they only saw a malcontent that was on his way out.
How about the other way around? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was a sysadmin, my systems were set up to page/text me when a problem occurred. If it was ultimately something that had a business impact (like having to keep a system down outside a maintenance window), I was the one calling my boss at 2 am... He always took those calls from me as he knew I wouldn't be calling if it wasn't important and I needed input or had to give him a heads up.
In the best of situations, it works both ways and the boss doesn't call you unless it's important and you're really needed. You both know the other will answer and you can count on each other to do what's needed to get the job done and also not abuse that trust or relationship. Less optimal situations may require that you find another job.
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The problem is the USA is not hiring every shift on merit. Then workers doing the next shift would be skilled to do the work.
People not at work could relax.
Thanks to political correctness hiring on merit is now much more difficult. Every shift has a lot of workers. Who cannot work on any given task and always need support.
A few of the very best workers have to work very hard to support their company and all the other workers
If my boss called I'd pick up (Score:3)
I'd also charge a minimum of 2 hours for answering the phone too.
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I'd also charge a minimum of 2 hours for answering the phone too.
If you can charge for your time, you don't have a boss, you have a client.
Encourage Facetime (Score:2)
I tell anyone who needs to call me after hours to facetime me. Because i'll be nude. If they can handle that, it must be important.
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I would love to read the arrest report after the boss's 13 year old daughter rings the phone for him and you pick up.
Even if the boss is me (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm self-employed, and after hours, unless I'm expecting a call, if I'm in the middle of something, chances are very good I'll let the call go to voicemail. Part of the reason I'm self-employed was to wrest control of my professional and personal life from employers that would take advantage of me at any opportunity.
I've been that guy on-call, and that's a different story. You know what you're signing on for when you take on that responsibility. I'm talking about situations where I'm expected to answer the call for "all hands on deck" without any additional compensation or consideration. Now, if I spend time on your system, you get billed, as it should be.
Calling (Score:2)
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This is *why* I go to work. It's not the occasional thing, it's what I do and work finances it.
If you want that time, pay for it. (Score:2)
I've been part of an on-call rotation, and I got ISDN (back when that was a big deal) and some pay differential... in addition to home access to the 9 net. And that entitled them to route calls to my house. Perhaps for some intermediate amount of compensation, managers could convince employees to take their calls.
So? (Score:2)
It depends (Score:2)
If I trusted my boss to only call me if it was really important. I would answer at any hour, on any day
If I observed that my boss interrupted my free time with stupid stuff.. I would block his number
Wait a minute... (Score:2)
UK Law is different (Score:3)
UK Employment law contains lots of protections for employees and you cannot fire people for fun and giggles. Also people consider that if you are going to phone me out of hours, it had better be really earth-shatteringly important. The only time I can remember getting such a call it was because the mains cable into the building had exploded and damaged a lot of infrastructure through a power surge. It was a request if I could come in early the next morning to help sort out the mess which was fine as it was an extremely rare event.
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If it's a normal part of the job (Score:3)
Depends on context (Score:2)
Funny story:
In my old company (smaller), the company modified the IT policy to make it easier for employees to access email and company data on personal devices. This made it more likely that I would check email off hours, and possibly respond if necessary (which was not uncommon).
In my new (bigger) company, the IT policy is more rigid, and you cannot access company info (including email) without jumping through several hoops (corporate device, multi-factor auth, etc.). So I no longer check email/phone off
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"The morale, I suppose, is that if you want to encourage good employee work/life balance, you should implement more security policies. Or not, I guess, depending on your corporate goals."
If you want to encourage employee work/life balance, then do so. It's really easy. Say "Hey, John, it's 6pm, you should be at home enjoying your family. It's not an emergency, we'll sort it out tomorrow. Have a good one."
I have had several bosses that do exactly that.
Damned right ... (Score:1)
I'm not on call, I'm not being paid to be on call, if you wish to have me on call you will need to pay me.
When I leave the office for the day, my work phone goes into my backpack, and stays there. I don't walk around after hours with it. I don't obsessively check it. I don't care about it.
Do not for a minute think you have 24x7 access to me, and don't expect that I feel I owe you that.
Every now and then my company takes on a client, and says "yes, we'll give you 24x7 coverage in case of a disaster". But
Simple Decision (Score:2)
It is very easy to decide whether you should take a call from your boss outside of work hours. If the answer to those questions is no, then don't answer the phone:
1. Do you have a personal relationship with your boss outside of the workplace?
2. Are you on-call or part of a backup rotation in accordance with a written company policy?
3. Is there a policy applicable to your positions which provides compensation for work requested during off-duty hours?
You could have been watching a movie, swimming in a pool, o
Outside work hours? (Score:2)
There once was a time that I had no real frame of reference to differentiate contracted hours of employment from private time. I had no boundaries, was pretty much always on call, and thought I was lucky to have the employers that I allowed to (and were happy to) treat me like that. I pretty much always took the call. Several employers did pretty well out of me during those years.
Then I grew up and developed a modicum of self-esteem.
Re:on call? (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was a steelworker (USWA) I got paid triple time if called in during holidays and vacations, and double time if called in during time off. If I was on call, I got paid 50 percent during that time period.
If you want us there, pay us.
Simple.
Re: (Score:2)
When I was a steelworker (USWA) I got paid triple time if called in during holidays and vacations, and double time if called in during time off. If I was on call, I got paid 50 percent during that time period.
If you want us there, pay us.
Simple.
I imagine you had the backing of a Union. As we all know, on slashdot that amounts to declaring yourself a communist paedophile and Windows fan.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm in the US, and when I was fresh out of school in my first IT job I was asked to be on call with no pay, and no OT. I was underpaid at the time, because I had moved up a position and "due to budgetary reasons" they weren't immediately able to give me the appropriate pay raise. The work was far more interesting, so I was happy to be making less than I should while doing fun work, but they still owed me about a 30% pay increase.
Given that, I laughed at them when they asked me to be on call every night. "Bu
Re:"Most tech workers aren't working when off work (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Most tech workers aren't working when off work (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
Once upon a time at a previous employer the boss realised that the on-call tech support staff were really overworked and decided to fix that. By adding non-tech-support employees (like me) to the afterhours rotation. I responded with feedback to the effect that, if tech support staff were overworked, they should be compensated for being overworked or their workload should be alleviated by adding more staff, and that I didn't see "being on-call after hours" in my contract. First time I got rostered on and as
Re: (Score:3)
Most of my co-workers probably fit into this category. I routinely answer calls in the middle of the night from management or co-workers in a bind. Generally I think the authority you are entrusted with is tied to the the amount of responsibility you assume. Some people don't care about earning 30-40% more if it means any kind of commitment to the job and that's fine. Other people, they pick up the phone.
If your organisation relies on you answering calls in the middle of the night (when you're off duty) there is something wrong with your organisation. If a role needs 24/7 coverage, you need to employ at least 3 people to cover that role.
Re: (Score:3)
Not just three people. There are 168 hours in a week, and standard practice is 40 working hours, except for things like holidays and vacations and sick time. I'd figure five people is the minimum to cover something 24/7.
Re: (Score:3)
I have several "bosses" at my job. Let's focus on two of them.
For one of them, I will answer at any time. Day or night, work day, weekend, or even a day off when I'm out with my family. I know that he is knowledgeable enough to handle most issues on his own, and respectful enough of my time that he won't call unless I'm really the best (or only) person to handle what needs attention. He also has enough strength of character that I know he won't panic when management does. When he does call, he apologizes to
Re: (Score:2)
Do you in fact make 30-40% more? In many companies, you wouldn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Unless a person worked for the mil/gov/nuclear/medical/critical infrastructure and was on call.
Then a person would get a seperate work POTS, pager and a set time to be ready.
Now a work load is just pushed back onto skilled workers 24/7.