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Being on Call

tyler.kim

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Re: Being on Call

#91

Post by sdevonoes »

viraptor wrote: post #77
sdevonoes wrote: post #68

I know it's not a popular idea, but here it goes anyway: senior software engineers, please say NO to being on call. It just puts some much pressure on engineers (like me) who don't want to be on call in exchange of more money: managers then think of you as someone who is not very commited to the company, bla bla bla... I'm commited to the company I work at any given time, from 9am to 5pm. That's all the time a compan…

So once both senior and non-senior engineers opt out of on-call, who do you expect to take care of issues that happen out of hours? (In case of companies who deal with 24h traffic and transactions)

Dedicated people hired as such.

Re: Being on Call

#92

Post by secondcoming »

gambiting wrote: post #40
antihero wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what hellish sort of company is 9AM "late"?

I sometimes wonder where the hell most HNers work where 9am is not considered late start. At a warehouse I worked at the shift was 6am to 2pm. And it was great that way as you avoided most of the summer heat. The software company where I work now, 8am is standard, that way you're nicely done at 4pm and have the entire evening to yourself. My wife is also a programmer and usually starts at 7:30am because that's their…

I start at 10am but used eat lunch at my desk. It was mainly to avoid the London tube rush hour in the mornings.

Re: Being on Call

#93

Post by datavirtue »

DocG wrote: post #39
8fingerlouie wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mandatory hours for most employees is "9am to 3pm". Opening hours for our customers is 10am to 4pm. Everybody is employed at 36 hours /week. Most people get in between 7am and 8am, and leave between 3pm and 4pm.

We have the same policy. Mandatory hours so there is common time where everyone is at work, but if you do your other hours after or before mandatory hours is up to you. Works really well. There is plenty of time when everyone is at work and can communicate but late and early people can set they schedule as they like. Plenty of tasks to do when you don't need other people.

There is zero need for mandatory hours. Adults know when they need to be available for their team.

Re: Being on Call

#94

Post by bayindirh »

watwut wrote: post #90
bayindirh wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, we should praise ISIS fighters? You're distorting it. I was trying to point out that, they have to deform themselves to somewhat non-human states. It's not valid only for servicemen. Firefighters are same. Police are same. Long haul truckers, cargo ship crew are same. I think everybody making sacrifices for doing what they find worthy are eligible for some respect. They accept to deform themselves to do somethi…

I am not distorting. I am using unambiguous example of what I have in mind. > soldiers even in terrible groups, and that they (individuals) should not be judged on their group but on their own qualities of service. Unless you was forced into that group, which was not case of SS but in some cases could be ISIS, you know what you were joining. I don't think sacrifice itself is worth respect, if the goal of that sacrifi…

> I don't think sacrifice itself is worth respect, if the goal of that sacrifice is destructive and wrong.

Wrong is a subjective term and relative to viewing point. This is exactly what I'm avoiding here. I'm not discussing whether it's right or wrong from one particular perspective. Moreover, I'm trying to direct discussion away from war and other sensitive matters with all the power I have with my words, but you want to fixate the subject to ISIS and other terrorist organizations, that's fine.

As a citizen of a country which has to defend against terrorism in point-blank distances, I understand you, but forcing the subject to this perspective is not correct, at least in this context. Especially me, as the OP, trying to clarify it further.

My family is a victim of a genocide, but world won't acknowledge it. With your reasoning my family was on the wrong side, in a war which they weren't actively participating and was not killing anyone.

When a TV channel renames the people killing our citizens, they become heroes. They become right and we become wrong. Hah.

So, don't pull this into politics, war, genocides and other stuff. That tar pit is not a part of this conversation. It shouldn't be.

Leave it here. End of this slope is not pretty.

Re: Being on Call

#95

Post by eudajmonia »

8fingerlouie wrote: post #35

We have our "ops" guys that monitors the environments, and a list of people for each system that is more or less always on call. Each service/job that is being monitored has a procedure/description for how to respond to failures, and if nothing else works, the people on the list gets a call. You're not required to take the call, but you get a fairly large sum of money if you do, meaning people usually take the call d…

It is similar in Poland. Here most colleagues can start between 6-9am and finish between 14-17. This is inclusive of a formal 30 minute lunch break and 10 minute breaks every 1 hour. (In practice most people just take 1 hour lunch instead). I enjoy this because I have much more time outside of the office to enjoy my life.

Re: Being on Call

#96

Post by eudajmonia »

darkwater wrote: post #56
8fingerlouie wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most of Europe has a 37 hour/week work schedule, and because "we're better" we have 36 hour/week. At least some of mainland Europe: Germany, France, Scandinavia, and IIRC the UK.

AFAIK only France has a 35hrs week (7h/day), most of the other countries has 40hrs week.

If we are counting actual working hours, it is also 7 hours a day in Poland. (8hr/day inclusive of 30 minutes lunch plus cumulative 30 minute break from staring at a screen).

Re: Being on Call

#98

Post by devchix »

I carried a pager for a short while, pager, remember those? On-call weeks were hell, even when nothing happened. It's the expectation of getting the call, and the expectation that a system outside your primary domain of expertise will be down. I wasn't paid enough to weather the stress, and I don't think there's a hard number to suit every one. If I ever had input to how an on-call rotation should be handled, I'd make it a pair of on-call persons. They'd switch off as they please, but there will always be 2 persons coordinating the response. One person could come in, with the other person on the phone, or both.

It's the loneliness. Somewhere in this vast organization connected with pipes that no one single person has put together, some element would break. Mercifully the impact ripples and you kinda know about the subsystems to track down the leak and patch it up and alert the domain owners for the next working day. You're the person they're going to call, there's no cavalry, it's you looking at incomprehensible gibberish while the rest of the world is asleep. Even the desk who has called you doesn't get involved, they're done. For me, the idea that it's just me until it's fixed (or degrades further), was the hardest thing to cope with.

I'd pair up my ideal on-call team. It'll cost more, but I'll pay it.

Incidentally pagers are still being carried in SCIFs, where there are no mobiles and sometimes no outside line.

Re: Being on Call

#99

Post by whatsmyusername »

sdevonoes wrote: post #68

I know it's not a popular idea, but here it goes anyway: senior software engineers, please say NO to being on call. It just puts some much pressure on engineers (like me) who don't want to be on call in exchange of more money: managers then think of you as someone who is not very commited to the company, bla bla bla... I'm commited to the company I work at any given time, from 9am to 5pm. That's all the time a compan…

I'm in ops. Devs don't need to be on call, but if it gets to the point where I need you and you refuse to assist, expect your property to get zero time or attention going forward.

Dedicated on call exists because this is an incredibly common problem. People talk about being a team, until something's on fire at a weird hour.

If it's a megacorp, sure yeah whatever. It's not like our compensation is tied to product performance. I'll do my due dilligence, document everything, and just leave it down till business hours handoff (this isn't hyperbole, this is exactly how I would handle it).

If it's a startup? Leave me hanging and you'll instantly burn all the good will I have toward you. And I've got a direct horn to your boss and the CEO.

Re: Being on Call

#100

Post by noisy_boy »

I remember having to nurse the batch jobs in the morning when I was working in app support. I had trained my spouse to look out for the yellow "failed" line and let me know when I was away from the laptop getting freshened up; failures weren't super common but they did happen and such incidents basically took the best part of the day towards investigation/clean-up/root-cause-analysis summary and such activities. That experience helped me swear off any kind of support role and instilled a lot of empathy towards support staff.
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