• Limonene@lemmy.world
    19·
    2 months ago

    Gods, I hated being on call. It was never part of our job description, but one day about a year after we were all hired, we were suddenly “on call” without any training for it.

    No extra pay or benefits. Work a 12 hour day from being on call? Better show up tomorrow, same time.

    What’s are the duties? Never explained. You must have a phone, and snooze the alarm within 1 minute, that’s all we knew. Can you drink? Can you go to the grocery store? Can you be 45 minutes away from an Internet connection? We were never told.

    I got in trouble multiple times for not having reception inside the building. I asked for a company phone, and was denied.

    How do you fix an issue? We had no idea how the IBM cloud infrastructure worked, so just struggle and hammer the snooze. I only ever fixed issues through my existing Linux knowledge, but all my coworkers only had Windows experience. Towards the end of that job, you could fix most calls by typing killall minerd (the cloud was super hacked).

    • CarbonatedPastaSauce@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      2 months ago

      After 3 decades in IT let me share some wisdom.

      What you describe is not ok, and it’s just letting the company walk all over you because it sounds like nobody had the experience to push back. There should be a senior guy somewhere in that team going “yo this is bullshit, we’re not doing this” and making the company define the criteria so you can say yes or no. Otherwise you just don’t comply, and everyone on the team has to be onboard with that. Gotta have boundaries in this career or they will literally own you and all your free time, and if shit hits the fan, they will scapegoat you in a heartbeat.

      They need you more than you need them. Never forget that. There are lots, and lots, and lots of unfilled IT jobs out there.

    • CatZoomies@lemmy.worldEnglish
      12·
      2 months ago

      If that’s in the US, that’s illegal. There are strict laws around on call availability. That company hopefully now has an on call policy, including availability, on-call standby pay, and on-call pay.

      I make my company pay for a work phone and when I’m off the clock, I shut it off and put it in a drawer. I never check on work outside my agreed hours. A younger, naive me would. But an informed older me isn’t a sucker and advocates for work reform while drawing clear boundaries between work and personal.

      Fuck your company for taking advantage of you. Glad you’re out, but hope the others there fought for fixing those policies or else they’ll just have major attrition.

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        2 months ago

        on-call standby pay, and on-call pay.

        I’ve only had one place that gave me any kind of stipend to be on call, everywhere else just expects it as part of the job description with no added benefit.

    • quafeinum@lemmy.world
      1·
      2 months ago

      Oh god. We had to be within one hour of the data center so that we could sit next to the broken hardware that we were not able to fix at 3 am anyway because fuck you.

  • superduperpirate@lemmy.worldEnglish
    14·
    2 months ago

    A big reason why I’m glad that I’m no longer in IT is that I don’t have to be in an on-call rotation any longer.

    If the job offers to pay for your cell phone, it’s because they will expect you to answer at 2am.

  • bitwolf@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    7·
    2 months ago

    Wow this is so me (except I keep my bag between my legs when sitting).

    Everyone knew me for having my “bag full of tricks” and a laptop all the time.

  • hactar42@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 months ago

    A company I worked for had a policy that if your laptop got stolen from your car, you would be required to pay for the replacement. So this was basically me whenever I had to travel for that job.