Starting a new job in May.

[manlymatt83]

OK, I'm starting a new job in May, and the company gives you no vacation/benefits for the first 90 days (its like a probation period). Also, the position is an on call position (rotation of one week on call, one week not on call, one week on call, etc.)

My questions are:

- If i lived about a 45-60 minute drive from work, would this be too long of a commute for someone on call? If i get paged, how soon would an employee be expected to be there?

- During the first 90 days, I know I have no PTO, but what if I want to have a doctors appointment or something similar? Do they allow for that? Like if I had to leave early one day and made up the time elsewhere? Does this fall into "PTO"? Not sure how the "real world" works...

Thanks!

-Matt

 

[amdskip]

Good questions, I'd like to know too.

 

[montanafan]

As for the commute, since on-call is required, didn't they ask you about your commuting time or give you an expected time to respond? If it really mattered I think they would have.

With most jobs that have a probationary period like that they're still evaluating you and determining whether they want to keep you on afterwards. To make the best impression and help your chances of being kept on I'd say missing work would be a big no-no for that time period. Even if it's something you can let them know about ahead of time and make up for later might make them think this is a guy who expects us to make accomodations for him a lot in the future so maybe we should pass on him. I've also known places though where, if you're doing a good job, especially better than any others that are on probation at the time, they'll still decide that they're the best of the bunch and keep them on even with some accomodations.

 

[manlymatt83]

Originally posted by: montanafan
As for the commute, since on-call is required, didn't they ask you about your commuting time or give you an expected time to respond? If it really mattered I think they would have.

With most jobs that have a probationary period like that they're still evaluating you and determining whether they want to keep you on afterwards. To make the best impression and help your chances of being kept on I'd say missing work would be a big no-no for that time period. Even if it's something you can let them know about ahead of time and make up for later might make them think this is a guy who expects us to make accomodations for him a lot in the future so maybe we should pass on him. I've also known places though where, if you're doing a good job, especially better than any others that are on probation at the time, they'll still decide that they're the best of the bunch and keep them on even with some accomodations.

OK...

Well what about emailing my boss and asking him?

"<Sir>, once I begin the job in May I understand that I will need to be on call. What do you consider a reasonable response time to a page?"

Something like that...................


Also .... as far as the PTO..... I DO have health problems, and I am required to see my Dr. once every 6 weeks...which means twice during my probationary period. What am I to do to work around that?

 

[montanafan]

Well, if it were me and I really wanted the job, I wouldn't say anything about either beforehand. Bringing up possible reasons to not give me a shot at the job would not be wise.

I'd figure that if the time to respond was a big issue they would have mentioned it when giving you the requirements for the job. As for the doctor visits, you could hope that you can schedule them so that they don't conflict with the job and I'm figuring you don't know for sure if that'll be a problem yet since you don't know what you're exact schedule will be do you?

Maybe you'll be the guy doing such a great job that if you do have to ask for an accomodation they won't mind helping you out.

On the other hand, if it's more important to you to avoid the possibility of wasting your time starting this job and then finding out early on that it's not going to work out, than it is to try to assure a shot at it, let them know up front what your concerns are.