IT Pros: Do you get paid for on call time?

[BoberFett]

The company I work at has horrible software. It was written by a couple of fools that don't understand OOP or RDBMS design. I suggested a complete overhaul of the software a year ago, but management decided features were more important than stability or quality. Anyway, as of late, the web server has a habit of crashing every couple of days.

Is there any kind of standard in the IT industry for on call time? Gone are the days that IT staff gets paid exorbitant sums, and it would seem to me that we should also then get rid of the image that we're just nerds who have no life and just wait around at home for the server to go down. On the weekend, I'm not going to sit by the phone at home just in case things crash.

I want to go to the president of the company today and tell him what some other companies do for on call staff. Some kind of benefit other than the hour or so of pay that you'd get if you had to go to the office to reset the hardware (sometimes it requires a hard reboot of the web or database server). And if you have to spend a weekend at home by the phone, there's the chance it won't crash at all, which essentially means you gave up your entire weekend for zero pay.

What does your company do?

 

[kranky]

Our place does it this way:

If you are on call, but experience shows you are hardly ever called in, no pay just for being on call (but they expect to be able to reach you via cell phone, and you don't have to stay in the house all weekend).

If you are on call and it's likely you will get called in:

Non-mission critical stuff: any call is a minimum four hours pay if you have to come in. This is usually overtime pay because we've already worked 40 hours Monday-Friday.

Mission-critical stuff: you are expected not to be too far away. We pay four hours straight time per weekend just for being on call. If you are called in, minimum four hours additional, at overtime rates.

 

[flot]

You didn't mention if you are paid an hourly rate. If you are, then it would not be unreasonable for you to be paid for an hour or two every time you go out there.

If you are salaried, good luck.

If it's relatively common for you to have to go in - a reasonable thing to ask for would be for them to pay $30 or $40 a month towards your cell phone bill.

 

[BoberFett]

I'm hourly, my employer doesn't believe in salary. *shrug*

Maybe it's just me, but if I'm on call it's because there's a chance that I'm going to called in. And if I'm going to be called in, I can't be out on my motorcycle 500 miles from home. So my weekend is shot. If that's the case, I want to be compensated for the destruction of my personal time.

So I was just wondering what other companies do.

 

[tarheelmm]

I am a salaried employee and we do 24/7 support. If you are the main contact, you get $250 a week. If you are the back up you $75 a week. The $250 a week works out to around $2.xx an hour. One more reason I got a new job and my last day here is Wednesday!

 

[MattCo]

Heck no, we should but my company is too cheap.

-MC

 

[Descartes]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
I'm hourly, my employer doesn't believe in salary. *shrug*

Maybe it's just me, but if I'm on call it's because there's a chance that I'm going to called in. And if I'm going to be called in, I can't be out on my motorcycle 500 miles from home. So my weekend is shot. If that's the case, I want to be compensated for the destruction of my personal time.

So I was just wondering what other companies do.

That's my main problem with being on call as well. I've been on call 24/7 for about 3 years. For the first year or so I was coming into the office *all the time*, but things have been pretty calm as of late, so they feel no need to compensate me. Like you, I think having to be tethered to my pager/cell phone at all times basically ruins my weekends, but they feel since I'm not actually working that it's a non-issue.

 

[OutHouse]

our pager pay works like this.

There are 3 of us who rotate. for each rotation we are on call for 2 weeks and have a month off while the other two do their on call thing.

We get paid $231.00 per week of pager duty. so when i turn in my pager pay form to Finance after my two weeks its for $462.00.

As far as companies not paying because things are quiet is bull crap. If iam on my rotation it means i am on the clock. That means i have to remain availabe to answer the page and take care of the problem. To do this i have to modify my time away from the company, which means not doing things with my family where I can not dial in and take care of the problem. For example i can not go into the mountains because i get out of pager range. If the company wants me to make ammends to my off time to be available to handle problems out of the work week then they are going to pay for it or I will not do it. My time is valuable to me and my family and I will be compensated for taking care of problems outside of business hours. If the company does not agree with this then ill find a new job.

 

[OutHouse]

Originally posted by: Descartes

Originally posted by: BoberFett
I'm hourly, my employer doesn't believe in salary. *shrug*

Maybe it's just me, but if I'm on call it's because there's a chance that I'm going to called in. And if I'm going to be called in, I can't be out on my motorcycle 500 miles from home. So my weekend is shot. If that's the case, I want to be compensated for the destruction of my personal time.

So I was just wondering what other companies do.

That's my main problem with being on call as well. I've been on call 24/7 for about 3 years. For the first year or so I was coming into the office *all the time*, but things have been pretty calm as of late, so they feel no need to compensate me. Like you, I think having to be tethered to my pager/cell phone at all times basically ruins my weekends, but they feel since I'm not actually working that it's a non-issue.

If its a non issue to them, give them your pager and tell them to deal with it when it goes off.

 

[FoBoT]

i am straight salary

if i work 30 hours a week or 80 hours a week, whether i am on call or not, if i VPN from home and do 4 hours of work on sunday, its all the same

i get the same $ twice a month, regardless

 

[DT4K]

I am one of 3 developers. We are all salaried.
We have 2 network/server admins and 1 DBA. All salaried.
We have 3 app support staff. All hourly.

The company pays for cell phones for all of us.

The hourly app support staff take turns being on call. They get something like 3 dollars an hour for on call time. So if they are on call for a whole weekend, they get like $150 for that. If they have to come in, they get paid for 4 hours minimum. Over 40 hours is 1.5 time. Sundays are double time. The app support staff is always the first to be called if anyone has issues.

The 2 network/server admins take turns being on call. They are not compensated for on-call time or overtime. Whichever one of them is on call is expected to answer calls and come in if needed. They also cover the DBA side of things. They get called in fairly often.

The 3 developers don't really have a formal on call schedule. But we are expected to have our cell phones with us at all times. If we will be out of cell phone range, we need to make sure one of the other devs is available to answer calls just in case someone needs to look at code. We don't get compensated for any on-call time or overtime. But we don't get called in very often. And when we do get called, it is usually to answer questions from the app support staff. We are not expected to stay in town over the weekends. There just needs to be at least one of us available by phone.

So basically,
the devs don't do much on-call stuff, so it's not really an issue.
The hourly app support staff gets paid decently for on-call stuff, so it's not really an issue.
And the network/server admins get screwed.

 

[BoberFett]

Thanks for the input. Just got back from the meeting and we're still negotiating rotation and pay.

 

[MegaloManiaK]

My company pays x dollars per hour on call period. If you have to come in its at regular pay rate (2 hours minimum). If you already worked 40 hours this week, you get paid time and a half for any hour over the 40.

We cycle through who's on call based on the week.