Should You Be Paid For Being On Call?

theodp writes "Fortune's Dear Annie takes on the case of poor Dazed and Confused, an independent webmaster who's expected to be on call for his client at all hours of the day and night, but doesn't get paid for being on call, only for the 40 hours a week that he's in the office. Surprisingly, Annie throws cold water on the contractor's dreams of paid OT, citing these pearls of wisdom from an attorney who's apparently never had the 'privilege' of being a techie on call: 'Many companies see the on-call issue as analogous to a fire fighter's job. Most of the time, a fire fighter is off-duty but on call, hanging around the firehouse, cooking, sleeping, or whatever. What that person really gets paid for is the relatively small, but crucial, amount of time he spends walking into a burning building with an ax. A webmaster, likewise, has slow times and busy times.'" What on call policies are you used to working with and how should it work in an ideal world?

Comments

Well, then...

[fyngyrz]

Here's the way I see it. Mr. Lawyer, you want to pay for support 40 hours a week? I'll give you a cellphone number I'll answer 40 hours a week.

It is ridiculous to presume that offering the opportunity to interrupt one's life at any time, any place, with an overriding obligation to deal with your problems, has no value.

Oh, you want the 168 hour phone number? Well, that's gonna cost ya...

Re:Well, then...

[Bill_the_Engineer]

If he's an independent webmaster it will cost him a non-paying customer, the kind you really can do without.

Well...

Having played both sides of this issue, let me throw some thoughts out to the wolves (so to speak):

1. If he is asking slashdot on how to handle this, I doubt he is in a position to lose any customers.

2. If the website is so problematic that he needs to be on call, then maybe he should make an effort to improve the reliability.

3. I've had a few customers who used to call after hours for issues not related to the work I was doing. If the problem was small and can be done over the phone (or remotely) I usually helped them out for free. If the problem looked like it was going to take some time to fix or required me to drive to their location, I charged. If the problem could not wait until regular business hours, I charged accordingly. The trick was that I did enough gratis work for them, that they didn't flinch when I required payment for the particularly difficult problems...

4. As the economy worsens, the number of competitors for your clients will increase. It's easier to work a little harder to keep a client, then it is to replace one.

5. Keep in mind, that some advice given here on Slashdot are from those who wouldn't mind taking your client.

hospital model...

[i.r.id10t]

Well, the firefighter mentioned is flawed - he is *at work* waiting for a call to come in. On call is not at work, but available should the shit hit the fan.

The hospitals I worked in, the staff that were on call (CAT scan techs, nuke med techs, OR nurses, recovery room nurses, dialysis folks) were paid $1 or $2 per hour just for carrying the beeper. Should they get called in, they were guaranteed 2 hours of pay, but they had to stay waiting for something to do for that whole time (a CT tech could come in and scan someone in 10 min - but they then had to hang out and wait for the extra hour and 50 minutes). This pay was at regular pay rates/levels, so night shift differential or holiday differential kicked in, as would over time if their total for the pay week was over 40 hours.

So... followign this, our poor over worked web master would be paid say $1/hr for totin his beeper or whatever. If he gets called, he comes in and fixes the issue, gets a minimum of 2 hours of work at his hourly rate, and probably gets over time. Sounds good. In reality, he's probably a salaried employee, so over time is out the window, and if he's lucky he may be allowed to leave 15 minutes early on Friday to make up for it.