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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?
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...
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Lots of companies used to give pay or comp time in exchange for on call duty, back in the days when the It staff was considered an asset rather than an expense. Those days are over.
Back when I was hourly, I got paid 2hrs for being on call for the weekend, plus any time spent working. Now that I'm salary, they can abuse me all weekend for free.
You're basically hooked to a pager, which means you need to be near a phone, and usually near a computer with internet connectivity.
I don't work in operations, but everyone in decent places I've worked at did get paid around 3hours of salary per 24hours of wearing the pager. Then it was a minimum of 1 hour per "call" (more like issue, as it could involve multiple calls) except for the first one of the day which was included in the 3hours.
That meant that in a typical week you'd get paid for (24*7)-40 hours of "pager duty", which amounted to 16 hours of salary, so 2 days extra. That's pretty good, assuming you're on a decent rotation and don't have to be THE guy doing it every single week.
I get paid for the time I work, on an hourly basis. 5 minutes over the hour? Well that's one hour I bill for, just like you mr lawyer.
Obviously, with all else equal, the guy who is 40 hours + on call needs to be paid more than the guy who is 40 hours only, unless we want to go back to the good old days of indentured servitude or something.
However, it doesn't really much matter exactly how that extra money is delivered. It could be that "The job description of 'Job A' includes being on call, which is why people who do it earn a hefty salary" or it could be "'Job B' is 9 to 5; and time on call is X dollars/hour outside of that". That seems to be the point of confusion.
We have many jobs on then the guy spends many time on "standby", but is crucial on problems without date or time to occur. Police, firemen, the army, civil defense (I work for then), etc etc.. And keep the good work job and stay sharp, guys.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
As someone who is a web developer/webmaster web-whatever-you-want-to-call-it. At most of my jobs I spend most of my 40 hours a week busy. Doing work. When I have done systems administration, it's been the same thing. I am 90% busy those 40 hours per week. There are VERY little slow periods, unlike a Fire fighter (not to dis fire fighters) who spend most of their day waiting to be called to work. If I work 40hrs during the week, and then get called in 3-4 nights because something is acting up, in a way that wasn't expected, I should get paid for being on call, or the employer should wait until I am in during the morning. Mister Lawyer. Until you are in my shoes, please politely STFU.... Thanks
...salaried or not.
If you are salaried, you accepted a position for fixed pay, fixed pay for all the responsibilities of that position (usually.) If you're hourly, you should be paid for the time you're in action during your on call period. If being 'on call' is seriously intrusive to your everyday life then you should discuss, before accepting the position, whether or not that results in some form of recompense (monetary or otherwise.)
Presuming he/she is salaried, you can't complain about it after accepting the position. You can attempt to re-negotiate your employment contract or quit.
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You insensitive clod!
Set your phasers on "funky"!
On call is done in week long shifts. Basically from monday at 8:30am until the next monday at 8:30am, you are on call. After that, it switches to the next technician in the rotation, and so on. During that week you put in your regular hours (8:30-5:30) but you're also expected to handle customer calls that may come in in the evening/early morning. Afterwards, you are compensated either $150, or a day of comp time that can be used like a personal day whenever you choose (some blackouts). Its not bad, its not great, but it works pretty well. Going to be on call next week actually, and since most of the end of this month is blacked out, I'll be enjoying the 150$ to help buy xmas gifts.
I tried this once, but I hated being on a leash so much that I quickly found another job. It just wasn't worth my sanity.
Geeze, it's not rocket science.
Don't like being on call? Quit. In this economy it'll be real easy to replace you - good luck finding another job, though.
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
You want the opportunity to use my services at your convenience? Pay me a retainer equal to X hours a month. I work any more than X, you pay me an hourly rate. I work less than X, you still owe me for those hours.
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.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Firefighters) run shifts, they are only ever on call when they are at the station, which they have two 12 hour day shifts, two 12 hour night shifts, and then 4 days off. Pretty fair working conditions if you ask me. No 40 hours in at the station, and then an expectation that they will get up at 3 o'clock in the morning cos Mrs Jones' left a candle burning and the cat knocked it over. Maybe Mr Lawyer need's to check who he is comparing with before he accidentally agrees that 24/7 is unfair.
My company has a great on-call system. You're on call 1 out of 8 weeks, and get paid $50 a day to carry the pager, which really means "forward SMS monitoring messages to your cellphone." It's also nice because we run Linux so our systems rarely have issues. It's basically like getting an extra $350 every other month for nothing.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
My wife is an OR (operating room) nurse who is paid to be on call, which I would consider to be roughly analogous to this topic. However, there are a couple of major differences:
1. She has to go to a specific location (the hospital) when called in. It's not like she can do her job from home.
2. She's paid hourly.
3. Usually if she gets called in, someone is dying. I would rarely, if ever, classify an IT emergency anywhere near as important as that.
This is a sig. It is like every other sig in the world, except that it is mine, and it is different.
My company pays 10% of the usual hourly wage for everyone who is on call. When a call comes in, the rate jumps to the usual hourly rate. If this makes you work more hours than agreed upon in your contract, an overtime percentage is added.
As a person who works closely with on call groups but not on call himself, I can say that were I tasked to now be on call, I would expect compensation as such. We pay our employees a normal wage but if they work a later shift, they get a "travel allowance" that most just use as additional income. The federal government also gives a bump in pay adjustment to jobs who work to the tune of 50hrs instead of 40hrs.
Meaning if you go from 40hrs to 40hrs + "We can call if we need you" you should then therefore be given a higher overall wage to compensate your time focused on work.
Expected on call 24 x 7 without being paid for it? I don't think so. I value my free time too much for that. How can you ever go fishing, hunting, camping, or be at a movie if you're expected to answer the phone?
The firefighter is not really paid for that small but crucial amount of time that they are in action. They are paid for the time that they're hanging around the station house unable to do anything BUT respond to fires.
Annie has this one wrong, very wrong
Well, the government doesn't describe it as eligible for overtime, at least for police and dental assistant examples. I think it boils down to you get everything you can negotiate for.
http://www.opm.gov/flsa/table.asp
F-0083-06-01, 12/11/97,
Police
* Call-back time
* Electronic devices
* On-call duty
* Pager
* > Standby time
Time in on-call status is not hours of work under FLSA
...and that's why you'll be hard pressed to find many technical jobs that aren't salaried. They are out there, but they're rare as hens' teeth. Also, your theory doesn't hold true if someone is hired for one salaried position, but then promoted to a different position with on-call responsibilities (which happened in my case).
A quick remote login to redirect to a static "We are experiencing technical difficulties, please stand by" page. Then fix it on the next work day.
Or an agreement for comp-time or $xxx.xx for work outside of normal work hours.
"Kittens give Morbo gas!"
The problem is that, when you're "on call", your time is not your own. You're expected to be ready and able to drop everything at a moments notice and go to work, immediately. Furthermore, you can be limited as to where you can go, particularly in areas with poor cell phone coverage. Most employers I've worked with have given a day of "comp" time in exchange for a week on-call, although they've sometimes been a bit sketchy on actually doing this and on how you should report it. To me, it should be official, recognized, and fully compensated--but often it just happens at manager's discretion.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
'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.
This is flawed, as in many fire departments or houses there are multiple crews. You've got 3 days 'in the house' then 3 days 'at home' followed by '4 days in the house' then 4 days 'at home.' When you're in the house, you're responsible for any and all calls that come in. So firefighters get paid for the time they are in the house. Just like most people are paid for the time they are in the office, but aren't paid for Saturdays and Sundays.
If he wants to correct the analogy, he should say that firefighters who are in the 'at home' phase, get called in, but don't get paid for it. They do get paid for it, just like Police Officers that work overtime or off-shift.
Since he's an independant webmaster, he should have a contract or support agreement with his clients and all of that should be spelled out so that everyone knows what to expect - if the contract says he's available 40 hours a week within specific hours, then that's when he should be available. If his clients want more support than that, then the contract or agreement should specify what that additional support costs.
Support requirements really aren't given the priority they need... When my boss came to me to get my opinion on trying to commercialize some of the apps I had developed for internal use, my first question was "How are we going to provide support?" She didn't have an answer and the apps weren't commercialized.
Putting the "anal" back into "analyst"...
I've done a lot of independant contractor work and I've hired dozens of contractors, so I'll put my two cents in.
As a independent contractor he gets to choose if he wants to work or not. If he wants to go out of town then go for it, but if they call and you're not available they're going to get someone else. You're not "on call", they just let you know "hey we have some work here if you want it, if not no problem".
Being an independant contracotr for a business just means you are someone they know with a particular skill and they will let you know when they need your expertise in the future. It's the job equivalent of "fuck buddy".
If he got paid for being "on call" as a independent contractor then we'd all have to pay plumbers, lawn mowing guy, electrician, mechanics, and all the other "use you when I need you" people in our lives for being "on call".
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
...and it's just a company's way of being cheap. (They were charging clients for maintenance after all) When I'm on call at my current job I'm paid for it. Not a huge amount of money. Nothing that's going to make me rich, but it is some token compensation for the disruption to your life. Calls are infrequent, but I have to stay 15 minutes from my computer. If I am called and can fix it quickly I'm not paid anything above the on call rate. If it takes more than half an hour I get the usual overtime. It's a fair and reasonable compromise for staying 15 minutes from my computer. In theory I could be more mobile if I bought wireless broadband but as things stand it means I stay home when I'm on call.
What this Annie Fisher lady needs is someone calling her randomly 0-3 times a night for 2 weeks and being told she isn't allowed to go out. She'd soon change her tune.
I don't know how it works in the US, but here in Australia I believe (non-volunteer) fire fighters get paid to be at work regular hours. They aren't paid just for callouts, and they don't tend to "hang around the firestation" in their off duty hours. If US firefighters are only paid per fire that's not right.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
If I'm at work I can't drink, can't go out of state, can't do anything outside of what my boss tells me I can do (basically).
If I'm no longer on the clock, I can do whatever I want (basically).
If I'm asked to be on call, I have to mold my "not on the clock" time to whatever my boss requires. I can't go out of state. I can't go to an amusement park with my kids. I can't go to a movie. Well, not unless I don't mind up and leaving to go home and sign on the laptop.
If your boss expects you to do x or y while you're not on the clock, you _are_ on the clock and deserve pay for it. The only time I allow my boss to dictate what I can and can't do is when he's paying me to allow him to boss me around.
Firefighters aren't just "hanging around the firehouse" when they're not putting out fires. They spend that time maintaining equipment, training, performing building inspections, and a lot of other duties. I'm sure municipal policies vary, but I'm certain that many firefighters work regular shifts, and when an emergency call extends beyond their regular shift they are paid overtime.
Proverbs 21:19
- If you are in salary, then there is an expectation of being on call. How you work out the benefits of being on call (flex time, on call stipend) is between you and your employer.
- If you are a contractor, you are paid by the hour and all work, regardless of whether it is in the office or at home gets billed. you can maintain some flexibility with this (ie: don't charge travel time, charge at a reduced rate for things you are learning etc).
The employer can't have its cake and eat it too. There needs to be a middle ground. If they are refusing to budge, then find employment elsewhere. Its always easier to launch into a job job when you are already working so get your resume updated and start looking.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
> What on call policies are you used to...
Whatever is in the contract I agreed to.
> ...how should it work in an ideal world?
I should be paid an infinite amount of money for doing nothing.
When my father was "on call" for Michigan Bell he got his regular wages for his regular 40 hours plus double-time for the time he put in when actually called out (but of course he had a contract).
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
100 percent of wrong. Firefighters are not off-duty when they are on-call. They are on-duty. When they go off-duty, they are no longer on call. Firefighters are typically on-duty for a 24-hour shift for two or three days a week. On their off days, they are not on call. Thus, most of the time, a firefighter is NOT on call.
True. Unfortunately, I am a physician. And doctors do not get paid on call. The physician model is that you HAVE to take call. If you don't get called, you get the pleasure of carrying the pager for free. If you get called, you work for free. If you go in to see a patient, you get paid as if you saw them during regular hours. So, they get paid for what they do (sometimes, depending upon the insurance), but not for being on call.
On-call duty is to be paid, end of story. Anyone trying to sell you otherwise is trying to save money at your expense.
That said, of course it isn't paid at the same rate as a regular work hour. After all, you can spend it dozing, surfing the web for porn, fighting with your loved one or going shopping.
The alternative for the company to having someone on call is to have someone there, on the clock. Obviously, that's a lot more expensive. Since they're a company and trying to make a profit, they'll try to get things as cheaply as possible, and free if at all possible. That doesn't mean you have to give it to them for free. Next they'll be asking for free overtime, and then if you'd mind not being paid at all.
Really, I'm not being sarcastic. They are essentially asking you to work for nothing. It's not much work (carrying a cell phone and picking it up if it rings), but it's work.
And don't let them fool you with examples of other jobs. There are some jobs where being on call is so standard that it's figured into the regular salary. That doesn't mean it's free, it's just not explicitly listed on the paycheck. And of course firemen get paid for the time they're waiting for an emergency. After all, that's why we have professional firefighters - to have someone ready to come at a moments notice. And if you check their contracts, they certainly don't say "a work week consists of 3,5 hours inside burning buildings and 1,5 hours rescuing lost cats", but much more likely something like "a work week consists of 40 hours".
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1. She's an independent webmaster.
That means she ultimately accepts the billing rates and service conditions.
If you want to be a cowboy webmaster, part of your burden/joy is defining the scope of work and setting a price for that scope of work.
There are plenty of customers willing to haggle to the last dollar, be eternally late paying only after many calls trying to get your AR current and demanding services that aren't explicitly spelled-out as 'free.' In order not to feel exploited, the cowboy webmaster needs to better manage her expectations and the client's expectations. I'm not saying 'suck it up' or 'screw the customer.'
This is an opportunity for the webmaster to work out some service-level tiers and related pricing. She'll have to take her work up a notch when she's servicing the customer, but figure out what that looks like in the form of an SLA. If she doesn't want to do this, then maybe being a cowboy webmaster isn't right for her.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
... and the terms you agreed to when you took the job. The usual deal is that being on call is covered by your salary but if you actually get called out you get more paid for it, usually a standard fee per call rather than an hourly rate. There is usually an on call rota as well so you are not on call 24/7.
But in California I was always payed 2 hours for responding to a page, just carrying the pager was considered a 'better' alternative to requiring after-hours onsite staff. This was a large financial institution, and I was a Unix Systems Engineer, one among 8 or 10. Once I moved to a smaller venue, ie development lab and system support, the pager time dramatically decreased and was swapped with comp time as it arose. I don't think you are going to get payed up front for carrying the pager but you DO have a right to get payed if a response is required, and if you are required to remain within a certain distance from home or work you might have a valid issue as well.
http://www.gotovertime.com/facts.html#myth_comp
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Where I work, we get $0.50/hour for being on-call. We get paid no extra for actually getting called. So I could end up driving into work at 3am and spending the next eight hours there, all at a third-world pay rate. It's legal to pay us less than minimum wage because we are "exempt," whatever that means. Sounds like some bullshit.
Yes, I'm looking for a better job.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
It holds true even if you're simply given the added responsibility without a change of position. Don't like your position at your company? Renegotiate or leave. You're not entitled to some sort of 'automatic pay' increase just for being on call.
I'm the CTO of a small software company. My board can, and often does, call me at all hours of the day and night. I find myself spending quite a few Sundays or Saturday nights flying out early to meet with the board prior to important 3rd party meetings, I don't get paid extra for this, but I certainly considered this possibility before accepting the position and I made sure that my compensation package reflected these 'hardships.'
In addition, as you've pointed out above, specific types of positions tend to come with 'on call' responsibilities, it is unusual for someone to suddenly get saddled with the expecatation that they should be 'on call' outside normal business hours (although it does happen, and has happened to me.)
It, as usual, comes down to the simple fact that when you negotiate a salary you need to base your acceptance upon the possibilities not just what's down on the job description because those job descriptions are rarely written by people who know what they're talking about (sadly.)
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A webmaster, likewise, has slow times and busy times.
Bullshit. Any tech employee will have busy times and OH SHIT times.
In the current economy, few companies are willing to pay IT employees for being on call while many IT employees are happy just to have a job and will bend over and spread their legs for the company. This is just an unfortunate consequence of there being too many people and not enough jobs.
I worked at Big Blue in the 90s, and they had a fixed rate per "shift" for being on-call, they called it "standby". Though, at the time, I was the first one in the particular office who said, "How much do I get?" when asked to carry a pager.
This money was very, very appealing right out of University. Six years later, since the rate is independent of your salary (or even salary band or rank... actually or even inflation), it didn't seem quite so impressive.
An "on-call" shift cannot be a shift where you are otherwise expected to be in the office. (Or working normally, given the "flexiplace" work at home plan.) Should you actually get called, then you bill time worked, in addition to the standby pay for that shift. Compensation rates follow the normal overtime rules for your jurisdiction. (Time-and-a-half, with a four hour "deductible" for Ontario. So your first four hours of overtime aren't paid.)
My PERSONAL rule is, as long as I have to worry about the company needing me, they need to be paying something. Like if I can't go out Friday night and get drunk, they need to be paying. (Normally, I'd expect being sober by Monday morning is no problem. Being sober for an emergency page at 1 AM Saturday morning.... not so easy.)
Or if it interferes with vacation plans or anything like that. Or even being able to go see a movie.
Rule is, you want work, you pay for it.
Way I see it, I'll take the pager and be on call, but the rule is, as I am a contractor, you pay standard-with-full-access rates, minimum 2-hour callout, every time that sucker goes off outside times I'm at the office. (You're paying already when I am at the office.) I bump my standard rates a bit to cover the possibility of interruption, if you want me to be available at any time. If I were an employee, any time that sucker goes off outside office hours, local labor laws say you have to pay me overtime, and a minimum of four hours if I get called into the office. I'd be willing to drop that to a minimum two hours of double time, from four of time and a half.
The fireman idea is flawed, because it is, in fact, not an on-call situation. You are paid for the time that you are on call, but you are actually in the fire hall while you are on call. Your shift ends, you close the door behind you, and nominally you are done. You don't have to worry about being waked up for an emergency call out, when you're off duty. It's much closer to the situation of a volunteer firefighter, who is on call 24/7 because there is nobody else and who is doing it basically out of altruism. Because of its volunteer nature, that doesn't apply either; you're not volunteering at your job.
A fireman has slow times and busy times, he is not working 9-5 and then on call, he's just on call.
A web master has an 8 hour a day busy time, and then an on call time. Every job that I have worked in the tech sector or have had working people for me who were not salaried had on call pay.
They had a bonus for just being on call, and then where paid when they were actual called with some kind of minimum, even if the call took 5 minutes the pay was for 2 hours.
I'm a contractor, so I've worked for many different companies, 3-6 months at a time. For the last several years I've made it clear, during the initial interview, that I'm not on call 24/7.
That said, the occasional night or weekend work is an expected part of our industry, and sometimes they need people to cover that time. I also make clear that I understand that and will work with it.
My current company has no official on-call policy for my position, but the way it works out, if they call me when I'm not in the office, I'll answer if I'm not doing anything else, or return their calls when it's convenient for me. (I'm a pretty typical nerd, so this works out to most of the time.) If they do answer, I charge them for the time I actually spend working, a minimum of one hour.
If they want me standing by at night or over a weekend, that means I can't go out of town, or even out of the house for long. I'm not visiting friends, and I'm not running a D&D game. Since I've given up plans I may have, they're paying me for that time, even if all I'm doing is sitting around at home playing video games, listening for the phone, and occasionally checking email.
These times need to be agreed to ahead of time, and it won't be every weekend. In such cases, I usually charge them normal rates for about half the hours I'm on call, or all of the hours if I'm actually working the majority of that time. (If I'm sleeping, I'll only charge anything if they actually do call.)
So far, as long as I've stated what I expect up front, I've not had any complaints.
If the masses can keep you down, you're not the Ubermensch.
I work at a company where we have on-call rotations, with pager and everything. It was made explicitly clear during the interview and hiring process that this would be expected of me, and that I should consider my salary as reflecting this responsibility. Given that the salary was a good deal higher than typical jobs in the area, and expectations were stated up-front, I felt that this was fair.
If you're an independent contractor, then you definitely should be paid for those on-calls. Its unfathomable to me that someone can expect you to work without proper compensation.
When I worked at RSA Security in their tech support department, we were paid $300 to be on call for the weekend, meaning carrying the company cell phone and being no more than 30 minutes from some way to handle a support case (VPN to the office was fine). For each call/case we received (I think) $75. Overall a pretty good deal for people handling products like ClearTrust, FIM, or Keon; not so good for the SecurId guys, who could make $1,000 on a busy weekend by working full time. They were guaranteed to get a bunch of cases; we weren't.
One amusing story a SecurId guy told me: There was extra pressure on them to handle cases quickly because, when you get fired, one of the first things they do is de-activate your token. If the server crashes on a Sunday morning, everyone who tries to authenticate from home can't log in and thinks they've been fired. Monday morning half your company is spamming resumes to your competitors.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
What does the contract say? If support hours and costs are defined, that's that. If not, then it's up to the two parties to work something out.
I'd offer several options. For example:
1) Fixed monthly rate (for answering calls) plus normal hourly rate (for time involved to fix problem) or
2) No fixed rate, hefty hourly rate
3) No fixed rate, sliding scale depending on day and time (normal rate during normal hours to X times after midnight).
4) Combinations and variations of the above (i.e. fixed rate to answer weekend calls, plus hefty hourly rate)
Make sure you are ok with all the options, then by giving a choice, the client at least feels they get to choose what is best for themselves.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
Here around (germany) they pay me 1 hour for every 8 hour on call, if NOTHING happen. If something happen, then I get the normal pay for that time (6h-20h), double pay otherwise, triple pay for sunday or holiday day.
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As an employee I never received overtime pay for being on call or overtime, though I always got comp time.
Technically contracting and consulting are not the same thing.
As a contractor, I've always been paid by the hour for a specific time span, when the contract expired it was extended or dropped. As far as support, I didn't get paid unless I was actually called in - my contracts always stated terms and rates. On some contracts there were ceilings on the amount I could bill.
As a consultant (current situation) I have specific deliverables, and scheduled dates for delivery. I'm paid a fixed amount for the work, with the final payment held until the acceptance conditions are met. My contracts usually include a support rider as well, for 6 months to a year after acceptance. further support requires a new contract. In any case there's no payment unless there's a problem. If I'm called in and the cause of the problem is determined not to be a "fault" in what I've delivered, I'm paid at a specified rate, otherwise, I eat the time.
...carrier dead.....
If you are on call beyond 40 hours per week and unless you were retarded to have taken the job knowing you're not gonna get paid pas the 40 hours then then you have to get paid.
A friend of mine works for a water filtration company, he was asked if he wanted to be on call. He said yes and he get paid double time for the on call and if its on call for more then certain amount of hours it goes up from there.
If the employer wants to make money of me past the 40 hours per week they better pay their share other wise I ain't putting out.
Why the hell would anyone want to be such a slave?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
If you are expected to have a response and fix things, then you need to be compensated for it. We used to not have a system and boy did it suck. Even with out getting "On Duty Pay", I can still get called. My Mom in Law DIED and I was at a funeral and I sure would hate to have someone call me then. Thank god my boss stopped the director in his tracks....
Gorkman
My company is strictly 8-5 M-F, but of course we have to keep email, Web, and database servers online 24/7. My staff and I are "on call" all the time, with a "phone tree" sort of system for people to reach us if there is an "emergency", usually something like a power failure or "I can't get my email!". We are all salaried, so there is no OT. Any time spent on actual calls is rounded up to the next hour (I actually take into account the circumstances and will round it up even more for my staff) and is paid back as comp-time. The advantage of a "phone tree" is nobody has to work vacation or family time around an "on call" schedule, and nobody has to be tied to a cell phone or pager for any length of time. We just make sure that at least one person in our department is always available. It isn't a perfect system, but it works for us.
At my last job I had a choice, I could be on call almost all the time, but work from home and/or have flexible hours. Or I could work a standard shift from the office 9-5. Being on call and work flexible hours wasn't a hard choice. I used the same tools when I was working from home as when I working from the office, an internet connection, a phone, and my laptop. Most of the work I did was remote support anyway (client was far from our office anyway). I'd much rather be on call than tied to desk in the office.
Only if everybody accept it. If not, then they get no support. If tehre is a lot of unemployment, then it will cost your job as other people will probably accept poorer condition, if there is under-employment then they will have to offer more. So really saying it will cost "your job" is really dependant on whetehr you can easily be replaced, and the conjuncture.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
How about this, which I hearby call the Beer Principle (patent pending):
If being "on call" means I have to remain sober the whole time, you need to show me the money.
If being "on call" means I can get drunk in the privacy of my own home and not get in trouble if you call me whilst in my cups, then we're cool.
No, salaried means you get paid for the week - not for the number of hours worked in the week. On call for a weekend - take two days off. You're 100% entitled so long as your work is getting done. You see "salaried" goes both ways though most people are too timid to take advantage of it...
There's training, equipment and station maintenance, and the various public relations/education events.
I worked as an independent contractor for years, and at one point also ran a business that hired six independent contractors in three states, so I have some experience with these matters, though IANAL.
That said, if the employer dictates the hours, provides the workspace, and the tools to do the job, then this person is likely a statutory employee under law. Just because you have an independent contractor agreement doesn't mean you're automatically an independent contractor. Independent contractors must have a certain level of autonomy. Some employers try to use independent contractor agreements as a way to get around payroll taxes, but if they get caught, they'll pay far more in back taxes and fees than they ever would have incurred by maintaining someone in employee status
That said, if the person is a contractor, then s/he screwed up if the contract didn't address on-call or after-hours duties. It would have been reasonable to include a per-incident fee for all after-hours calls, and/or a different rate for night and weekend work. Chalk it up to a learning experience, and submit a new contract for review if you want things to change. You'd best be ready to walk if you plan to do that, however. The employer does not need to accept any new contract. I sure hope you listed a contract renewal period, or process for ammendments and changes.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
An employee is paid for being on call...it's called a salary. A contractor on the other hand is paid for work when called in but not for being on call. If a contractor wants to be paid for being on call he/she should negotiate this up front. I suspect however they will learn the realities of the market take precedence and the job will go to someone who doesn't demand to be paid for being on call.
When I was on call for fixing nortel meridian and ericsson md110 phone switches remotely I got paid for having a cell phone on when I had it. So a customer could call at any hour and I would have 30 mins to get to work no matter where I was located so I could login to their systems and do what was needed. I was paid special overtime for this, which didn't pay as well as the normal 100% extra hour salary. I think it was 20-30% extra if nothing happened and 70ish% extra if something happened. Phones has to work so I guess people tend to pay a bit more then for a website person on call, which is wrong considering some companies live off of their website.
A friend of mine had 100% extra on his boss webservers, but that was because he had built it from scratch and was probably the only one who could fix any problems in the time his boss wanted it to be fixed.
In my opinion, this Annie should be paid atleast 50% her normal salary when she is on call. This is something which should be in the contract with her employer. If the website is so important so she can't fix it in the morning, then it means it's also important enough to pay for on call service.
You should get paid but I haven't found one place I worked as a salaried (exempt) software engineer that will pay you. I was on call 24/7 for a good 10+ years without pay. When I was hourly I was paid because I was non-exempt. I have been woke up in the middle of the night countless times by people calling from Asia or Europe.
My boss in a ridiculously small s-a-a-s co. would frequently call up at all hours and
on weekends with an emergency problem with the servers, the webapp, or the office IT. Nominally
I was "lead developer". He wanted me to get the alerts hooked up directly to my
cellphone.
Now if somehow he had seen fit to include his tech employees as (even small) partners
in the venture, my attitude just may have been different,
but as it was, I basically let him know at one point that this was extra value to the company beyond
our agreement, and that some form of compensation or compensating time off would be a fair gesture.
This kind of disagreement ultimately led to our parting of ways.
Labour standards for tech workers where I live are way slanted toward the employer. Tech workers
are not included in the normal "40-hour or overtime or flex-time" rules that govern the rest of the
economy, even if we are not given shares or options.
So it is basically up to the employees to stick up for their rights, and it leads to a lot of bad blood
if an employee doesn't agree to be a slave. I guess the companies end up with "willing lackey"
types exclusively.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
If expected to respond with more than just a phone call (e.g. get dialled in within 30 minutes or onsite within 60 minutes) then should get paid, because this limits what you can do while oncall. That might include staying at home, or abstaining from beer, or cancelling trips out with the family.
At my last job we didn't have an on call schedule but we were generally expected to be accessible to our customers if Something Bad happened. One Friday night, around 7pm, my colleague got one of those calls. He listened to the customer explain the problem, and then proceeded to tell him that he would be best served by calling the manufacturer's support line as he had been drinking for several hours and would probably just make things worse in his current condition. No one could really fault him; he did the right thing by the customer.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Regardless of 'the way things are,' my take would be a compromise. By putting someone on call, you are restricting their movements quite a lot so there should be compensation. Maybe it's miniscule, like $2/hr. Failing that, being CALLED in should incur a higher cost for the employer. OT or doubletime regardless of whether a person has reached their 40 hours or not. I.e., not paying a person full rate for sitting around their house all day BUT paying a person enough to keep them working for you and at a rate and under conditions enough to keep the employer from abusing said employee.
100% numeric pager or Blackberry with unlimited data plan and cell service? If I was asked to carry a numeric pager, and work all hours and not get paid I would be out the door. If it was a Blackberry with full data plan and unlimited cell useage, maybe that would be enough for me. I currently get paid $1.50/hr for carrying and nothing for the time I spend if I get paged. I accepted this. I used to get paid $1.50/hr and OT for what I worked but got paged 2000% more. So the company giving me a phone with data at no cost to me plus $1.50/hr regardless if I get paged or not is worth it. If I get paged a lot, I train that group how to fix things so they don't have to page me. If they paid me for OT for responding, I probably wouldn't train people how to fix things as I would want the $$$. So this may be an indication that users require some additional information so the pages don't happen, or at least happen less frequently.
There are so many variables it is really just up to what you want to put up with. If you don't like the situation, find a different one.
Whether it's a salaried or hourly wage shouldn't make a whole lot of difference. I've had both types of role, and in all cases there has always been an incentive or some kind of additional remuneration to do the on-call work over equivalent grades in departments that didn't have to do it. That would either be a fixed allowance for the on-call time, a disturbance allowance per call, overtime, or some combination of the three. Then again, I do work in the EU where thanks to the French we are a little more blessed in our labour laws than those unfortunates in the US seem to be.
The best employer's position I had on this went so far as pay you per hour to be on call (0.5x base wage), a disturbance allowance (1.5 hours wage per issue) and overtime (1.5x base wage, or 2x at weekends/public holidays) while you were working on a call, with wages pro-rated for those of us on salaried pay. That was one sweet deal; if you got a whole bunch of quick-fix issues during your week on the rota, then you could quite easily clear a couple of week's pay for just a few hours of actual work. In return, the company had one of the most motivated and loyal IT teams I've ever worked with, but unfortunately almost zero prospects for internal promotion...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
I get paid for 40 hours of office time (or equivalent home office time) a week. Anything beyond 40 hours is extra. My hours are flexible, so I can leave two hours early one day and "earn them back" doing scheduled work during the evening or nights. If the 40 hours are already used up during the normal work week, the scheduled work outside normal business hours is extra. Extra in this case means an hourly rate of 200% of your normal rate. Minimum is 2 hours.
Our on call system means aprox. 25% of your hourly rate when you are on call and idle.
If called, the 25% falls away and you are paid similar to scheduled work (meaning 200% of the normal rate). In other companies I've been in touch with, the 25% on call compensation has also been seen as a fixed weekly base pay for the week you are on call or as a on call compensation in 6-8 hour slices that makes smaller on call lumps cheaper for the company.
It might sound much bit here is why it is a good idea to have a high pay for out of hours work:
If you work more than 40 hour weeks you become less productive, less creative and generally more prone to stress as a direct result of the amount of work
Your time away from your loved ones should really cost a lot - I mean - you are already paid to be away from them 40 hours a week - about or more than half of your time awake.
Cheap on call service from the employee will mean that management will use the on call service more often out of hours. If it is expensive - all other things being equal - management will learn to plan better. Remember that management primarily looks at cost - not employee happiness or stress levels.
I work at AT&T and was insourced from IBM a year ago where I had been for 9 years. This is Denmark - Now you know why Oprah thinks we are the happiest on the planet.
My boss just tells me to come in late or not at all if I am called out. I have no issues with that and it works out well for me. Obviously not everyone has a boss like that and I know how lucky I am.
Here's the key for me. The guy works 40 hours / wk in the office. THAT is what he is paid to do. That is what the EMPLOYER contracts for. This is what the article says.
If he is being paid, by the hour, for 40 hours (also mentioned in the article) then that is ALL he is contracted for.
He should submit bills for at least the time he works when called. I would bill at a rate of 1.5 or 2.0 times the normal pay rate. If they want to play nickel and dime, just play back.
Once they go that route, then they are beholden to a whole new set of employment rules. I'd just let the boss person know that they will be getting billed at the going rate for any off hours support/work calls.
I'd also suggest that the contractor let them know that if this is not acceptable, then they need to prioritize the work when he gets in on the next day.
Of Course in this economy, one can just be happy to have a job, and shut up and not say anything. However, if you know the systems and designs and whatnot for the website well, then being "fired" for not being on call is a risk I would be willing to make, especially if it is a steep learning curve to learn how / why things are setup the way they are. Finding good help is not easy, even with all the unemployed out there.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
i won't work for no overtime credit. I have always demanded comp time or pay, no exceptions. It's not like i sit idle at work and my managers/bosses know it so never been a problem.
..just because you can, doens't mean you should...
Salaried implies you get paid a set amount per year to do your job. No more, no less. No OT. There may be a bonus
If you're on call and expected to be available to fix stuff (or even just to advise) then there are restrictions placed on what you can and cannot do. If there's an SLA involved, and you have to be actively working on the issue within X minutes, then there are even more restrictions placed on what you can do. (No getting drunk, no going too far from a computer & a net connection, potentially no travelling, no going to the theatre (unless you're willing to risk wasting the price of the ticket), don't risk a date unless she's happy to maybe have to cut it short at a moment's notice, no being uncontactable (e.g. out of mobile coverage) etc)
Time with restrictions placed on it is by definition not free time. Time that is not free because of my employer, my employer can pay for.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Back in my early techie years, I was a unionized IT employee at an East Coast university. When pagers started to roll out, our union leadership started to make noise about getting overtime (or added compensation) for carrying said pagers. Long story short, the university system leadership said not only "No" but "H*** No". We didn't strike either.
Fast forward about 23 years and the network group I was in had a rotating on-call pager. For a long time, we would take an extra day off to make up for the fact that we were on-call (answering questions that should never have come to our group). However, that ended with a new manager who said that we couldn't afford to provide these "undocumented" days' off. Our colleagues in a foreign country, however, still receive extra pay for carrying a pager.
Bottom line is, in the US over the last 20-25 years, employers have been squeezing the employees harder and harder even as more jobs go overseas or to low-balling contractors. Unless there is a major sea change in employer-employee relations (and there will not be any time soon), forget about collecting any extras.
I think, therefore I am - Rene Descartes; I yam what I yam, an' that's what I yam - Popeye
If you work in a support field, you are on call. I have worked in data and voice engineering since I was in college and have been required to be on call as the systems you maintain are business critical. One job was not paid however the one I currently am with now pays 3 extra hours of normal wages the week you are on call for the inconvenience and every call that comes in from the automated system that requires work you are allowed to take over time on. These customers rely on their systems to do business so any smart company will pay their employees accordingly to take care of them. Money doesn't help with the pain of being woken up in the middle of the night but you at least get more willing and helpful employees IMO and experience
Bryan
I have seen 3 pay classes for engineers and similar fields(I would count IT).
1) Salaried-Salaried engineers get paid X dollars for 40 hours a week. They frequently work more than 40 hours, but the expectation is that they will work roughly 40 hours. Any extra time(i.e. to finish a project by deadline) is not compensated. This is typically only for people who are expected to do all of their work in the office.
2) Hourly- Hourly engineers are paid by the hour. This typically amounts to the same pay as a salaried employee. However, hourly employees are expected to perform non-office work or they are expected to work frequently for longer than 8 hours. This is frequently the pay rate for engineers who work "on-site" or supervise technicians. This system compensates them for working overtime. Pay is "straight time" meaning that they keep earning the same hourly rate no matter how many hours it takes. This rate is frequent for engineers who travel as part of their work.
3) Billable- These engineers are paid by the hour, but using the standard convention of time-and-a-half, night differential, etc. This is typically only paid to engineers whose time is being directly billed. This is done because the employer doesn't actually pay the engineers, the contracting company pays them. Typically the contracting company is more concerned with the overall time of the project rather than the cost for employees.
As far as the issue of "being on call": I am on call, but I am almost never contacted. If I am "called", I am paid a premium rate. I would think that some bonus would be part of being "on call" for any employee(i.e. nurses being paid $1-$3 per hour) or a penalty paid for being called.
So, there are really multiple bits of information that the slashdot community needs:
1) IS this IT employee only being paid salary?
2) Is he being rewarded for taking a call?
3) Is his base pay increased to compensate for the frequent disruption of his schedule?
Here in Italy, in a good 80% of IT jobs there's no compensation for being on call, since we're all friends. Big friends, especially when the caller has a mobile sponsored from the company and the called has just his own personal one. For example, it's no matter if they call you and when you tell them "listen, pal, there's a doctor here that's explaining me the real name of the cancer killing my mother" you get answers like "ok, but the X thing is not working, we need it asap". We're all friends.
On contract, I charge a few bucks an hour, 24/7, for being on call. If a call comes through, my normal hourly rate goes into effect on top of it.
Working with a company, I've had arrangements in the past where we simply traded on-call time for flexibility, some random afternoons off, etc. If you're working with good people who trust each other (as we did) we all felt like it was fair, and things ran smoothly.
I think that as IT pros, we all should make sure we understand what we're getting into before we accept an offer. I for one knew coming into my current position that even though I'm outside my 40 hours, and even on vacation or home sick at times, I still have to be responsive. Technically that means being reachable (i.e. "on-call") 24x7x365...
That said, it's also acceptable to understand that there may be times that I take an extra half-hour at lunch, leave a bit early or come in a bit late. I'm very lucky to have an employer who treats me like an adult and have found that simple discussions with your management can iron out a lot of the issues around being reachable ahead of time.
"Of course I'm wrong... That's how I get to 'right'." - Gil Grissom
It, as usual, comes down to the simple fact that when you negotiate a salary you need to base your acceptance upon the possibilities not just what's down on the job description because those job descriptions are rarely written by people who know what they're talking about (sadly.)
Well I wouldn't disregard the job description. It's not as simple as "what's in the job posting" or whatever, but I assume you went into an interview before you were hired, right? Didn't you talk about the job at that point? Did the interviewer say anything about working outside normal business hours? Did the idea of being on call every come up, implicitly or explicitly?
If it's not a job that obviously requires being on call and at no point in the interview did they indicate that possibility, then I think it's fair to say that being on call "wasn't in the job description". It just wasn't part of the deal you signed up for. That fine, but when an employer asks you to do something that wasn't part of the deal you signed up for, they've essentially reopened negotiation. Negotiate a deal that you find acceptable.
I worked a job where I was on call 24/7. The way it worked is that I would be paid $1 a minute and there was a minimum guarantee of 10 minutes. The client was billed out at $2 a minute with a minimum of 10 minutes. Essentially $60 an hour (taxed of course) went to my pocket. The issue was that it would be Sunday, 7am, and I'd get a call that would take 2 minutes. When I handed the slip to my boss he's like "at least you made a few dollars." My response was "I don't give a shit about $10."
After a point you get tired of it and since there was nobody around to relieve me of on-call duty, I was stuck. I remember one time when we had one other "tech" and I was on-call that week. I had a funeral to attend that weekend and I told the guy that I would be unable to be on the phone for a few hours that day, would he mind taking the phone and when I'm done, I'd take it back. He said "I'm going to a concert" and that was it. No backup from the bosses or anything. I was stuck. So my solution? Leave the phone off. Pretty much that's what I ended up doing a lot of the time when I was fed-up with my job and couldn't get relief.
Also, nobody required any of our clients to have high-speed access so we had to do a lot of remote work via dial-up using VNC or some other solution. Painful doesn't even begin to describe it.
My job now I have a blackberry and we rotate who's on-call between 5 of us. It's not usually bad at all and we all help each other out.
I'm the CTO of a small software company.
And you can stop there. Your job doesn't compare with the job of a regular IT guy. I'm fairly sure neither does your salary.
Yes, some jobs come with extra obligations. In this case, however, they apparently want to add a new obligation to the old job. For free.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I have been contracting since 1992, and one of the reasons I started contracting was unpaid overtime.
If someone calls me, I go on the clock. Nobody should be surprised to get an invoice.
If the job is worth doing, it is worth paying for.
The person in TFA is not acting like a contractor, the employer is risking bad things(tm) should they ever be audited.
There was no question about being paid when you were on call because...it was the military. Then again, being on call was looked at basically as a punishment since it meant that you couldn't go anywhere that didn't have cell coverage, couldn't leave the immediate area, had to drop everything anytime some jackass couldn't get his VPN to work or forgot his password, etc. I've never taken a civilian job that required an on-call rotation, and I never will unless I'm paid accordingly. The notion of 'on-call' in IT has become something that companies take for granted because if you won't do it for free, they can hire someone else who will. The time has come, my brothers, for us to end this outrage!
Nope. Never would do it, no one should be asked to do it. My last job that tried to pull that ploy. After they announced that they were bringing that in, I made some calls, did an interview or 2 and when my ex-boss handed me the schedule - I traded him my resignation. The look on his face was priceless.
Part of on-call requires that the person on-call be available, alert and able to drop everything for the period of time needed to fix the issue. That means, you can't buy tix to entertainment events, go to the pub with friends, can't go on a weekend camping trip with the kids or anything similar. You are effectively wearing electronic shackles, much like a convict given house arrest. You probably shouldn't even go out for a nice supper with your significant other, as your expensive meal could be ruined because some dufus at your client's site put the "deny all" statement at the START of the access control list, not the end - inspite of the warning dialog that pops up (which he ignored).
I'm not a criminal, my company doesn't hire folks with a record. Why should I be subjected to similar conditions without compensation?
I've been through several systems & it's all about the frequency of the calls.
In my first sysadmin job out on Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. we got paid 1 hour for every 4 hours on call (had to work that 1 hour if we got called in, got paid straight time after that first hour). The on-call pager rotated around the sysadmins, some people avoided it, others wanted the extra $$$, so it worked out mostly. We ended up getting paged 1-4 times a week, usually during the middle of the night. You also couldn't drink & had to be in a condition/location to respond to a page with 15 minutes & actually get into the office to fix things if need be within 45.
Down range in Afghanistan & Kuwait we worked 12 hours shifts and have 24/7 coverage. If your pet project blew up you might get called (pretty rare), but would get comp time basically.
These days I'm salaried & have to put in 80 hours every 2 weeks. If I get called in, it just counts towards my 80. The only reason we get called in pretty much is the Temperature Guard system paging because HVAC or power failure. Only been called 3ish times in my 10 months so far.
I'm fine with not being paid for my current on-call status, as it rarely affects me. I wouldn't have been fine with not getting paid out on Kwajalein, as you were paged at all hours frequently. They need to pay you appropriately for the level of service they expect.
The other side of the coin, is companies/people will compensate you as little as they can get away with. You need to stand up for your right to get compensated for your work & restrictions on your life by being call.
If I'm going to be required to craft my time around it, then I'm going to get paid for it. Any time I'm on call is time I can't be drinking, out-of-town, or otherwise too busy, which means it's not my time, it's employer time, and they don't get employer time unless they buy it from me. Thems the rules. No pay, no play, and I'll feel perfectly justified in letting them go to voicemail until 9am.
If they don't like that, they can let me go and get someone more amenable to being cowed, or we can work something out[0].
[0] Funnily enough, the latter has happened to me more often than the former.
Make a deal for booking double overtime for time spent at customer calls.
I feel ripped off getting paid 25% for oncall. Oncall sucks and your employer should know that. True fast response time requires you basically stay at home during your on call time. I work in a NOC and do a 12 hour NOC schedule. I get woken up several times a night and the company understands it's a pain. They pay us as we should. If you're expected to work they should expect to pay. Nothing is free.
Tim Smith - Ramblings from Nerd Land
I should be paid for any time I am required to remain sober for company purposes.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I always imagined that doctors being called off-hours were being called for honest-to-goodness life-and-death issues. I can think of few IT personnel that can say that they are being called for issues so serious. I can think of even fewer that make a physician's salary.
Am I off base here?
DISCLAIMER: This post was not checked for speling and grammar- if you complain- you're a whiner
You're on call, you get nothing until you're called in, then you get time-and-a-half or double-time (for a holiday). That's how we do it here.
I have only been a "full time" employee one time.
That deal was simple.
I drew a salary. .25 hours of comp time for every hour I was on call
The days (24 hour period) I was on call I got
If I worked during that time then I got 1.25 hours of comp time per hour worked
The "nights" (after hours) I got .5 hours comp time and 1.5 hours comp for time worked
There where 3 of us and we rotated by the week.
After 18 month on the "job" I had over 250 hours comp time added up when I left.
That is the rate I negotiated with the employer. .1 hour per hour for waiting on the call.
The one I am on now is better.
When I am called I bill 2 to 1 comp time with
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
If you're self-employed, think twice before charging all those hours but charge a fee anyway. If you're not, you make yourself available to the company during off-hours. That takes a huge toll on your life which must be rewarded/taken back somehow. Usually, between an individual and a company, this is done through money. The company must pay for your on-call time, period. For one thing, it'll prevent abuses or you get paid for being abused.
In particular how often and how long. If it is a case of "We need to be able to reach you if a critical system goes down in the middle of the night and this happens maybe once a year," well then maybe you don't need much extra. You are being asked to fix emergencies only, and on a very sparse schedule. However if it is a case of "Users need to be able to call you with any request they have any time of day, and this will happen multiple times a week," well then compensation needs to be much higher.
Now in the case of a contractor, well then it is much simpler situation: You set your rates based on the time of day. For example I do consulting on the side of my normal job. I don't really care to do much of it, so my rates are high. $100/hr 1 hour minimum for evening/weekend times (I don't consult during the day as I'm at work), and you have to call ahead and set up a time with me, I don't run over. You want me to come over at 3am and do so on no notice? Ya ok, but now it is $200/hr plus a $200 service fee, so $400 minimum. For that amount, I'll roust myself out of bed and come fix your shit. Needless to say (or maybe not) so far nobody has been interested which is fine by me because I'm not all that interested in doing support in the middle of the night. However, were they interested to the tune of $400 or more, well that is enough money I'd be interested in doing it.
So with contracting, just set your rates accordingly. Decide how much your off time is worth to you and put a price on it. If they are willing to pay that price, then fine, you give them the service they want. You don't ever tell them "no" you just tell them what it'll cost. Then the choice is theirs if it is worth the money or not.
It holds perfectly true, unless employment law is particularily bizarre where you live a change of employment contract will be mutually agreed. Don't want the promotion with on-call? Don't agree to the promotion (and risk being sidelined of course...)
Many jobs treat the higher end technical positions as being salaried. This means there is no overtime, in the way a manager is just expected to do the job, even if it means working late, and still getting no extra money for it. The trade-off is that you don't have people watching over you and micro-managing you since you are in charge of your area of responsibility. If you are in a "grunt" style position where you are under a manager who stays on top of you, you need to make it clear that:
A) you are responsible for your job getting done, meaning you should be left alone to get the job done, but that it means if things break in the middle of the night, you ARE responsible to get them fixed.
or
B) You are "just an employee", meaning you deserve overtime, and there SHOULD be some sort of compensation for being on-call, either rolled into your normal pay, or overtime pay.
In system administration positions, as a responsible point of contact, the admins normally get paid with on-call time being a part of the pay. It is expected, and falls under A. Note that in that type of position, there are others to share the on-call duty with, so you might only be on call for one week out of four for example, and you only get woken up when the on-call person doesn't respond. Again, it is about being responsible and taking charge, or about just being an employee without any sense of responsibility for the service you help provide.
So, where do you find yourself?
The only time I've been on-call was with a company with around 8 employees and only one would need to be on-call at once. We would take shifts for one week at a time, and there wasn't pay for being specifically on-call, but any call that we have do act on resulted in a minimum of 3 hours of pay, because that is the legal minimum shift time in Alberta as far as I know. This never really seemed unfair, because it was one week out of 7 or 8, and we were all working together to hold the place together.
To be blunt, I don't care enough about the original article to read it. However, I don't see anybody so far asking this question -
Is Dazed and Confused really bad at his job?
If he uses good programming practices, exactly how many calls is he going to get? Is he using IIS? Bad move. At my previous job we had a customer at one time we provided hosting service only for and they blamed us for all of their IIS related issues, even though we weren't paid to be responsible. It got hacked and it crashed regularly yet it was somehow our fault. I supposed that Dazed might have the case of an insane customer who blames him for things that are not his fault or needs way too much handholding, but still, a properly designed website shouldn't need all that much attention after hours. My previous employer required me to be on call 50% of the time, but the good news was that we rarely got calls outside of normal business hours. Still it kind of sucked. My current job requires me to be on call for about 3 weeks each year. I don't get paid extra for it, but 3 weeks is quite reasonable and if something comes up after hours that takes a lot of time, I can get comp time for it.
"Mr Lawyer" is a dumb a$$ -- I'll just bet you can't call him 24x7 and expect "no additional charges". Get a grip dude.
I'm the "lone" IT guy where I work. Web admin, network engineer, helpdesk. I'm "On-Call" but with the stipulation of "you get me if you get me. If you don't, call our service vendors" ... if I answer a call, I get an automatic hour's pay, and then whatever else is needed after that, plus travel.
So far it hasn't worked out at all.
"You get me if you get me" has been to the company owner "Get him. Get him now. Where is he? This is unacceptable!" and nothing like what we agreed to. I've had to correct them once already when they tried to write me up for neglect and I produced the documented they agreement to defend myself.
As the only person, I can't be reasonably expected to always be on-duty and my manager (nor do I) want me to make updates to her as to when I'll be available. The policy seemed fair until they get bent out of shape.
The moral of the story is - get whatever you can for being on call, and make sure they know the rules apply only when you're on call. Expect your employer to try and abuse it and be firm with them when they do. Set boundaries early and keep them in place.
These are details that should be worked out in advance of any agreement in place. If the agreement did not touch on this aspect then the topic is up for negotiation. If there is mention of being on-call or otherwise being responsible for a certain level of responsiveness during any or other specified times without any specific compensation plan, then you may be screwed.
A mature or experienced business person would know to have these details worked out in advance.
Should someone be paid to make themselves available to deliver a specified quality of service? Yes. If you are paid by the hour, then there should be some sort of component structure built into the agreement somewhere.
Bottom line? If I have to wear a tuxedo to bed because I may be called to a formal party, then someone is going to pay for it.
Being forced to remain in contact, remain sober and live your life with the lingering wonder of being called or inturrepted at any moment is a job in itself. If you are on-call, you should be getting paid for it. I work in tech support for a healthcare system. I am paid hourly, and in a rotation where I am on-call for one week every five weeks. During this time, I am guaranteed $2.50 per hour I am off duty and carrying a pager. If I come in, I get three hours of overtime whether I am here for three hours or five minutes.
FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO
I started to do the math and stopped when I figured the amount of time I spend working on the weekend and after hours was roughly the same as the amount of time I spend posting on /.
If you are my boss reading this, I'm just joking. Seriously though, they let me leave early enough and with lunches and breaks all seem to work out to roughly the same time.
My policy always was, my pager compensation was proportional to the potential impairment of my own agenda.
What I mean is, if you expect me to reply to you within a certain time frame, then I have to be near a phone or within cell coverage. This restricts where I can go. If you expect me to connect in remotely, I have to be near internet connectivity, and most of the time be carrying my laptop with me. This further restricts where I can go, and what I can do when I go there. If you want me to be on site within a certain time frame, that even further restricts where I can go.
If I can watch TV, go to the movies, or out for dinner and still be on call, that's not going to cost you as much as if I have to be within 30 minutes of being on-site from the moment you call me.
Historically, I have been lucky. One employer paid us $500/week to carry the pager with a 90-minute call-back SLA (and then hilariously lost the pager number and refused to admit it, so was unable to call us for 8 months). One customer was quoted something stupid like $5K/week for 7x24, 60-minute on-site (plus hourly when we got there). Any call time was billed back to the client, and we (theoretically) got time-for-time in exchange for that. My current employer has a pager our customers to call, but since it is 7x24 it is optional to be in the rotation and for various reasons I've opted out. In addition to receiving money for your week on the pager here, time is tracked very strictly and we get time-for-time for any pager-call time served.
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
at least in California. Hourly paid employees are paid by the hour, regardless of where they are or when the hour is. If you get a salary, you get a set paycheck regardless of the number of hours you work, including answering the phone in the middle of the night on a Saturday. It's very simple. If you don't like being on call, don't take the job.
forgot to login when I posted this - but wanted to add something..
There are labor laws that govern much of this and I would guess that most of you reading this are owed $$$ unless you are salaried..
I always had zero tolerance for non paid standby requests unless an hourly fee was agreed upon. I flat out told employers that I spent time offshore fishing and that getting me on the phone would be impossible.
Yes. The only people who have a different opinion tend to be the employers who are exploiting the people on call, making them work unpaid overtime.
I always imagined that doctors being called off-hours were being called for honest-to-goodness life-and-death issues. I can think of few IT personnel that can say that they are being called for issues so serious. I can think of even fewer that make a physician's salary. Am I off base here?
Definitely not off base, but you brought up several unrelated issues. The overwhelming majority of calls are not "honest-to-goodness life-and-death issues." In IT terms, I would imagine that many issues are rather simple calls. Important to the customer, but seems simple to the IT guy. The same is in medicine. Important to the patient, but simple, and rarely life threatening, to the physician's perspective. Not trying to downplay the importance of the calls. Just that that is what the vast majority of calls are about. I am not sure if you were making a point, or just an observation. If I see a point, it is that "because the calls are life and death (critically important), you should not get paid." I am not sure if I agree with that logic (forgive me for putting words in your mouth, if that was not your point). As to the salary, that is a different issue. I guess the question is "how much should a person make, to make it so the call is thrown in the price?" Not really sure, but, as a physician, I think $50 million a year would almost be enough.
If you take a job and are expect to be on call, then it is assumed by the company that the salary adequately covers the time spent on call. If your job changes and you are expected to be on call, you can renegotiate your pay. If you don't like the offer you could, in theory, leave.
I agree in principle with most of what has been said above... but go find another job if you don't like it. However, in this economy, with unemployment over 10%, be wary of what you wish for. I bet there are plenty of people right now that would take a job with being "on-call" at any wage rate.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
And does the lawyer offering this advice accept a retainer fee from his clients so that he can be on call for them?
24x7 support is costly in any business. The firefighter is not an apt analogy... Is he expected to work an 8 hour day and THEN be on call for fires?
And is he serious when he thinks a firefighter is paid for only the small amount of time he is out firefighting? If that were the case, I expect we would see a lot of financially insolvent firefighters-turned-pyromaniac in order to put their kids through college.
The complaint reads like the complainer is hoping there is some legal lever they can pull so that they can keep the client but also point to a rule that requires that they be paid for the extra time.
I sure wouldn't keep working for somebody if I thought they were making crazy demands (there are always lots of exigent circumstances in such situations, but damn it, when I say 'keep working for somebody', I don't necessarily mean I would quit right away, but at a minimum I sure would start looking for something else, and if the demand was unreasonable enough...).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Not that I disagree with the premise of "renegotiate or leave", but it is a bit ridiculous to compare the responsibilities of an on-call tech and someone with a C-level title. As a CTO, you've got a lot more vested interest in the company than the average salaried guy who is not getting the same C-level perks.
Do you have direct reports, are you allowed to make independent judgments important to the business, do you have an advanced degree, or are you a producer of creative works?
If the answer to all the above is "no" then you probably shouldn't be an exempt employee, meaning you would be eligible for overtime which would offset any on-call demands.
There are lawsuits on if programmers are "creative" types (EA & IBM settled I think, so I'm not sure if the government has weighed in officially) but if a "webmaster" role doesn't produce content but is more involved in server maintenance, that should neatly get past that threshold.
I've been on slashdot so long I'm starting to get out of touch with the cool stuff if it ain't on slashdot.
I'm on call right now, actually. If I have a bad night, that requires me to be awake from 2am to 6am I will send an email saying I'll either be in for half day, working from home, or not at all. My boss will not ask any questions other than requesting a follow up email about the outage when I can.
If I work an over night at the data center that runs past 2am, we're given an automatic comp day. This is all "under the table". The bosses bosses boss has no real idea. Hell, even if he did he probably would have no problem with it. Having a boss who is willing at acknowledge the time you put in and grant you some liberty with that can really make up for the fact you don't get paid extra.
If the questioner is an independent contractor, it's up to him to negotiate compensation with his employer. And that includes how to handle time spent on-call. There is nobody to police whether or not businesses treat their independent contractors fairly, whatever your concept of "fair" may be. In fact, one of the items on the IRS's 20 factor test to determine if a worker is an employee or a contractor is that a contractor should be able to lose money on the deal, whereas an employee cannot.
Of course, that is a convenient segue into whether or not this guy is actually an independent contractor. I've seen these arrangements before, and it is exceedingly rare to find one that would actually pass muster with the IRS. Typically, the "contractor" works full time for the company, can't set his own hours, doesn't use his own equipment, can't decide how the work is performed, can't hire subs, and doesn't offer his services to the general public. Companies who convert this type of employee to independent contractor status are opening themselves up to exposure that the IRS might reclassify (read: correctly classify) this contractor as an employee and demand back payroll taxes. The contractor could then take the employer to court, with that IRS ruling in hand, and argue that he is entitled to full benefits and to compensation for the time he was wrongfully denied benefits.
So now that the contractor is really an employee, we can talk about the subject at hand. I think anyone would agree that the effort expended for an hour worked is greater than the effort expended for an hour on call, and that the effort expended for an hour on-call is greater than the effort expended for an hour of leisure time. Therefore, it seems fair to me that time spent on-call should be compensated, but at a lower level than time spent on-duty.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
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.
This is flat out wrong. It isn't the small amount of time doing the job a fire fighter is paid for. It is BEING READY to do that job WHEN it is NEEDED.
Being on call when salaried is one thing. What happens when you call a plumber in the middle of the night? You pay more. No difference. If you are an independent contractor, you need to set your own rate. Being INDEPENDENT affords you the opportunity to structure that rate as you deem appropriate taking into account this ompetitive market. There is no law that says contractors can't charge different rates for different times of the day.
It's like that old joke about the engineer fixing the big machine by tapping it with a hammer*. Sometimes the CONTEXT of the work is just as important, and sometimes even more important than the actual work itself.
*There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired. Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multimillion-dollar machines. It shook and vibrated violently every time they started the machine. They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine to work but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past. The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. At the end of the day, he marked a small "x" in chalk on a particular spot on the side component of the machine, took a sledge hammer and hit the spot a smashing blow. Instantly, the machine quit vibrating and ran smooth as silk.
The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service.
They wrote him a letter saying that $50,000 for hitting the machine was outrageous as any fool could have done that. They demanded an explanation.
The engineer responded with a new bill stating:
One sledge hammer blow to machinery - $1.00
Knowing where to hit machinery - $49,999.00
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
You don't need a union for that. You already have your solution. Hopefully you're already looking, so as soon as you get a bite, throw the fuckers under the bus and walk away laughing (more likely, they'll just saddle the next-junior team member with the page bullshit)
I run/ran a very small consulting company (3 employees including me). The rates are based on SLAs. We respond to calls during business hours, but are available with a 6 hour SLA for non-business hours. If a problem requires immediate response, we charge per incident. This cost keeps expectations in line. If we didn't charge then the customers would call for everything. We do factor in the on-call hours when we price the contracts and have a rotation. The subscription cost is not for the support, but for the right to get support.
I'd also suggest getting a netbook/3G card so you're not confined to your house when you're on call.
At my 9 to 5 it's a little different. We have a duty phone rotation so we're on call one week then off for two. We also have a support desk that fields the minor issues. SLAs for non-production and production systems are a must. Without SLAs people will call at 2AM for the stupidest reasons. Your pay should be in line with the expectations.
If you are the only support person for a business critical application then if it goes down you will get called so maybe it's time to either re-negotiate or train a secondary.
I've worked On-Call shifts with a number of companies before.
Here's the deal:
The FLSA [Fair Labor Standards Act] regulations provide that "[a]n employee who is required to remain on call on the employer's premises or so close thereto that he cannot use the time effectively for his own purposes" is considered to be "working." 29 C.F.R. [section] 785.17
It is against the law for a on-call person to be paid salary. They are non-exempt employees by definition. Any time spent fulfilling required job duties outside of the office must be compensated. Overtime pay scales may or may not apply by job description.
Since a home system, paid for at least in part by an employer, including compensated phone/internet bills and job requirements to maintain a home computer for work purposes (or a provided corporate computer for use at home, including rotated on-call hardware shared by several people) is an extension of the office and the duties of the job, that home system is essentially ruled by the courts to BE the office when on-call. Anytime an employer requires an on-call person to remain in their home, or in proximity to a computer system and to carry and answer a phone routed by the company at specific hours, then that person, under the FLSA, is in fact WORKING. The rate they're paid for that time spent "waiting" for a call may be billed at varying rates, but generally not less than 50% of regular pay, and any time actually on a call would be bileld at the standard rate for that employee (or overtime rate if it applies). Many companies pay a base "convenience" wage to people who are on call but take no calls during that time.
The Supreme Court, in previous rulings, has also concurred. If you are bound to a location, unable to leave and persue personal activities (say, go to a movie, go out to dinner across town, play video games online, go shopping at something other than a local grocery store, etc), or are mandated to be at a computer to handle calls within X minutes of a notice of an alert (the "you can do whatever you want, but you only have 30 minutes to answer a page" idea), then you are essentially work bound, and not free to use your time at your own lesiure. For example, if while on-call, you could go spend a weekend at your parents, so long as you answer calls per company policy, and meet SLAs for handling issues, they you are only required to be paid while actually working, but if that company required you to stay "within 15 minutes of a connected computer at all times while on-call" then you are work bound, and must be compensated at at least a base acceptible rate during that time, including time-and-a-half as mandated for hours over 40.
For example, at one of my employers, all i was required to do was return a paged call within 30 minutes. once the call was returned, it took about 5 minutes to determine what the issue was, but we had a 4 hour response SLA, so you could tell a customer, "I'm on call, and not at home, I'll call you back in 2 hours..." and that was acceptible. We were only paid for time actually logged on calls (rounded to the nearest hour). At another job, The 1 week a month you were on call, you were expected to keep a quiet household, be at home at all times aside from quick errands, and if you got a call, it had to be answered immediately, and you had to be logged in within 20 minutes of the call. We were paid 50% time for all hours "on call" except meals and sleeping and 100% time on calls (and time and a half as it applied only to time on calls).
Further, in many states (including this one), even if only billable when actually on a call, it is illegal to be paid for less than 3 hours in any 24 hour period, regardless of the number of hours worked. It's also illegal to be compensated for less than 1 hour for any block of time spent working that is more than 1 hour apart from another billable hour. For example: on Sunday, you get a call at 10AM that lasts 30 minutes. You get another call at 3PM that lasts only 15 minutes. They have to pay yo
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
The conditions of the job are known before you take it. You either accept them or you don't. If you accept then you are being paid for being on call.
I'm not sure the fire station analogy applies. Lawyer-person implies that we're only working when we get a call. Nothing could be further from the truth. As most admins know, you put in a good 45 to 70 hour week just doing regular work, trying desperately to get things to hold together reliably so you can get some sleep. Soooooo..... that work doesn't count?
In one job, we got a pay differential for being on call. In my previous job you just had to suck it up. In my current job, we get additional paid time off for being on call, which makes more sense to me -- you're paid back for your time with additional time, which is often more important to me than additional money. Of course, this assumes you have enough people in the department to pick up the slack. It's pointless to grant time off and then not allow it to be taken.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I wouldn't be adverse to that arrangement if the salary was correct myself. Unfortunately, the current salary is not correct for that work arrangement. Too many places are now simply cutting the night shift and changing over to pagers/on-call support, but not changing the salaries and expecting/demanding that this is how things are now done. I would also bet that your position has things like annual bonuses, which reflect the extra hard work you may have done over the course of the year above and beyond the normal 40 work week.
Many times I would simply like to see a few % of the money saved by having me come in to fix something vs letting it be down/broken until the next normal work day. If it is really that important that it can't wait, then it is important enough to pay the people who maintain it for having to give up plans of going on a weekend trip, or out drinking, or whatever it may be, and stay in access of a phone and 30minutes to an hour to go in if need be.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
There's a U.S. Supreme Court precedent [hrhero.com] on "engaged to wait" vs. "waiting to be engaged". So which are you?
Absurdity: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce
"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." Maybe where that lawyer lives, firefighters spend most of their time in the firehouse cooking, sleeping, or whatever, and not getting paid for it. Most of the engine companies I work with spend 3-4 hours per 24 h shift drilling, and run EMS calls in addition to fire, pest (snake/spider/wild animal) relocation, and public assist calls, many of them averaging a total of 10-12 calls per shift (all calls included). They also get paid for the full 24, not a sub-set of it. There is no reason to say that someone who has an on-call status is off the clock just because they are not actively working every second of their on-call time. If you expect someone to be at your beck-and-call 24 hours, you must compensate them for that. Now, if they are at home, with an "oh-shit" pager/cell phone, you can probably compensate them for far less than their normal wage. As an example, I have a friend who works full time as a paramedic with us, and part-time as a blood recovery tech for a local hospital. Certain days he is on 24 hour on-call status as a recovery tech, and gets paid like $1.50/hour on call. If he gets called in to the OR for a job, then he gets his full hourly wage from the time the page goes out until he leaves the hospital again, after which the pay goes back to the lower wage. He can't drink alcohol, he can't leave the city, he can't really plan any long events, and though he does do things like attend his son's various sport events, he could be torn away from them without warning. The compensation, even at a quite low wage, is recognition that although you are not working, you are also not really free to do anything you wish since your employer or client could recall you without warning. I believe that any employer who thinks that on-call is just like being off-duty should probably come out here to a fire station of my choosing. That thinking will change toot-sweet.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
I expect to be compensated for the alcohol I can't consume when on call
Now, this is not absolute. If I have to carry the pager once a month and it rarely rings, then I don't really care. But, my general attitude is: When I leave work, I should be able to drink myself into oblivion while shooting heroin, in a plane over the Pacific. If I can't do that because of work, then you need to pay me for my time.
I'm sorry if you received the impression I said being salaried had to do with hours, I didn't say that and didn't intend for it to be interpreted that way.
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There's a pretty big flaw with the firefighter analogy - firefighters rarely get called in to put out blazes they started.
I've done my share of time on the on-call rotation, and while many times you get called in for things that you couldn't have prevented, often you get rung for things you should have seen and prevented. Or that your coworkers should have - but they experience the same with things you should have seen.
I'm not going to go so far as to say it's the majority of times, but everyone demanding that they need to be paid for on-call service should stop and give that little thought some consideration; does your employer mandate that you pay him/her for the time when you've brought systems offline? Because that might cost a fair bit more than him/her paying you for the time you lost due to things that were nobody's fault.
There's a happy medium somewhere, and I don't know exactly where it is... but stop and think for a while.
Agreed, but the issue appears to be a contractor who accepted a contract that stipulated they would be paid for 40 hours a week 'in the office' and would have to be on call when 'out of the office' and they feel they should be getting paid overtime. They simply appear to have made a mistake in their contract negotiations.
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Why should I be disregarded because I'm the CTO of a small software company? I simply mentioned that in order to point out that I have a whole range of responsibilities outside of engineering and my day to day functions that require me to work or be prepared to work basically 365 days a year.
I wasn't always a CTO, I was a software architect before, a senior software engineer before, a software engineer before, and my very first job as as support for a virtual reality product (this was the entrypoint for engineers into the company.) When a company I worked at was purchased by a very large multi-national corporation I also found myself in a 3rd tier support role where I was on call 24/7/365 for a year (part of the transition.)
Why do you say they apparnetly want to add a new obligation 'for free'? It simply sounds like the contractor agreed to a contract and didn't realize his/her commitments or else is unhappy about that decision now.
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Salaried doesn't mean indentured servitude, though. Yes, I agree, if it was part of your initial employment that you will be on call for 24x7 support, you'd better figure that into your salary and just shut your piehole. However, many of us either a) used to be compensated separately for on call time or b) used to not have a 24x7 system, and were charged with one while maintaining the same position in the company. I'm actually at the unique intersection of both of these. I used to not have any 24x7s when I took this job, and once I agreed to take one on, there was compensation for disrupting my life for the weeks I got stuck with the pager (1 hour comp for every 8 hours on call, plus 1 for 1 recall time)
About two months ago, we all just got totally boned by a policy shift. Now they expect me to do it for nothing, and where I work, that means I'm no more than 15 minutes from being able to log in and I'm dead stone sober (meaning, a BAC of as close to 0.00% as you can get...). The only upside is that I get a minimum of 4 hours comp for every call. It certainly hasn't encouraged me to fix any bugs, since I enjoy the extra vacation and they're usually quite easy to deal with.
Ever seen the Dilbert where the boss offers an incentive payment for every bug fixed? Wally wanders off saying something about writing himself a new minivan. That's basically what they've created around here, and pissed us all off in the process. It's certainly not an incentive to make the pager quiet, just to make the bugs require minimal attention.
I don't think it's ridiculous, it's simply a matter of degree, and let's not forget this is a contractor who signed a contract. I'm just trying to point out that you can't sign a contract that stipulates that you do not get paid for out of office work and then complain that you don't get paid for out of office work...
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Small companies I've worked at have used a number of strategies to make this fair. One way to do it is limit service hours. For a while we limited service hours to 7 am to 7 pm, and if customers called outside that the expectation was that they'd get a call at 7 am the next day. I have also seen best-effort systems where there is no formal SLA, and several people get paged at once if there's trouble, which works in some cases.
The problem with being on call is that, if you have a life, you have commitments and do stuff that you can't just unwind in 10 minutes. Golf, fishing trip, reffing a kid's softball game, community orchestra rehearsal, picking up kids on the other side of town.
No one can take advantage of you without your permission. If you provide free on-call services, that's because you allow it.
I want to be paid extra for having to carry a crackberry. Evil geniuses turned a portable, always-on office/leash into a status symbol that actually makes people want them. I am in awe of this bit of corporate cat-belling.
Ask Fortune magazine about your rights as an employee/contractor? Why don't you ask Fritz the Cat about your rights as a mouse? http://www.saskndp.com/history/mouseland.php3
Fortune magazine makes no secret about representing the interests of businesses and employers. Their answer to you is going to be, "Be glad you have a job, do what your boss says, you miserable groveling wretch."
(Journalism education) I've always said that you can tell whether a journalist is any good by seeing who they interview. Do they interview people from all sides of the issue, or do they just get the people they agree with and tailor the quotes to support the argument they want to make? Anne Fisher http://money.cnn.com/2009/11/25/news/economy/overtime.oncall.fortune/index.htm interviewed two lawyers, one from Aiken Gump and the other from Fowler White Boggs. They're both employer's lawyers whose practice includes fighting unions and union organizing. They're not representing your interests (the employer/contractor), they're representing the interests of the employer. It's in their interest to encourage *all* workers to settle for a bad deal, so that if one or two of you try to demand what you deserve, they can replace you with someone more subservient and cheaper. Here's a Google search for those 2 firms:
Aiken Gump
http://www.akingump.com/services/ServiceDetail.aspx?service=267
Labor-Management Relations
The firm regularly provides advice and assistance to employers in union organizing campaigns and elections, including representation before the NLRB in unit determination hearings; negotiation and administration of collective bargaining agreements; arbitration and litigation of disputes under existing contracts; counseling and litigation in connection with strikes and related issues, such as striker replacement and strike-related violence; and the defense of unfair labor practice charges before the National Labor Relations Board. For those clients needing such assistance, we provide intensive training programs for supervisors on their obligations in union organizing campaigns or similar critical aspects of dealing with employees.
Fowler White Boggs
http://www.fowlerwhite.com/what-129.html
Labor Law/Unions
For decades our lawyers have successfully worked with employers to remain union-free. Our experience includes winning union elections and unfair labor practices cases before the National Labor Relations Board and similar local agencies. In fact, one of our senior lawyers began his career as a litigator for the NLRB. We have also successfully litigated union organizing, picketing, boycotting and violence injunction cases to aggressively defend the rights of employers, employees, and the public. We have negotiated favorable union contracts and arbitrated union grievances under union collective bargaining agreements. Our lawyers frequently advise and work with employers and their managers regarding compliance programs under various labor laws. Our lawyers have been recognized as contributing editors to the leading treatise on traditional labor law, “The Developing Labor Law.”
We have represented multiple national and local clients in labor law issues including:
* Wal-Mart
(/end quote)
Wall-Mart! They're a good candidate for the worst employer in America. Do you want to work at Wall-Mart wages?
If Fisher had instead spoken to lawyers from a kick-ass law firm that represents the rights and interests of employers/contractors http://www.vladeck.com/ she would have gotten a completely different story. (Even the corporate executives go to Vladek when they get screwed.)
IANAL but I've wor
If you are a contractor, structure your agreement such that maintenance and support requests outside of the SPECIFICALLY DEFINED scope of work are charged on a per incident cost.
There is a long history (and associated case law) for per-incident support billing. Get behind that.
If you are an employee, get your employment expectations in writing. Do this before you are required to meet those expectations, and ideally in the context of discussing your compensation.
Chasing an employer for unexpected overtime fees sucks for everybody and gives you a bad reputation. Be proactive about compensation.
Contract work usually gets one out of on-call. I'm a resource at an hourly rate. Just the fact that they would have to pay me as soon as the pager beeps is enough for me not to wear a pager the last 9 years. Not to mention it's customer to pay an On-Call fee/rate.
Be that as it may, OT is generally not available for computer workers. Most of us are compensated enough where OT laws no longer apply.
I'm the CTO of a small software company. My board can, and often does, call me at all hours of the day and night. I find myself spending quite a few Sundays or Saturday nights flying out early to meet with the board prior to important 3rd party meetings, I don't get paid extra for this, but I certainly considered this possibility before accepting the position and I made sure that my compensation package reflected these 'hardships.'
Is your income/lifestyle comparable to the average IT guy? Just curious. Back in my 'office drone' days one I got into a shouty match with one of my coworkers. One of the higher-ups had a private chat with me and I explained that the other person started yelling and that I wasn't going to tolerate that crap. So the higher-up told me this story about how he worked at a big company you've heard of and how their semi-famous CEO would stand an inch or two from your face and yell at you at full volume. This guy was blissfully unaware that the tolerance for that sort of abuse was proportional to the amount you paid for your car.
I don't mean to cause any offense, but the more you stand to gain from the success of a company, the less of a hardship coming in on a Sunday is. Maybe I've just got the wrong image in my head, but any 'Chief' in a company is unlikely to be living paycheck to paycheck.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, but a C level executive gets a whole other level of benefits.
I also kinda question the feasibility of a "a CTO" with the nick Assmasher, but that's another kettle of fish...
This is a complete no-brainer to me...
Yes. Of course, you should get paid for being 'on-call'.
Overpaid - in the original contract it stated that I was paid above normal rates to cover recalls. They had to understand that I can eat an drink and do what I want outside normal hours, but it they can contact me, then I'm theirs, free. Restricted - must respond with 30 minutes, must be contactable, must be sober, but paid at a small hourly rate for doing so, and then paid normal/overtime rates when I respond to a call. Recall - go and live my life but respond to a recall if they can contact me, paid normal rates/overtime if I am recalled.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
The point I was trying to make on the LoD issues is that they really can't wait. Most IT questions really can wait until business hours, the caller is just impatient or they have lost perspective.
Patient's new heart failing is not equivalent to the user's password failing. While the user wants to get some work done, the patient needs to have a working heart.
The only point I can see to be had on salaries is that physicians are typically closer to what we think of as "FLSA Exempt" than IT is. I wasn't intending to imply that the handling of LoD issues shouldn't be compensated, but I do see how you could draw that from what I said. I'll have to think about my logic on that. I definitely think that impatient people should be zinged for demanding service on petty issues though.
DISCLAIMER: This post was not checked for speling and grammar- if you complain- you're a whiner
You have a 40 hour a week job, you turn up and *work* 40 hours - more than likely, more than that but do you get paid overtime? Probably not, particularly in the IT industry.
You go home, you have a phone, you have to have a laptop and possibly a phone connection nearby (depends if your mobile is your modem), you are expected to lug the phone/laptop everywhere, just in case.
You can't go to the cinema (that means you have to turn off the mobile), you can't go to the pub with your mates and have a good time (can't get drunk), you probably won't get a full nights sleep when the phone calls arrive. You WORK when the calls do arrive, for however long it takes to get the job done and you are expected to turn up at work, ON TIME, next day, to resume your 40+ hour working week, and you are expected to NOT get paid?
What sort of morons are these that say you should not get paid.
We work to live - we don't live to work. That, my friend, is slavery.
...Lyall
Agreed.
"Ever seen the Dilbert where the boss offers an incentive payment for every bug fixed" - One of my favorites followed by the one where Dilbert meets a new guy and asks "Are you a contractor or just mildly retarded?"
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Well, I hate to disabuse any fantasies out there but I'm the CTO of a *small* software company ;). I get paid well, but not in any way comparable to a board level position at a large (or even mid sized) company. I get to spend time in the board room. I get to be the software architect. I get to be the principal engineer. Apparently this job is about lots of 'opportunity' - LOL.
I wasn't always the CTO of a company, and I have been in the 'on call' support position when a very large company bought a smaller company I was the architect for. These responsibilities were added w/o any recompense. It was only for a transitional 1 year period though. I have been on call support at other times as well (especially early on in my career) and it was something I expected in moderate doses.
The issue the contractor in the article appears to have is that he/she negotiated a contract that stipulated they were paid for in office work but that they would not be paid for out of office work.
BTW, I certainly wouldn't put up with someone yelling at me at work, or a CEO doing it to me in public (my current CEO and I have heated discussions (we don't shout though) but we always manage to differentiate our work relationship from our personal relationship.) I doubt I'd put up with a CEO screaming at me in private either unless I felt I deserved it for some reason (i.e. login: root password: *** cd / rm -rf)
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It's simply a matter of degrees. I have many more responsibilities and time commitments than the contractor appears to have, and yes I very likely am compensated far more than he/she is. It doesn't change the fact that I planned for this in my contract negotiations, and the contractor did not.
BTW, 'Assmasher' is from a very very old issue of Dragon magazine where there was a runty dwarf with a giant warhammer who was named 'Assmasher.' It has stuck with me since then (I found that hilariously funny as an 8 year old for some reason.) It has been a handle from BBS through now. Out of context it is a bit 'unfortunate' as a nick ;).
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Presuming he/she is salaried, you can't complain about it after accepting the position. You can attempt to re-negotiate your employment contract or quit.
This attitude always confused me - just because I'm salaried doesn't mean my employer gets carte blanche with my life. Sure, the law says I don't get paid for overtime. On the other hand, it doesn't say I must work an unlimited number of hours, either. Employers just like to "expect" that. (And why wouldn't they? Free labor > paid labor.)
And point out that:
- The post indicates this is an independent webmaster.
- Their client expects 24-hour service.
This is a case of not setting proper expectations.
On the other hand, this is the dilemma of the sole proprieter. I have many friends that work on their own. Those that deliver mission-critical (real or perceived) services find that they are called out at all hours, and suffer because of it. This is their single greatest dis-satisfaction driver, both for them and for their clients.
The only solution I've seen work is for them to get help to share the load. I've done them favors in the past, covering overnights whehn their wives were delivering, for instance, or to give them a day or two off. But this is the road you choose when you go out 'on your own'.
Now, the ones who don't deliver 'mission-critical' services, they set expectations and get time off. Unless they suck, in which case they work forever 'cause they can't get it done any other way. Most of them came to work for me at some point. And left.
The upside for the 'on your own' type? If they are any good, they can make good money, at the expense of no life.
Not a roll of the dice. More like picking the card.
And I feel your pain. I was in 24/7/365 support for 4+ years, and the client was without humor or patience, no matter if the problem was their error or not. Finally they decided to take their IT department in-house. It was music to my ears to hear of the full-timers who whined they got no time off. Turns out I didn't suck after all.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Problem solved.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Depends on the field. My anesthesia group pays for call in our quarterly bonuses, so the older guys don't take as much (or any) while the younger guys take the call to pull in extra money.
Judging by your stated amount of money, I'm guessing you're an internist or a general surgeon? I remember those floor calls from internship...
I think it really depends on how essential the service is. If you're part of an essential service, you're damn right you should get paid for carrying a pager. Other jobs, well, I really don't know. I think you'd have to take it on a case-by-case basis.
In Canada, part-time paramedics who carry pagers make $2/hour unless they get a call (in which case they get a "call rate"). Personally I think this is pretty ridiculous considering you have to be within a certain distance of the station, and ready to go with only a moment's notice. I personally think that anyone who is "on-call" for an essential service should be paid better than this for being restricted in how far away from the station they can go.
This trend is even more disturbing when you realize that nearly 40% of all Canadian paramedics are part time, and that this number is growing. The government is using part time paramedics as a means to slash wages for the full time ones by way of reducing their working hours and shifts. Additionally, because they are an essential service, they are not allowed to walk off the job and strike. The only form of protest they can implement is by putting signs on their ambulances, and picketing in their off hours. which of course amounts to nothing getting done.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
"This attitude always confused me - just because I'm salaried doesn't mean my employer gets carte blanche with my life" - what attitude? The attitude that if you don't think your company's demands are reasonable you can quit?
Who says they get 'carte blanche' to manage your life? You make choices, live with your decisions or make changes. It's that simple.
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My last job had a cellphone rotation system where everyone took turns taking home one of the two emergency cellphones and keeping it for two weeks. The period of rotation varied with the size of the staff, which grew (and occasionally shrank) over time. We'd get paid $50 per resolved issue. Those weeks would be challenging because we'd have to stay within arms reach of a computer, but most of the calls that came in were only ten minutes long. Clients didn't see the expense because they subscribed to a general 24x7 support package. Dumb calls were mitigated by stating that after-hours calls were valid for emergencies only. I'd still live a normal life, doing things like going to the store and going on dates and such, and any calls that came while I couldn't touch a computer, I'd tell the client that I'd call back in fifteen minutes. Okay, all that said... it sucked to have to drag the extra phone around for two weeks, but it was worth it to get that extra check at the end of the session. We'd pretty much be guaranteed at least a couple of after-hours calls each week. A typical two-week session would yield about $400. Now what does this mean for you? Take some time to think about what's going to make your life liveable when on-call. Do that with a mix of applying conditions to emergency calls, charging back per incident, and reminding your clients that you are a human with a life and may have to call back after you get out of the pooper. Clients are people and will understand that you are a person too and are deserving of a life of your own. Also, applying conditions (e.g., charge per incident) will deter excessive calls.
Actually, most lawyers, if they knew it was urgent, would happily take the call, and bill them at their usual hourly rate.
I'm the manager of a Network Operations Center and my guys work 24x7x365 rotating shifts. They are entitled to the following: Afternoon shift premium Evening shift premium $100 per week to carry the pager (two week cycles) -- In the event that you miss a page you forfeit your two weeks on call bonus ($200). This goes to the guy who had to take your call. I have a back-up on call who doesn't carry the pager who is available via personal cell / home phone to pick up slack if needed. On top of the bonus you also receive your hourly rate with a minimum guarantee of 1 hours pay. I try to be fair with on call duties. If you can't carry the pager it's your responsibility to find someone else on the team to help you out, or risk the chance of loosing your pay and if it's a repeat offended being written up. I find most of my guys don't have any issue carrying the pager because I cycle though 8 guys so your only on call two weeks every other month. If you treat your team well they will bend over backwards for you when you need them most. If you don't pay them, then don't cry when they aren't there to pick up the page and it you yourself who has to bend over backwards. It's common sense! Family, and free time is more important to me. So I pay my team. Of course should the on call need me I'm always available, but I'm a manager and that's my job. I do not get paid to be on call, however I do get to take time off in lieu (assuming it's okay for me to take the day off - work is slow, etc...) or choose to pay out my OT on my next pay.
If they insist on using that firefighter analogy, then you should bring a large fire axe with you whenever they call you in. They insisted that you need to bring it in order to get paid, didn't they?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
If you read TFA, you will see that while he was promised that the job would be exactly the same as before, he was voicing that the amount of on-call work he was expected to do was not pleasant. This sort of indicates to me that what was expected of him did not stay exactly the same. Here is the source of his frustration. By all accounts, it appears the promises made to him by management were not accurate, and, being naive and wanting continued employment, he agreed to it without getting it in writing. Last time something like that came up with me, I walked out and had a better job lined up within a month. I would recommend he do the same.
Support the EFF and Creative Commons. The war is coming, and they're supporting you...
This question seems to be a FAQ and SlashDot. Here is an approximation of what I posted last time. It is/was the actual policy at a Fortune 500 technology company during a time when I was the PHB that had to pay for the 24x7 coverage on a particular server.
For your 40 hrs/week, you get your regular pay. For your time "on the pager", you get 25% of your regular hourly, until such time as it goes off. From the time the pager goes off, until you clear the trouble ticket, you get 100% plus any applicable shift/holiday/overtime premium.
If you can dial in remotely and fix the problem, great for everyone. If not, you must be able to get from wherever you are to the server room in 30 minutes. 100% of the time you are on the pager, you must be in condition to work, ie: sober.
So... does that sound like getting paid 25% for doing nothing? Not to me. You can't get more than a 30 minute drive from the plant -- so no ski trips for you that weekend. Going to a party? Better have cranberry juice. You are getting paid for making yourself available.
My company had a policy that the cost of 24x7 coverage came out of the budget of the PHB demanding it. A very good policy, IMHO. Its too easy to ask for it otherwise, without considering the consequences, both in terms of dollar cost, and in terms of quality of life for the employees that provide the coverage.
Why should I be disregarded because I'm the CTO of a small software company?
Because you're the CTO and that's different from being a developer. C level positions tend to have more responsibility and also more pay
Why do you say they apparnetly want to add a new obligation 'for free'? It simply sounds like the contractor agreed to a contract and didn't realize his/her commitments or else is unhappy about that decision now.
It actually sounds (from the other comments with unverified sources) like the employer converted an employee to contractor without a written contract and continued to treat them like an employee. I'm sure you know how that would be a very bad thing.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
"Most of the time, a fire fighter is off-duty but on call, hanging around the firehouse, cooking, sleeping, or whatever" Bunk. When I was with the fire service when at the fire hall we were not 'on call'. The guys who were at home with a pager - and who only came in if the resources on duty were stressed, were on call and they were paid a percentage of their wage for those hours and had some restrictions placed on their time (i.e, they were not allowed to drink or to travel outside the city). Our service had two 12 hour shifts, one for day, one for night. The 'on call' shift was the day shift at night; and the night shift at day. There were four shifts in total. So, work a week - a duty shift and an on call shift, then get a week off. Welcome to the world of the white collar proletariat. On call without compensation 24/7 - get *&^&*Y*(&^!
"This attitude always confused me - just because I'm salaried doesn't mean my employer gets carte blanche with my life" - what attitude? The attitude that if you don't think your company's demands are reasonable you can quit?
Who says they get 'carte blanche' to manage your life? You make choices, live with your decisions or make changes. It's that simple.
Apologies - I meant the attitude of *employers*, not employees. My work once told me that "a reasonable amount of overtime" was expected as part of my salaried job. (This was after being hired, of course). I asked what was considered reasonable. The answer was "well, you and your one-up will have to discuss that".
Suffice to say, I don't consider any amount of working for free to be "reasonable". They still try and reach me after hours. Calls are returned when I get to them, based on (a) how urgent they are in my opinion, and (b) how much uglier they will be to solve on Monday vs. dealing with it on off time. When questioned on it, I simply say I was busy with my family and away from the phone.
That's great. I'm not saying that unions haven't done good things for the labor force in the US. They have. Muchas gracias.
HOWEVER, a great deal of the protections that organized labor used to provide are now provided BY LAW. This makes the labor unions somewhat superfluous.
Also, in many unions, cronyism is rampant. As has been mentioned elsewhere. You fall afoul of the crony brigade, with something as simple as someone not liking you, and you are FUCKED.
My grandfather was a nice, amiable guy. Good union man. Had a couple small black marks during a time he was struggling with alcohol. But the union stood by him. By the time the unions had major strikes, all his kids were out of the house and the house was paid off, so he didn't really lose anything when the union went on strike. So he voted to strike.
My father, also a nice, amiable guy. A good union man. No black marks on his record, ever. Had nothing BUT problems because during two strike votes, he voted not to strike. Why? He had three young kids and a wife who was currently out of work and monthly house payments. He couldn't AFFORD the strikes. Well, one of the guys (single and childless) who later became a union supervisor didn't take kindly to that. Every time this guy was put in charge of an area my father worked in, less than a month later my father was laid off, being told there was no work. Never mind that there is enough work in our metro area, PAID FOR AND PENDING, to keep literally every man in the local hall employed for several years.
The last time, he was replaced a week later buy the guy's nephew who was brand new to the union. And the union heads wouldn't do a damn thing about it. This essentially forced him into retirement five years early. Yet again, he and my mother just BARELY managed to squeak by financially.
Oh, did I mention both my father and my grandfather belong to the same union?
You think I'm going to pay "dues" to a group of self-appointed middlemen who sit back and do nothing positive for me while they smile at me and screw me over because one of them just "doesn't like" me? Regardless of my skill? Regardless of a spotless work record and work ethic?
FUCK THAT NOISE!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I was union. at that time, we were a pool of on call individuals and we were paid handsomely IF we took the call. There was a list based on who had the most overtime. That system worked well. the people who wanted the overtime got it. I am now exempt. there is a pool of 25 of us. We each take a week in turn being on call carrying a call out cell phone and pager with no extra pay but at least you know not to plan an out of town trip for that week. The payoff? I get six figures for my 40 hour work week + 1 week of on call a year. I am very happy with that and I knew that going in. If you don't know that going in, that is a problem... yours if you want to keep your job.
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
You mean they still have Pagers in the USA wow you will be teling me next that att&t has TO's doing bank cleaning next :-)
That's exactly what I would recommend if he's in the position to do so. He is unhappy with his decisions, he needs to either renegotiate or move on.
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Resident physicians are FLSA exempt not because of their salary, but because they're a "learned profession." So we get $40K to work up to 80 hours a week and take call up to every 3rd night, during which you are expected to go without sleep for up to 30 hours, for which there is no additional compensation. Sucks. And many of the calls are probably the IT equivalent of "I forgot my password." Things like "this medication that the patient isn't asking for because it's 3AM and they're asleep, it's about to expire, do you want to renew it?"
Afterwards, however, there are models where you get paid for call. We have a backup call system in our ER where a physician is a paid a set amount to carry the pager, then gets paid by the hour if they get called in. And I know another guy who gets paid a set amount to carry a pager for an inpatient psych unit here, then he gets paid per admission he sees the next day. As for me, I hate being on call, even if it's home/pager call, so I gravitate towards shift work.
It is illegal to, without the permission of the employee, convert a full time worker to a contract worker (for several reasons.)
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Well, if you and I are going to wait until employer's attitudes become 'reasonable', we should start auditioning for 'Waiting for Godot' ;). I would settle for employer's in technology companies not considering the production/management/deployment/support of software as the equivalent of making lipstick. Just something you can box, ship, manufacture without understanding...
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Worked as a software dev for a large banking firm in Canada. We were paid four hours a week just to hold the pager, and then time and a half for any calls we received, with 30 min automatically charged as soon as the pager rang. We couldn't travel out of the city when we had the pager, and had to limit drinking to meals.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
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.'"
Fire fighters may not be paid over time, but they are given their own fire hall to use. In that they usually have a lot of entertainment like tv's with cable and DVD's to watch. Usually there is a ping pong table or maybe even a pool table or other gaming platforms. They get beds to sleep in and a whole kitchen to use to cook what ever they want. Now you want your IT guy to be on call 24/7, what exactly have you given him to be happy? What perks do they enjoy for their services? How many techs are thinking about the vending machine and microwave they have been living on that are wondering if they should have been fire fighters instead?
I am in an on call rota. For that I get an additional 9.5% added to my salary. During my weeks, I carry a bleep 24/7. If I get called and can solve it over the phone in under 15 minutes all done. If it takes longer or I cannot solve it remotely I go in and am paid time + 1/3, time and 1/2 for unsociable hours or double time for public holidays.
Working in the public sector is not as highly paid as private industry but I am one of those strange people who feels that job satisfaction is worth a little money.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
moreover, it is illegal to treat an IC like a regular employee and you can get all sorts of lovely fines from the IRS if you do so.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Yes you should be paid. Or otherwise compensated.
Get up!
First of all, there is no such thing as a "permanent" job anymore. If you think a salary gives you some kind of security, you're nuts. When the pager goes off or the phone rings, the meter is running. Minimum 15 minutes, 15 minute increments. And for God's sake have someone doing 1st level support. "That's not a database error, it's a network problem. Call this number..."
As a consultant, I was paid quite a lot for being available for an on-call basis; several thousand a month.
I also didn't have to do much when things happened. I would join a call, establish that it was not my problem, and then drop off.
If you're deeply concerned for your jobs, get better at your jobs and leave your bad gigs. Retention and performance problems should correct this problem of thinking that management assholes can get people to work for free. They would never work for without compensation. Why should people who are smarter than them?
I run a software company. In the past, we'd have called employees if we needed them at night, but VERY rarely did that happen. We have a new(-ish) customer that requires far more frequent support (i.e. I've worked every day for the last eight months). This quickly became too much to ask of our employees. They were getting calls from SOMEONE three and four nights a week, or close. *I* was getting calls 24/7, and I'm not joking even a little bit. Granted, overtime work - when they got calls - was time and a half, but it's stressful to be on call. I started to feel like a dick, and so we figured out a way to fix it.
Anyway, we now require our new customer to pay us a per diem for each day for support. We then pass that per diem on to the employees. We pay them twice the per diem on the weekends. They still get time and a half if they do work.
Before, I was on support more often than not, because the employees simply didn't want to be. Once we instituted the per diem, the employees began clamoring for the chance to be on support. My nightly workload has been reduced greatly (yay for mere 14 hour days!)
Anyway, moral of the story:
- Absolutely, any boss should agree that it's desirable to pay support personnel for on-call time. For any bosses that disagree: you're a dick, and you apparently aren't aware. Go ask someone "am I a dick?" Preferably not an employee. If one asked you to read this, PLEASE not that guy.
- Alright, so we agree that support personnel should ideally be paid. That doesn't change the fact that *sometimes* struggling companies have a really, really, really hard time doing so without the company going under (the tough part about being the boss is COMPLETELY IGNORED BY EVERYONE, btw). Don't demonize companies is this position, but if your boss is reasonable and in this position, approach him about it. Ask him to read this post, or try to meaningfully convey the stress involved in being on call to him and that you feel it deserves compensation (it does).
- The easiest way for your boss to pull this off, in my experience, is to pass it through entirely to the customer(s). This portion of the company's income should be ~profit neutral. Do not expect a similar margin to normal work, bosses: you get paid on the overtime, and your employees stay around because you treat them awesomely, right?
Now the last part, from the boss's side:
- You will pay this per diem every day for support. You will fight tooth and nail to negotiate it for them.
- Your employees will gladly take it.
- One day, after you've paid an employee a SHIT TON of money, he'll get an early morning support call and act like a complete dick to you. This sucks.
- When it happens, it hardens your heart a little bit towards fighting tooth and nail for the next thing.
You know that sucks, right? When you're a dick to your boss after he's foregone multiple paychecks historically to make payroll. Right? When he's still crawling his ass out of debt from building the company that pays you a per diem?
Rambling...but the truth must be told! :)
-knewter
First off ... he is an independent contractor. If he doesn't like being on call for his clients, he needs to negotiate his rates accordingly.
.. fix it and learn how to build sites that don't crash. If it's because you are installing on the weekends, I guess that means you don't have to work on Monday, do you.
If he can't change his rates because someone else is willing to do it, then tough. That's what the world of contracting is all about. Sorry your company laid you off and then re-hired you this way. Get off your ass and get another job, and deal with it until you can. If you can't get another job, maybe you just aren't that good. Deal with that also, it means you have to take the shit jobs to earn a living.
And why is a webmaster being called at all hours of the day and night?? Is it because the site keeps going down?? Then it's your own fucking fault
Get some cajones and learn to stand up and take responsibility for your own life. You let people take advantage of you, this happens.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
Yeah until you go to take the rest of a Friday off and then get called in because something critical popped up.
We run a small IT services firm. Small enough that "management" does a fair portion of the work. What we came up with is that every employee can choose whether or not they want to be on-call (with absolutely no pressure to be in our out of the schedule). We then scheduled the people to be on call without pay. If a call happened to come in during off hours, we would charge double our normal rates for the service, and the technician performing the labor would keep half. If you want to have the chance of making extra money, they you get participate. If your life is too busy to be on call: opt out. So far so good, but then we don't get a lot of calls during holidays.
I get the on call service once every 6 - 7 weeks or so and hold it for a week. We don't get paid anything for being oncall, but we do get OT for after hours and Saturdays. On Sundays and holidays we get DT. During the week the service may call once, but it's rarely more than twice.
And as an American in IT working at a unionized plant (I'm not in the union, but I write programs to do scheduling and such based on their ridiculously complicated seniority rules), let me give the other side of the story.
Yeah, this really happens several different ways. First and most obviously, they surpress the wages of the competent. There are people at our plant who are awesome workers who deserve more pay, and lazy people who should be fired and paid nothing at all. But firing is almost impossible, and the union insists everyone gets paid on the same scale. So the people who are as lazy as a pet coon make more than they are worth, and the competent people subsidize this by being paid less. Also, the minute workers unionize, management has to start playing heavy defense and trying as hard as they can to not give raises. Why? Because if they give raises and then have a bad year as a company (such as Chrysler and GM), the union won't take a pay cut, and they may go bankrupt. Every company who has watched the UAW over the years intuitively understands this, so they work hard at not giving an inch even in good times... thus depressing wages. My unionized plant is actually paid less than our non-unionized plants, so it really can happen that way.
Happens constantly. My father in law (a union member) quit his job as a union steward because he was sick of defending people who were in the wrong. At my plant it's the same way. Most grievances are filed by inept workers with a sense of entitlement. Likewise, most of the times management tries to fire inept workers, they can't, because the union defends them tooth and nail. We busted one guy repeatedly for spending hours looking at porn at work, and he kept getting defended. The only way we got him out was by essentially plea-bargaining him: you agree to resign, and we won't make public what you did, so your family won't find out. Otherwise, we couldn't have gotten rid of him, because the contract says you can only be fired if you commit the same offense twice in a six month period, and he was doing it outside the six month window (or at least that's how often we were catching him).
Happens all the time during bargaining, although to be fair both sides are petty. In my plant, both the union and the management hated a certain seniority rule, but neither wanted to negotiate or change it because "once it's gone we might not be able to get the rule back if we ever want it in the future." So you keep it (and fight over it) even though both sides agree it's stupid.
This has never been more true than under the current US administration. The unions are pushing for two new rules. The first is card check, which allows unions to organize based on a check of who is carrying cards, rather than having a formal vote in which both union and management make their case, and then the members vote. In fact, you don't even have to have a majority to unionize under this! And look at the "employee free choice act" rule change: it takes away the right to a secret ballot and makes people vote publicly for and against the union. That way everyone knows who didn't vote for the union, and coercion can take place. Both of these rules are strong arm tactics that do not benefit employees, and taking away a secret ballot or organizing without a vote or even a majority are all totally un-American.
Every union I know of takes dues from its members and spends them to fund the Democratic party. Big Labor is pretty much a wholly owned subsidiary of the Democratic party, and everyone knows it. My father in law sees his dues spent to elect Democrats every year, even though he votes Republican. But that's how unions operate... just like some companies (cough GE cough) try to get in bed with government and carve out monopolies and policies in their favor, Big Labor does the same. They are all about increasing their size, financial and power bases.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
minute.
What you'll see is a lot of people telling you what they 'USED TO DO' when they 'USED TO BE ON CALL'.
I.E. You're going to hear a bunch of unemployed slashdotters telling you about how you are being treated bad and how you need to tell the guy to fuck off and he's wrong.
There may just be a reason they are unemployed.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
My first on call job I had programming call centers for a major company. My basic job was manning the hotline during the weekday from 6am-3pm, doing tickets, and whatnot. The rest was being on call which was shared for a week between 5 people. Every week, there was one primary, and one alternate. The primary from the following week was the alternate for the next week, and so on. It came out that you were only on call 2 out of 5 weeks, and that was fine.
Until the politics came into play.
After about a year, one person "graduated" to a new position where he wouldn't have to be on call. Another person left the company, and was never really replaced. So now I was on call 2/3 weeks. In theory. The other two people were very lazy. One of them was some Orthodox religious person who seemed to have major holidays and festivals about twice a month where she could not be on call and she'd "trade weeks" with one of us, but never really did more than say she'd take "next week, for sure." The other was a kind of a nightclub-hopping single "ladies man" who dressed sharp and partied hard. Even when he was on call, he couldn't hear the pager or would take hours to reply.
My boss just rolled over, because she was afraid they'd pull some EOE stint, and she was sort of passing the time until she left on maternity leave. So I was unofficially "on call" 24x7 for about half a year. I got paged about 2-3 times a night, on average, with jobs that went from a 5-10 minute fix to some that lasted many hours. I got no extra pay, and when review time came around, I got a 3% raise. I was making about a third of the wages of someone else in my position, so she pulled the "well, you're not perfect enough for industry standard" card. My response was to quit.
For up to a year afterward, I still got a few calls a month from the former clients, vendors, and business partners. Most knew I didn't work there anymore, but, "Pleeeeeaaaaase, can you fix this? No one is answering the pages!" No.
In other jobs, I was compensated with unofficial "comp time," and sometimes a cash bonus as a kind of "thanks for covering our ass." Comp time works like, "You worked all night fixing that?" Pfft, don't come in tomorrow, or "I am adding an extra vacation day you can use in any way you see fit later."
I think this attorney is speaking out of his ass. When a firefighter is at the station, they are on duty. It doesn't matter if they are sleeping, cooking, or watching tv, they are on duty and being paid for every minute of their time. When they can go home and do whatever they want with whomever, then they are off. It's that simple.
I know that in Los Angeles where I live, firefighters can make huge portions of their wages in overtime because it's still cheaper than the department hiring additional employees.
I think it would be only fair that an IT person get paid for being on call beyond their regular work hours. Especially if they are willing to make themselves available all 168 hours of the week. To me, that takes true commitment to the job and the spirit of real trooper. I can only imagine how taxing that might be on a person to get called any time during the day for a problem they may or may not be prepared for.
Last year I had picked up a similar job to help fund my way through college. While my on call hours were only the same as the business, since it was only regular business hours (9-5), it was still a bit hectic.
I thought it was fair I only got paid for the work I did, plus I got compensated for driving time. It would have been nice to receive pay for the 8 hours I was on call, considering there were a few occasions where I had to leave class early for a technical emergency, but all in all, I still attained some good experience and knowledge.
My blood hurts...
I have a very talented team of guys working for me. At this time, I pull a call rotation just like they do. Our employer pays us about 100 bucks a week when we're on call, to be available. It really mostly means just weekends, as we have 24x5 coverage. I've worked a lot of jobs where on-call wasn't paid, and, every time, being paged was mightily annoying. At least now it pays a bit. Being able to tell a prospective hire who I want to come work for me that on-call actually pays 100 bux a week, has helped me to land at least 2 of the last 4 people I've hired. It's not a big expense for the employer, and your talent that you want to hire will see you as better than the other potential employers if you pay for on-call. The market for Unix admins especially, is getting much better in the last 6 months (for job seekers). If you don't offer your potential hires some sort of differentiating factor, you risk losing them to those of us who understand that talent warrants respect, which is best shown to techies in the form of payment. Translation for managers: Trust your techie team leads; pay your techies for the extra work they do. If you respect them, they'll work harder for you. If you pull the "your job is to be here 9 to 5, on-call hours don't change that" crap, then I will be happy to hire them away from you as someone who DOES respect the techies.
First, some context. I work in a large dept. with ~500 IT (in the main IT group.. there are other small fringe IT groups as well) that writes Applications (COBOL / Java) for Mainframe and Midrange. Some of our systems are true 24/7, most are 23/7.
I work in 'environment operations', of which to clarify means that the actual "operations" for mainframe and midrange is supplied as a Service. So, I'm not a mainframe console operator, nor do I administrate midrange servers. I'm on the other side - support for Applications. Change management. Release management. Environment management. Production support. Performance management. Test support.
Several of our duties require for specialists to be onside or oncall outside of business hours. Where this is required, work provides a mobile phone (it pays for the phone and calls) and pays a 'restriction' which is a percentage paid per hour based on your current salary. For most people it means about $100 for an average week (7 days) of carrying the phone around. This is paid regardless if you answer the phone or not, and is directly based on the number of hours and time of day the phone is carried.
You don't get paid restriction, and can't be called, when you are Sick (or the night after being registered as On Personal Leave) or if you are on Rec Leave (holidays).
There are two types of payments associated with being oncall. The first is 'phone calls'. The second is 'onsite'. If I am called then I am paid at my rate, or at a bonus of my rate (1.5 or 2.0 x my hourly salary rate [Go Sundays!!! 2x hourly rate, yeah!]) depending on what time of day and what day the phone call is taken. The minimum time to be paid is 1 hour. If I am called any time during that hour, and the call lasts for less than 1 hour from the time the first call started.. it is still 1 hour. Any time over 1 hr is paid to the nearest 15 minutes.
The second payment type is 'onsite'. If they call me at 3am and it's a problem I can't solve over the phone then I have to come in. Normally, it's a mainframe related problem which requires direct mainframe access. So, they pay for the phone call at 3am, and they pay for me to walk into work at 3:30am. The minimum payment period is 3 hours. It is paid at normal rates for the first hour, and time and a half (1.5 x) for the 2nd and 3rd hours. Except on Sunday when it is always double time (2x hourly rate).
So, how it normally works out is that the oncall phone is called, on average, 3 times per weekend. That normally costs the business 3 hours of salary, plus the restriction for carrying the phone from End-of-Business each working day to Start-of-Business the next working day, and from Friday COB to Monday SOB. On average, we need to come in once per month. This costs the business 3 hours at time x 1.5 or doubletime. Sometimes, longer as some people can take 4 or 5 hours to solve.
Restriction is paid by drawing up a daily list of time spent carrying the phone (there is a template for this), and lists all phone calls received / sent (and time taken for each call), and all onsite visits. Every phone call and onsite specifies who called, what they called about, what the problem was, what was done to fix it, and what will be done (if possible) to prevent it from occurring in the future. This 'timesheet' for 'oncall restriction allowance' is signed by the Manager and sent to HR. HR verifies the claim and checks the claim against HR records - personal leave, public holidays, other claims, etc. The claim is put into the finance system and paid.
They reached a point here, a while back, when they declared that there shall be 'no restriction' and 'no oncall' and that this duty was 'part of the job'. That fell to pieces very quickly when most people undertaking oncall (several teams used to have to have oncall) put down the phones, and in some cases put in to have the oncall phones disconnected.
You know what happened next. That's right. Systems failed, and had to wait until the next Business Day to fix via Production Support. Problem
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I don't know about other people but I don't experience many times that are slow. I'm busy the entire 40+ hours a week I work plus I'm on call 24/7 even for things that aren't my job. Over the holiday weekend a proprietary server was having issues and although we pay tens of thousands of dollars a year for support they weren't available so somehow it was my job to try to get things working. The only reason I haven't pushed for on call pay is because they are nice enough to let me have a flexible schedule.
I think they should at least pay for a cellphone for me though if I'm going to be on call.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
While full time and salaried I was the only IT personnel on staff and was effectively on call 24 / 7. Fortunately the staff of ~65 only needed me on a rare occasion, which I took non-monetary compensation in the form of vacation hours equal to the time I spent fixing problems during non office hours. It worked for us in that situation.
At my current job I've somehow regressed to hourly full time and do on call in shifts. Here I record the time I spend working while on call after business hours and include it on my time sheet. I either let it be overtime (x1.5) or just leave early on Friday. This works for my current employer.
During a very short lived contract position my employer arranged service contracts with his clients and I got a share of the contracts for the clients I was "on call" for.I guess you could call it a retainer fee.
It's very situation dependent.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
The firefighter analogy is pretty bad. An off-duty firefighter is able to leave or drink or otherwise be unavailable for duty. An on-duty firefighter must be ready to roll and not get more than a minute or so from his truck. There are few places in the US at least where one would be paid to be "on-call" while "off duty."
So, if the expectation is that the person's life should be structured around being available, meaning he cannot go to a movie or out with friends while "on-call", that's pretty much "on-duty." If being on call means that, in the unlikely event that something comes up, he's the guy that gets the voice-mail and has to respond in an hour or so, that's pretty much "off-duty."
I do this kind of work for a living, as a consultant who provides support for the work I've done.
In one case, a client of mine relies pretty heavily on my work and has for many years. She knows that if she calls with an urgent problem, I'll do everything I reasonably can to get back to her as quickly as possible -- day or night. In return, she knows not to raise the panic flag on little stuff during off hours. That's good enough in most cases.
We've talked about going to an SLA with, for example, a 4 hour response time on critical issues. My answer to that, is that when we move from "best reasonable effort" to a contracted response time -- even though I am nearly always inside that window already -- the cost goes from being covered by our regular work to several thousand dollars a month. Once it's a contracted promise like that, I have to keep backup people trained on the systems in case I'm on a long flight or get sick (or whatever) and I have to wear a pager, and get no time off without paying someone to cover for me.
There are ABSOLUTELY times when it makes sense to pay for that kind of coverage. I could even argue that this system is important enough that she should do it, but I also have to be clear that for 99% of the time -- and has always been the case for the last ehemteen years -- it will be money that doesn't buy any new results.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
I take issue with the comparison between a Webmaster and a Firefighter. A firefighter gets paid for hanging around, mostly, then being put in harms way when there's a fire. A webmaster has a 40 hour full work week. If you hire a webmaster who's only job is to wait provide emergency on call help, then it would be a different story. If it's an occasional call, of course, then, I wouldn't make a big deal about it.
How much does a geek doing the same stuff as you earns?
Once you know that then you can asses if what you are given is fair or not.
At some point on my career I was earning double what others in the same field, I was on call (on a rota of 2 or 3 depending on circumstances, you would be stupid to accept 24x7x365) and received no compensation, but clearly the salary and the exact limited situations in which I could be called out seemed fair to me (I was simply not contactable when it was not my turn to be oncall: both pager and mobile was off, my answering machine at home on to ensure I could vet callers first before answering).
In other situations when the salary was not that good, I made absolutely certain that I got compensated in one way or another for being oncall. It could be money, time or both. The important thing is that it should be clear to both parties how compensation is handled.
If you are working without being compensated it is down to your own stupidity. Sorry, but there is no nice way to put it.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
One of the legal support companies I worked for in the late 90s was notorious for the "Can you do this on your way home?" kind of jobs that would involve me having to race to the courthouse at the last minute or do a stakeout when I should have been at home or at the bar.
The straw that broke the camel's back was being dispatched a filing at 5:30 pm that had to be in a dropbox at the US District Court across town by 6:00 that had been booked at 2:30 and had been sitting on a counter in the mail room at the law firm since 4 pm. When I came in the next day and informed them that I wasn't going to cover the dispatcher's ass anymore, I was told that my job was contingent upon doing whatever I was told. I responded that since I was on salary, expecting me to do drop dead work after hours for no compensation was off the table and that any lack of planning or competence on their part did not constitute an emergency or cause for charity on my part.
.
After about fifteen minutes of going back and forth and getting nowhere I handed them my pager and my paperwork and told them that if I was getting such a great deal, they would have no problem finding a qualified replacement on short notice.
In short, I should have negotiated a better deal when I was hired and gotten it in writing but I was offered what seemed like a good salary...for a 9 to 5 position. Pig in a poke, I guess.
Under my contract, my employer has to pay me for on call but what they do is have me on call for just 1 hour. If I need to come in, I'm expected to stay till the problem is fixed. It's especially annoying over Christmas because I'm stuck in the local area and can't visit family yet get paid virtually nothing.
Oracle was successfully sued for designing their SE positions to exploit their salary designation. I'm not clear on what specific actions Oracle engaged in that led to them losing that fight, but I do know that a number of SEs received considerable compensation out of the suit. Oracle was also required to either change the designation for the position to hourly, or redesign it so it met a more reasonable hours/pr week standard.
Now I have to admit up-front that I am presently working for a company with very generous on-call benefits, and appreciate them a great deal.
However, it's very simple for me: If I'm not getting paid to carry a pager, I'm not carrying a pager. I see that some people aren't even getting paid to do work after hours, which means that fixing other people's computers is apparently your hobby. Hope you're enjoying it. I'd rather play with my son.
If a company needs you, they need to pay you. If they need you to be available for emergencies, then they need to pay to tie you down. If they want your number but accept that you may or may not answer it, then you're probably not providing a pay-worthy service after hours.
When I carry the pager, I'm required to stay sober, available, and local. I can't go out of town, I can't go to an event where pagers have to be turned off, and similar things. This is something I'm willing to do part-time for compensation. I won't do it 24/7/365, and I won't do it for free. Anyone who does is selling themselves short.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
A lot of IT support positions require on-call duties. I've been there, done that myself. However, if one is expected to be responsive during off-hours then two things need to be considered. One is that there should be some compensation for being available at all hours. Not at full salary/pay levels, but some financial incentive for those willing to be inconvenienced at the worst possible moments. Second, when the phone rings, whether a site visit is required or not, the overtime pay clock should start and not end until the call is complete, including travel time to/from the site if necessary. After all, if your support is a 3rd party person/organization, then they would properly insist on a retainer fee up front to cover the on-call clock for the period of the contract, and work clock time gets billed separately. Why should an employee who is expected to put in a regular shift on-site be treated any differently?
Sometimes, real fast is almost as good as real-time.
What was in the employment agreement you signed? If you already signed an employment agreement that says they can demand you to be on-call for nothing then its your own stupid fault.
An employment contract should be an agreement between equals. Think of yourself as being a supplier of services to your company, not a subservient slave. In return for your time you get money. More time = more money. No successful business in the world does anything for free, so why should you?
If you are asked to do anything at all beyond your existing employment contract (i.e. in your own time), then you should first have the option to say yes or no witnout predjudice, and then be appropriately compensated for the extra effort ON YOUR TERMS not theirs.
A lot of tech companies are used to forcing employees into doing extra work in their own time at short notice and for no extra pay, and a lot of employees cave in. Those people are sending the message to companies that its OK to keep screwing us. Immediately the cavers stop being the companies bitch and grow some balls, the companies will treat us all with more repsect.
Leave any job with unpaid overtime.
Fail at unpaid overtime.
This is one of the reasons I left IT as a developer.
We were expected to work holidays and weekends while the rest of the business was not.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I do feel lucky that my current technical position is hourly. I work Monday - Friday 40 hours a week and I'm on call around one week a month. During the week I am on call I get paid an extra dollar an hour during the regular 40 hour week and on-call pay for any time spent working after hours. We get a minimum of two hours of on call time for every call we take (even if it takes 15 minutes). I am expected to be within 30 minutes of the office during my on call week as well. I get an average of 5 calls per an on call week. I tell people that when I hear the pager go off it makes an annoying beeping sound but when my wife hears it go off it sounds more like, "cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching."
My Xbox Live Gamer Card
Please review US federal labour law. It is NOT legal to turn an employee position into an "independent contractor" position. Being an independent contractor means that you work with your own equipment and facilities, at your own schedule, completing the task(s) as you deem appropriate, without substantive instruction from the contracting business. Anything else is a regular old employment relationship.
Unions are dumb, okay? There is no reason for it in the IT world, none what so ever.
Pay people for their time. If they are doing work 40 hours a week, then are on call, and a call comes in, pay them for that call even if it is overtime. Simple, easy, and sets a standard that doesn't suck.
Mike Horwath
There is NO justification for uncompensated -- i.e. free -- labor. Especially when one is working for a for-profit enterprise.
I support outlawing all non-rate-based employment, including salaried employment. All work should be paid on the basis of a rate: dollars/hour, dollars/project, or some other rate.
A flat 40 hours/week with no OT compensation and no cost to the employer to work the employee longer than that is fucking criminal... and only a communist -- one who believes in the free labor for the benefit of a larger collective (like a corporation?) -- would support it.
Yet, we have quite a few commies running businesses. Funny thing, that...
IT people have for far too long been working too many free hours. And for what? The opportunity to work more? Why? That's the most irrational thing we can do... ...except we do it, quite rationally, out of individual self-interest because we know that the pressure of competition means if we complain about it or leave, some other poor sucker will take our place (the squeaky wheel gets replaced) -- and our next job will simply be a repeat of the previous one, with similar responsibilities.
The only escape is a non-IT job.
Seriously, it's time we stood-up for *sane*, sensible labor regulations in America. You'd think a leftie like Obama would push this, but no...
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
'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.
And if no fires occur, do firefighters not get paid that day? I already know the answer to that.