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Tell HN: I salute everyone on call/working support through the holidays

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111–120 of 207 posts

Re: Tell HN: I salute everyone on call/working support through the holidays

#111
Thank you but I wish you were not doing it during your night time. Let someone in their timezone for whom it's daytime do it. Insist on it, refuse being exploited. Take this opportunity to tell your company to hire the time timezones where it's day during your night. If it's not important enough for them then they anyway don't need to you remain awake at night. Don't harm yourself. It's not just losing sleep, that leads to harmful effects in your body that keep showing for long and some damages might not even be reversible.

It's not bravery, it's not being a hero as many are putting in comments - it's just plain exploitation if you are awake at night doing this.

Your health and wellbeing is not worth any money and definitely not worth someone's shopping cart and checkout page working smoothy over the holidays when your Western colleagues just took off en masse. Not even close. I know a lot of you would be from a third world country like me (yes, that's a thing!). Stay strong and work for this exploitation to end.

Re: Tell HN: I salute everyone on call/working support through the holidays

#112

Is it a US thing to push updates right before holidays and force people to be on call? European companies I've been working on are planing releases till the end of November, first week of December max. All project plans are baked like there is one week in December. While US company tried to force every contractors to work everyday and some weekends too. Are you Indian? You don't celebrate Christmas, you'll be on call…

> Is it a US thing to push updates right before holidays and force people to be on call?

Yes. And usually they get it done via their off-shore employees in third world countries like India working during their night time.

> Are you Indian? You don't celebrate Christmas, you'll be on call.

Not celebrating Christmas isn't a point. The point usually is - you will be without a job probably if you are not agreeing to be on-call 24x7.

Re: Tell HN: I salute everyone on call/working support through the holidays

#113
My mum always worked on most of the public holidays because we never really cared about them but it did mean everyone owed her favors (she was a physician and would be on call, at the hospital etc) so she could get someone to cover for when whenever she wanted.

Growing up ignoring holidays is mostly great (fly on xmas and everybody feels sorry for you, even though they are the ones working on xmas). But it causes relationship problems bc even when you genuinely try to participate you’re “doing it wrong”.

Re: Tell HN: I salute everyone on call/working support through the holidays

#114
post #98
post #25

Always be kind, and say it’s your fault. If you don’t do it for the sake of the person you are asking for help, do it because it works better. That’s the most practical advice [0] ever given by Hans Rosling [1], the Fact master himself: > In fact, I have the secret to how to get the best help immediately from any customer service, like the phone company or the bank or anything. I have the best line, it always works.…

I mean, that sounds very holistic in theory, but in practice just doesn't work out. A few days ago I suddenly had my french press for coffee suddenly shatter and almost blast hot coffee over my upper body. How am I supposed to start that call with "Hi, I'm jorvi and I made a mistake"..? It's not like that is a unique situation either. And you can guarantee that if you tell customer service "I made a mistake", and it…

How can you be sure if you would never try?

Re: Tell HN: I salute everyone on call/working support through the holidays

#115
post #25

Always be kind, and say it’s your fault. If you don’t do it for the sake of the person you are asking for help, do it because it works better. That’s the most practical advice [0] ever given by Hans Rosling [1], the Fact master himself: > In fact, I have the secret to how to get the best help immediately from any customer service, like the phone company or the bank or anything. I have the best line, it always works.…

Blame doesn't really help solve or prevent problems. Root cause, blameless analysis with awareness and new tests and mitigation does. Also, career-wise, you won't become an IC9 by admitting to making a lot of mistakes. It's best to just solve them as fast as possible.

Are you IC9?

Re: Tell HN: I salute everyone on call/working support through the holidays

#116
I get nervous every New Year’s Eve due to date/time issues. I work on emergency 911 software. In our system each time a 911 Call is created, we create an incident number in the format YYYY-NNNNNNNNNNNN where N is an incrementing number. I was oncall a few years ago when a date time bug was introduced that resulting in numbers being created prematurely by a few hours. As each hour passed more customers in a different time zone called in to report the issue. I was the only person working and was getting hammered with cases.

It sounds like an easy isssue to correct, but downstream systems that consume those numbers had already processed them and associated reports and other records with the incidents. I spent the next few months sorting out that mess and helping work with partners to clear out data.

Re: Tell HN: I salute everyone on call/working support through the holidays

#118
post #98
post #25

Always be kind, and say it’s your fault. If you don’t do it for the sake of the person you are asking for help, do it because it works better. That’s the most practical advice [0] ever given by Hans Rosling [1], the Fact master himself: > In fact, I have the secret to how to get the best help immediately from any customer service, like the phone company or the bank or anything. I have the best line, it always works.…

I mean, that sounds very holistic in theory, but in practice just doesn't work out. A few days ago I suddenly had my french press for coffee suddenly shatter and almost blast hot coffee over my upper body. How am I supposed to start that call with "Hi, I'm jorvi and I made a mistake"..? It's not like that is a unique situation either. And you can guarantee that if you tell customer service "I made a mistake", and it…

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: I salute everyone on call/working support through the holidays

#119
post #113

My mum always worked on most of the public holidays because we never really cared about them but it did mean everyone owed her favors (she was a physician and would be on call, at the hospital etc) so she could get someone to cover for when whenever she wanted. Growing up ignoring holidays is mostly great (fly on xmas and everybody feels sorry for you, even though they are the ones working on xmas). But it causes rel…

Usually I choose to work during normal holiday season too, and then go on vacation in mid January when crowds are smaller.

Having a family that accepts rescheduling Holidays helps. We've celebrated Thanksgiving, New Year and Christmas on different days before.

Re: Tell HN: I salute everyone on call/working support through the holidays

#120
post #25

Always be kind, and say it’s your fault. If you don’t do it for the sake of the person you are asking for help, do it because it works better. That’s the most practical advice [0] ever given by Hans Rosling [1], the Fact master himself: > In fact, I have the secret to how to get the best help immediately from any customer service, like the phone company or the bank or anything. I have the best line, it always works.…

I like to append ", unless I'm missing something?" in a similar manner, might be useful in situations where 'made a mistake' doesn't actually make sense :)
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