So, their stance is, "Please pay for our expensive licenses so we won't go out of business." Hmmm...that's what I thought the last time I bought a car, "Gee, I want to look for the most expensive place to buy my car so that poor dealership owner won't go out of business."
If I recall correctly, didn't the thief on the first Superman movie had suction cups the he used to climb up glass? His worked ok, and they were smaller! I wonder if the movie industry patented their idea...they could sue the inventor for untold hundreds.
I'm salaried and "on-call" and I enjoy my situation very much. Here's why:
1. I'm the administrator over the system that I'm on call for. I have quite a bit of latitude over that system including hardware. So, I make the systems as redundant as possible, hardware-wise so to minimize the calls.
2. I've negotiated a salary that I feel compensates me for being on call. They don't have to pay me extra for being on call, they already are for what I earn.
3. I feel this is fair to both me and my employer. Think of it from their perspective, why should they pay you random (from their perspective) amounts of money to fix something that should have never happened if you knew what you were doing? The on-call part is already part of your contract.
4. The other administrators at work cover for each other if there is a vacation or if someone can't be reached. This hasn't failed us yet.
Finally, I really think this should be viewed from the employer as well. You're hired to make the system work. If it doesn't work, who's fault is it? Yours. You could have advocated purchasing redundent hardware. You could have put it in a cluster. Especially with Linux, you could have made it so it doesn't crash. Why should they have to pay you gobs of money for not doing your job right?
Of course, this only works if your employer is willing to go with your recommendations. If they aren't, the responsibility is theirs and they should get shafted with a big bill to keep you on call and to fix things after hours.
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So, their stance is, "Please pay for our expensive licenses so we won't go out of business." Hmmm...that's what I thought the last time I bought a car, "Gee, I want to look for the most expensive place to buy my car so that poor dealership owner won't go out of business."
If I recall correctly, didn't the thief on the first Superman movie had suction cups the he used to climb up glass? His worked ok, and they were smaller! I wonder if the movie industry patented their idea...they could sue the inventor for untold hundreds.
I'm salaried and "on-call" and I enjoy my situation very much. Here's why:
1. I'm the administrator over the system that I'm on call for. I have quite a bit of latitude over that system including hardware. So, I make the systems as redundant as possible, hardware-wise so to minimize the calls.
2. I've negotiated a salary that I feel compensates me for being on call. They don't have to pay me extra for being on call, they already are for what I earn.
3. I feel this is fair to both me and my employer. Think of it from their perspective, why should they pay you random (from their perspective) amounts of money to fix something that should have never happened if you knew what you were doing? The on-call part is already part of your contract.
4. The other administrators at work cover for each other if there is a vacation or if someone can't be reached. This hasn't failed us yet.
Finally, I really think this should be viewed from the employer as well. You're hired to make the system work. If it doesn't work, who's fault is it? Yours. You could have advocated purchasing redundent hardware. You could have put it in a cluster. Especially with Linux, you could have made it so it doesn't crash. Why should they have to pay you gobs of money for not doing your job right?
Of course, this only works if your employer is willing to go with your recommendations. If they aren't, the responsibility is theirs and they should get shafted with a big bill to keep you on call and to fix things after hours.