Ask Slashdot: Best Tools To Aid When "On Call"?

An anonymous reader writes "Since most readers of slashdot are IT'ers, I assume this is a familiar story: when working in IT, it often happens you need to be standby or 'on call' during a certain period. That may mean you can receive phone calls or text messages from a monitoring system in the middle of the night. I've been looking for a way to have those alerts wake me in the middle of the night but not my partner, who is sleeping right next to me. Are there hardware aids out there that can alert a person without troubling their close environment? I'm thinking armwrists, vibrating head pillows, ..."

Comments

Significant Other?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly the Poster is not in IT.

Re:Significant Other?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm in IT and I'm married, but we hate each other and she sleeps in a different room. So there ya go.

Normally I'd recommend a BFH

[ackthpt]

.. to settle down that monitoring system call. But, yeah, the smashing to bits of a phone might wake a light sleeper. So I see your point.

I used to put my phone on vibrate and put it under my pillow.

Re:Normally I'd recommend a BFH

[LoudMusic]

I don't think that would wake me up. Especially if I moved around and the phone fell to the floor under the bed.

My on call shifts don't typically go past 10 PM (we have global staff), so I usually just stay up. But if I do go to bed I leave my phone on 'GET YOUR ASS OUT OF BED' mode. My wife understands the situation, even offers to make sure I get out of bed in the event of an email or call, because she knows the on call work equals extra income, which means a portion (let's be honest, all of it) is hers. If you're not getting some kind of additional compensation for your on call, stop doing it.

I like the wrist band idea. You could also build a Lego Mindstorm contraption to drop soccer balls on your head.

Re:For Android phones

[ackthpt]

Klaxon (http://code.google.com/p/klaxon/) is a must have. It's an on-call app for text message receiving. You can separate out your on-call texts from personal ones and set separate alarms and everything. It's fantastic.

That would be pretty sweet...

Text includes words 'emergency' 'urgent' 'system' 'down' -> (Zzzz)

Text includes words 'down' 'hours' 'hardware' 'failure' -> (Zzzz)

Text includes words 'panic' 'weeping' 'wailing' 'praying' -> (Zzzz)

Text includes words 'payroll' 'not' 'running' -> (WAKEY! WAKEY!)

Wire your toes to the phone line.

[blair1q]

Wire your big toes to either side of the phone line, and disconnect the phone's bell.

That sucker pumps 90 volts AC to ring your handset.

To stop the on-hook 48 VDC from giving you the crawlies, put a small capacitor in series with each lead.

Re:Deaf alarms.

[similar_name]

It's basically a big vibrator you put under your side of the bed.

Like the one on her side?

Re:Hmm..

[Oswald McWeany]

I've noticed that Bond films seem to tell the story of my life pretty realistically.

I can't tell you how many times I've gone to a hotel and found an exoctic women waiting for me.

Usually a housekeeper leaving a mint on the pillow.

Re:For Android phones

[sqldr]

funny you should say that. At one place I worked, they only paid us if we got called out. So we wrote a perl script called "cha-ching.pl" which created a fault then fixed it. We got paid.

Light sleeper

[gnugnugnu]

Wait until you have children. You'll get much better at sleeping.

Re:Light sleeper

[optimism]

Everyone here is making the same mistake. They are generalising

LOL

Re:Stats?

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

I'd add 'digital artists' to the mix.

I think if you look closer you will notice I did include the unemployed. ;)