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Nothing Like IT On Call

S

saratoga172

Golden Member
So I'm the escalation point for my team at work. They are all on salary and have to stop working at 40 hours. So tonight a routine maintenance on a server causes two other issues and now I'm stuck at work waiting for the tech to get out here with our new parts. Seems like something is always being broken.

I love the work and love how much freedoms and responsibility I have, but times like these can suck. So I'll be stuck at the office on a Saturday night for the next 4 hours at least.

/rant over
 
Do you get an on-call bonus?

I'm the only guy that is able to do on-call for my team until the new guy gets trained up enough that the company feels safe letting him take the helm some days.

I got a call while sitting in a bar during Memorial Day weekend, and I had just finished my third beer. One of our servers didn't come back online after a bad patch job the night before, and someone decided that they *needed* to get into that server before the work week.

Working on a server half drunk is not fun... Once your buzz wares off you realize how annoyed you are.

The checks I get to deposit helps with the aggravation I sometimes go through.
 
I used to like, and hate call outs when I was a server tech. Liked it for the fact that it meant 4 hours minimum pay, sometimes it was as simple as rebooting a server.

Hated it for the speech I would get the next morning, since for whatever reason it would always be the fault of whoever took the call that the incident happened, and the way it was handled was always wrong. After a while I stopped accepting call outs because it was just not worth it anymore. We were not "forced" on call due to our union rules, we can choose to answer or not answer as we please.

Though sometimes it was something silly like a mouse not working. Go in IT room, get spare, replace, ensure user is happy, and done. One time it was kind of funny, it was in the ER and the ball fell out of a trackball mouse and they could not find it. It rolled away who knows where. The nurses had a good laugh at that one and were happy when I showed up with a new, regular mouse. Told them to just keep the old one and if they happen to find the ball eventually they'll have a spare. 4 hour pay for about 10 minutes of work including the drive. 😛
 
saratoga172 said:
So I'm the escalation point for my team at work. They are all on salary and have to stop working at 40 hours. So tonight a routine maintenance on a server causes two other issues and now I'm stuck at work waiting for the tech to get out here with our new parts. Seems like something is always being broken.

I love the work and love how much freedoms and responsibility I have, but times like these can suck. So I'll be stuck at the office on a Saturday night for the next 4 hours at least.

/rant over
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I hear you...been the same around here. Just wish my salary had a required stop at 40 hours too ;P I think I worked 80 last week.
 
Magnus: I'm salary. So no OT. I do make about $20k more than the next highest person on my team. Outside of my boss. We shift on call, but if there is an issue they are unsure of (every single one it seems) I get a call to look at something or help troubleshoot. Whatever, I'd prefer it is done correctly the first pass through. But those calls aren't always exactly at the best of times. Like a firewall crashing a few weeks ago after having a few. That was fun.

Sketch: No on call bonus. Part of our job that we rotate an on call schedule for emergencies and server issues. I'm the senior person on the team (and youngest) and make the most so my responsibilities are quite a bit more than everyone else. In all honesty I wouldn't mind working some of the outages or issues like this if it meant getting back a couple hours here and there during the week. Problem is there are key things I know the other guys haven't learned yet and I need to be available.

Also there is always so much work to be done that it really hurts everyone when we are short or someone is out for part of the day. I do get more done from home though. Less people walking in because they need me to turn on the video conference. It requires using 1 remote.

Red: There are times I wish I could just let it roll. I got a call a few weeks back from a user that was trying to do something at 1030pm. I'm figuring it's an emergency because no one ever works that late. They were trying to use their personal printer at home and we restrict them from installing their own stuff on company equipment. Then they had the balls to ask if I could help setup their personal system. Thanks, but no thanks I have to be in early the next day.
 
ImpulsE69 said:
I hear you...been the same around here. Just wish my salary had a required stop at 40 hours too ;P I think I worked 80 last week.
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Pretty much how I feel. Some weeks if I were limited to 40 hours I'd be free after Wednesday. People would be screwed if they needed me for something after 😱

Not every week but there are some. Just aren't enough hours in the week and companies run their departments so thin nowadays. I see it with other groups at the company. The difference is when another department is spun up late or after hours we have to be able to support them. 4 of us and 350 users for everything we do. It's crazy. And we have to meet projects.
 
I just left a job that required me to be on call 44 weeks of the year, for the last 7 years.

First 2 years, I got an extra $200 a week after taxes.
Then, years 3-4 it got cut to $100
4-6, nothing extra
6-7 $100 gift card before taxes

I left and make $3000 less a year, but no more on call. Welllllll worth it.
 
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i did on-call for a VoIP platform for over a year every other week, I remember getting 3 calls the entire time, 1 was the wrong group, 1 was for a t1 being down, and the last was for a pri d channel being down at a customers site which the engineer couldn't figure out why the PBX couldn't place calls.

Looking back doing the math, that was a little over 3k per phone call. The worst part of it was basically being on house arrest, I was convinced if I left my house while being on-call the phone would ring.
 
On call for a hospital here...every three weeks. Salaried, no call pay. If shit goes boom on a saturday my weekend is toast. At least I can flex the time into the next week. Still doesn't make up having to explain to your kids "sorry, we're stuck at home because Daddy is scared to leave the house".

I tried taking them out yesterday, got into the parking lot of library and fucking phone goes off. I've got a laptop and air card, but it's not something that really lends well to mobile support with two kids in tow.
 
Oh and for as much as I bitch, it ain't nothing like being a clinician oncall. At least if I get called in the middle of the night I just have to stumble downstairs and flip open a laptop. If my uncle who is a sonotech gets called, he has to drive into the hospital and do an ultrasound on somebodies heart. My buddies who are cardiologists have to drive in and actually scrub in and step into a cath lab at 3:00 in the morning.

It could be worse.
 
I'm amazed there's an IT job where you stop working after 40 hours if you're salary. Never heard of such a thing. In all my past jobs they were very happy to have you work 50 hrs/week with no extra compensation.

I've since moved on to something for more money and way less aggravation. It's been awesome.
 
MustISO said:
I'm amazed there's an IT job where you stop working after 40 hours if you're salary. Never heard of such a thing. In all my past jobs they were very happy to have you work 50 hrs/week with no extra compensation.

I've since moved on to something for more money and way less aggravation. It's been awesome.
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i know of a couple companies in my area that tell everyone to stop at 40. mine never has been one of those 🙁

what is this more-money-less-aggravation-awesome-job-type that you speak of?
 
MustISO said:
I'm amazed there's an IT job where you stop working after 40 hours if you're salary. Never heard of such a thing. In all my past jobs they were very happy to have you work 50 hrs/week with no extra compensation.

I've since moved on to something for more money and way less aggravation. It's been awesome.
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In long run, these hours lead to unhappy employees and more attrition. In areas where it is tough to find replacements, it is not worth it... So my company rarely asks us for extra effort.
 
saratoga172 said:
So I'm the escalation point for my team at work. They are all on salary and have to stop working at 40 hours. So tonight a routine maintenance on a server causes two other issues and now I'm stuck at work waiting for the tech to get out here with our new parts. Seems like something is always being broken.

I love the work and love how much freedoms and responsibility I have, but times like these can suck. So I'll be stuck at the office on a Saturday night for the next 4 hours at least.

/rant over
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I've got you beat. We have rotating 1 week on call shifts. In the last 3 years no one has ever needed to go in to the office for an on call issue (that's how long I've been there). Just the occasional restart a backup job, reboot a server, extend a drive, etc...small stuff. I had an HPDE track weekend scheduled ($380) when I was on call, no big deal, right? Wrong, Mobile Iron MDM completely blows up, email to devices down. I ended up working 28 hours straight before I was relieved (briefly). Sr management made everyone come in on Sunday. So I missed the whole track day Saturday and part of Sunday. Even if I hadn't been on call that week I still would have been screwed because I know the most about that system.

And I'm salary so no OT for me. And I had to pay for the emergency MS call and get re-reimbursed later because this company was cheap and dropped premier support.
 
On Call IT Person here but I am hourly. So we get paid stand-by time for being on-call so over a week being on-call works out to a extra $500 before taxes so I don't mind it. Work a 3 person rotation for windows servers and storage and we hardly every get called out. When we do it is 3-hour minimum for a call-out. Before we added a On-call Help desk support used to get sometimes user calls for desktop support issues. Didn't mind it because it was 3-hour minimum and making 1.5 times my pay. I think that is one of the reason that management got a help desk to be on-call since they get paid a lot less than me. :whiste:

Used to get more call outs when we supported both Networking and Windows/Storage but the networking group has split off now so they have a separate on-call rotation.

The best thing for me about hourly and also on-call is that when I am not on-call and I leave work my work BB gets turned off. Not concerned about somebody trying to reach me. I have talked to other Admins in other field sites outside for CA for the same company and they are salary. It is something about the exempt vs hourly rules in CA that are different. So basically for on-call they are primary or backup, there are essentially expected to always be available as long as they are not on vacation.
 
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Mermaidman said:
IT workers are unionized??
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Where I worked they are. Though I don't think it's all that common. Personally I prefer being in a union since at least everything is cut and dry and typically fair. It's also hard to get fired over something really petty. You have to actually screw up fairly badly to get fired, and purposely do something bad. When it comes to technology things can be unpredictable, like a server going down at a bad time or a power point presentation locking up for no reason at a board meeting. With no union it's quite easy to get fired over silly stuff like that as the people with the power don't really understand technology and just want to blame somebody.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Where I worked they are. Though I don't think it's all that common. Personally I prefer being in a union since at least everything is cut and dry and typically fair. It's also hard to get fired over something really petty. You have to actually screw up fairly badly to get fired, and purposely do something bad. When it comes to technology things can be unpredictable, like a server going down at a bad time or a power point presentation locking up for no reason at a board meeting. With no union it's quite easy to get fired over silly stuff like that as the people with the power don't really understand technology and just want to blame somebody.
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My wife is a nurse and her last job was union. Exactly what she was going to earn was predetermined 20 years in advance based on years of service plus a COLA of about 2-3% per year. Plus vacation time was strictly seniority based so the nurses that had been there 10+ years ALWAYS took time off around the major holidays which meant my wife had absolutely zero chance of doing the same. Plus, if one of the other nurses took even a single day off during a week that eliminated the possibility of my wife taking that week off, since there would be two people off on the same day. The most senior nurse got 7 weeks of vacation every year and purposefully took nearly every Friday off each summer.

I'd rather excel beyond my peers, work hard, and be rewarded for it instead of being part of a shitty union.
 
child of wonder said:
I'd rather excel beyond my peers, work hard, and be rewarded for it instead of being part of a s****y union.
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^ pretty much this

the employees at a company my dad worked for was union at one point, but they voted to get out of the union because it was taking their money in dues and not giving them enough benefit in return
 
MustISO said:
I'm amazed there's an IT job where you stop working after 40 hours if you're salary. Never heard of such a thing. In all my past jobs they were very happy to have you work 50 hrs/week with no extra compensation.

I've since moved on to something for more money and way less aggravation. It's been awesome.
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No kidding! We have guys pulling 50-60hr weeks regularly (salary).
 
My experience is if you're in infrastructure support, 40hrs doesn't mean squat. If something major breaks, you go in and fix it unless you're out of town then your backup has to go in and fix it. And then you sit there until the issue is resolved. No OT, no extra money, nothing. Go IT.
 
Mide said:
My experience is if you're in infrastructure support, 40hrs doesn't mean squat. If something major breaks, you go in and fix it unless you're out of town then your backup has to go in and fix it. And then you sit there until the issue is resolved. No OT, no extra money, nothing. Go IT.
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You then are expected to come in and work normal business hours even if you have been up all night or worked most of the weekend.......😵
 
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