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

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

#151

Post by tdeck »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #106
Octabrain wrote: post #95

On call sucks so badly. At this point of my life, I firmly believe that there's not enough amount of money that can compensate the mental suffering it implies. Even more if the company you work for has this mentality of "deal with it" without making improvements, which was my case in the last period I did on call and what made the camel's back to break for me. Nowadays I simply refuse it. For those who are still on t…

And I am not even sure whether you are talking about just day-time on-call or the 24 hours on-call for at least 1 full week to two week stretches or a simple 12 hours on-call you are talking about? In India the Indian managers (and American managers are just fine with it) have made an environment of this barbaric practice of 24x7 on-call handled by just one person. In fact, even when there are US/western counterparts…

> have made an environment of this barbaric practice of 24x7 on-call handled by just one person.

If it makes you feel any better this is very common in small to mid-sized US tech companies as well. In every team I've been on that had an oncall rotation it was a full week 24/7 per person, that rotated among team members. Even at Google we were on call for our own service overnight and didn't have SRE / other time zone oncalls.

But the number of pages and other work varied significantly between teams. The worst was risk at Square in 2016, where we routinely got paged 40+ times a week (mostly noise) and when real incidents were most likely on Saturday morning. The best was Instant Apps at Google where we got a ~$5k bonus for each week of overnight oncall and almost never got a single page.

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

#152

Post by tdeck »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #127
Octabrain wrote: post #95

On call sucks so badly. At this point of my life, I firmly believe that there's not enough amount of money that can compensate the mental suffering it implies. Even more if the company you work for has this mentality of "deal with it" without making improvements, which was my case in the last period I did on call and what made the camel's back to break for me. Nowadays I simply refuse it. For those who are still on t…

With the last (and only) job that required me to be on call I quit the day before I was scheduled. I've always refused to do it. Devs have no business doing it.

I appreciate setting boundaries but I don't really understand this attitude. Frequently on call issues are caused by problems with the application logic, therefore solving them requires an understanding of the code. It's not usually my experience that oncall issues are a simple case of force-restarting something or provisioning more boxes, although that can happen from time to time.

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

#154

Post by davedx »

chunkymilk wrote: post #34
bertil wrote: 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.…

> Always be kind, and say it’s your fault. I do this with internal teams at work. I've found approaching other teams with issues with their library/framework in a "this could be our mistake" manner really helps in keeping them from getting defensive and stonewalling.

Whatever happened to honesty?

Sure, be kind, but don’t bullshit people. My personal and professional tolerance for bullshit is very low these days because there’s so much of it.

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

#155

Post by davedx »

mynameisnoone wrote: post #108
bertil wrote: 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.

Agree. Honesty, transparency, professionalism.

Practice those first, then work on inter personal soft skills.

Don’t bullshit people by lying to them about “whose fault it is”.

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

#156

Post by thinkingemote »

davedx wrote: post #154
chunkymilk wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Always be kind, and say it’s your fault. I do this with internal teams at work. I've found approaching other teams with issues with their library/framework in a "this could be our mistake" manner really helps in keeping them from getting defensive and stonewalling.

Whatever happened to honesty? Sure, be kind, but don’t bullshit people. My personal and professional tolerance for bullshit is very low these days because there’s so much of it.

Say "I might have made a mistake" as there's always a non zero probability even if small that you actually have even if you believe 100% that you haven't.

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

#157

Post by helij »

photonthug wrote: post #91
tetha wrote: post #12

Yeah, we discourage production changes starting first or second december week, and start freezing changes third december week until it's frozen solid fourth december week until second week of january. December tends to be hell for our customers, so stability should be a priority there. And honestly, no one wants to work on holidays. So lets just wrap everything starting in december, maybe use the third week for some…

> And honestly, no one wants to work on holidays. Actually I bet some people like it (I know I do). It's not that crazy to want to dodge the whole mad rush and take lots of time off later in the year when it's actually nice outside. Summer vacation beats winter vacation, so if you have to take days off in the winter there's pressure to try and get somewhere warm where the days are longer. Besides. The "office" is qui…

I liked it as well when I was single. Do you have a spouse and/or children?

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

#158

Post by ZeroSolstice »

jorvi wrote: post #98
bertil wrote: 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…

I agree. If a part failed or broke unexpectantly it makes no sense to say it was `your fault` or `you made a mistake`. The goal is the solve the issue at hand and following the representative's instructions to either fix it or prove the item is defective is the easiest way to get there. If it was a mistake on your end you learned something new but I don't see any additional benefit by saying you made a mistake when you don't know what went wrong.

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

#159

Post by nlitened »

jeffhuys wrote: post #146
wintogreen74 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying, "I'm sorry; I've made a mistake" is the killer disarming technique for even the most emotional conflict. Not sure if it's our pride or fear of liability but western culture is very hesitant to say "sorry" - other than the fake one "I'm sorry if anyone interpreted my actions|remarks|words as ..." - that doesn't count.

Do NOT do this too much, though. I did this in my last relationship and it turned into resentment from me, while she walked all over me, knowing I would say sorry for everything. It wasn’t her fault, I should’ve protected my values more, but this is a slippery slope. However, my next partner in my opinion should take this and say something like “no, this is not your fault. Let’s work on it”. It could go both ways. I…

> she walked all over me

> It wasn’t her fault

Sir, I don't know you at all, but coming from personal experience, if you often get walked over, maybe it's time to stop taking shape of a door mat. Maybe it _was_ her fault, and you deserve better.

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

#160

Post by globular-toast »

whalesalad wrote: post #26

Meanwhile a huge number of us (non-religious? introverted kernel compiling cave dwellers?) treat this period no differently than any other week in the year. I'll be here keepin the servers runnin :horns: It's actually my favorite time of the year. Everyone is gone, it is quiet, and I can get shit done.

I do partake in Christmas stuff now because my family appreciates it. But I used to love the quiet around Christmas. One year also I just completely forgot my own birthday. It was a good day (I started editing OpenStreetMap on that day).
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