back to article Early mornings, late evenings, weekends. Useless users always demand support

Do you ever feel like you’re on-call even when you’re technically not on call? Burnout in the IT industry is real, just look at the stats for developers and infosecurity professionals as an example. And sysadmins are no different, walking the tech treadmill during normal working hours isn't enough: Users or bosses feel it is …

  1. storner
    Stop

    Dual SIM phone

    I have ALWAYS kept my personal phone number secret from employers, colleagues (except very trusted ones), and all other sorts of insensitive twats.

    End of workday, the company SIM gets switched off. Same procedure when on holidays.

    As for Teams, disabling the "update in the background" and/or turning off notifications works wonderfully.

    1. phuzz Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Dual SIM phone

      I prefer an entirely separate work phone, but that's a matter of taste.

      BTW, Teams (on mobile) has a "quiet hours" function (Settings>General>Notifications) that lets you block all notifications from it whenever you set, ie evenings and weekends. That way I don't have to remember to turn it back on on Monday morning.

      1. Zebranky

        Re: Dual SIM phone

        I also run seperate phones, but that is beacue I have read the department policies regarding phones which pretty miuch say if you have any corporate data on your phone the corp takes full control of it.

        For all the up-comming PFY's out there, Take the advice presented here from a bunch of old salty coots and work to live, dont live to work...

        run Dual sims / Dual phones, then learn the skill of switching off** from work so you can enjoy your life

        ** Switching off your brain from work, not just the phone, its a learned skill and will take time to develop but is worth the effort.

        1. Ken Shabby Silver badge
          Pint

          Re: Dual SIM phone

          Easy, have a quiet pint and trolll El Reg after work, works a treat for me.

        2. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

          Re: Dual SIM phone

          Switching off is an important skill. Some colleagues wonder how I find time to do my hobbies (such as salsa dancing) and my answer is that any time outside working hours is mine to use as I see fit.

          Before holidays, I set myself a deadline beyond which I am on vacation, and a second deadline after which I am back at work. I order my remaining tasks by their respective priorities, work on them until the deadline, and anything left on the list is postponed until after second deadline. Somehow, nobody ever complains, as I have found out.

          Time on earth is your most precious commodity, don't let others waste it for you.

        3. An_Old_Dog Silver badge
          Holmes

          Switching One's Brain Off from Work During Off Hours

          ... is something I cannot do. I'll have ideas about and solutions to work-related problems during off hours, in the shower, in bed, etc.

          What I can do, and do do ("da do ron do ...") is not act upon those ideas during off hours. I'll write 'em down, but I won't call anyone, won't remote in, won't test them on my own PC, during off hours.

          I have my own computer projects and problems to work on during my off hours!

          1. Terry 6 Silver badge

            Re: Switching One's Brain Off from Work During Off Hours

            Good..because.it's two edged. If you did fire off your brilliant solution at 11:00pm you'd be abetting fucking up their evenings. Even if it's their own fault if they are receiving work messages. As my late mum used to say "Two wrongs don't make a right".

        4. Spamfast
          Pint

          Re: Dual SIM phone

          work to live, dont live to work

          Haleluljah! Have a beer. And while we're propping the bar up, let's not bang on about work.

          Unless they're paying you at least time an a half for being so - not for when you're actually called - then on-call is a scam to avoid employing enough staff.

          For those still sufferering, next time you consider changing jobs then buy a throw-away SIM and use the number for the agencies (spit!) and your new employer. Stick it in a $10 burner phone and you can shred it later.

          UK employment contracts often have weasel words such as "your hours are 37.5 per week ... but you may be called upon to work beyond those in exceptional circumstances". This is unenforcable because they don't define those precisely and contract law favours the one who didn't draft the contract.

    2. Dave K

      Re: Dual SIM phone

      Exactly this. Back when I was a techie, the listed mobile number for me was my work phone. I did not have Outlook or Teams on my personal phone, and when it came to home-time, my work phone was turned off. Once or twice I did get a query on a Monday morning "I was trying to reach you over the weekend", my response was simply "I'm not paid to be on-call and was out enjoying the weekend with my family".

      We did used to have an on-call rota for a while - I was part of it. But then they ditched it after deciding it wasn't cost effective to pay people to be on-call over the weekend - and I was buggered if I was going to sacrifice my weekend without any pay for my trouble.

      1. cookiecutter

        Re: Dual SIM phone

        This. I've worked on big projects and even when given a work phone, it would get locked up in my desk Aug my laptop at 5pm when I left the office. If you're not going to pay me a double hourly rate for 5pm to 9am, then I don't care of the building is on fire..it's a not me problem. If you're not willing to pay your staff double time for every hour they're on call then it can't be THAT important to have staff on call.

        Anyone who takes that £100 extra for a week on call is a mug.

        I worked a contract for a public sector outsourcer who'd put contractors on furlough 4 times a year just before the financial results came out. A week at a time with usually a couple of days notice. Laptop & phone locked away and emails for that entire period bulk deleted on my return. The customer was never happy but again they engaged the outsourcer & regardless of the "risk to life" databases we looked after, there a YOU problem not a ME problem.

        Same when they fucked up renewals & their time sheet systems didn't work for weeks..laptop & phone locked away, go home relax. Come back and bulk delete all the emails from the time away. Then explain to the customer why.

        Stand up for yourselves, no last minute "oh can you work this weekend? We made deadline promises to the customer." Or"this project that you're hearing about today for the first time is really important & you need to work late /stay "

        Look at how IT positions have been offshored, outsourced, rates have been decimated for "shareholder value"....never feel guilty at not being in the office...the answer to ANY user bitching...."Go complain to the finance department or the board of directors "

        1. Fred Daggy

          Let the bonus pay

          For sure that is some absolute turnip patch with a bonus riding on it.

          Personal time means consulting rates apply. Or a fat percentage of their bonus, up front in cash. Never dance for free.

          1. An_Old_Dog Silver badge

            Re: Let the bonus pay

            One put-upon creative type explained it to an extremely-onerous client in a logo he created.

            It was a frog giving the finger and saying, "I jump for cash, bitch."

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          Re: Dual SIM phone

          "Anyone who takes that £100 extra for a week on call is a mug."

          If that's all you get, I agree. Many years I ago I did on-call on and off for a few months, when £100 was a reasonable amount extra for a week. All it really meant was I couldn't go out (or stay in!) and get pissed as if a call came in I'd have to drive. But if a call did come in, I was on double time rates and accrued time off in lieu from the moment the phone rang until I got back home. It was definitely only for a short time, not a long term thing due to a specific contract, which is the only reason I agreed. I got about £600 in on-call fees and only got called out twice. But I was a lot younger back then too. I doubt I'd do it now :-)

        3. ecofeco Silver badge

          Re: Dual SIM phone

          This.

          I do NOT work for cheap and sure as fuck, not for free. And the extra effort is NEVER recognized nor rewarded.

          That said, I do not "make bank" and I've been shown the door a couple of times for this principle, but life is too damn short to voluntarily screw myself, let alone to the benefit of someone else.

    3. anothercynic Silver badge

      Re: Dual SIM phone

      Same here, albeit not a dual-SIM phone. I've kept my mobile number private from colleagues for yonks, and my current manglement and direct colleague know not to bother me unless the world (for us) is literally ending. So far it's worked; except last year where I made the mistake of looking in my email and seeing a clusterfuck of epic proportions forming whilst I was seeing the sites in a European capital. My colleagues didn't say anything to me, which is much appreciated, but the fact something impacted my area of responsibility with me unable to do anything but watch ruined the rest of my holiday.

      If our organisation were to insist on on-call, my reaction would be identical to others in this comment section: a) you pay for a work phone issued to me, and b) you pay me double overtime for any periods on call or appropriate time off in lieu. You do *not* mess with my private life... my job is stressful as it is, I don't need more stress when I'm away on holiday.

      1. simonlb Silver badge

        Re: Dual SIM phone

        Time off in Lieu...

        Yes, if I work six hours at time and a half and you decide you wont pay me for it, I will be taking nine hours of time off to cover those nine hours of pay you don't think I'm worth.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Dual SIM phone

      "Dual SIM phone

      I have ALWAYS kept my personal phone number secret from employers, colleagues (except very trusted ones), and all other sorts of insensitive twats.

      End of workday, the company SIM gets switched off. Same procedure when on holidays.

      As for Teams, disabling the "update in the background" and/or turning off notifications works wonderfully."

      Dual SIM phone all the way, indeed.

      You even have dual work/personnel profiles if your phone if enrolled to a company (Android 14 & 15 tested, same I think for IOS) and you can schedule activation/deactivation of work profiles depending on time/date, so team will stay quiet always after work schedules, no more teams calls ...

      I also think you can do the same with the SIM, but not tested.

    5. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: Dual SIM phone

      That's what I would do too. And if someone tracks you down in some other way then tell your boss. If you have a good boss he'll support you and talk to the other guy's boss and tell him that's not acceptable. If he says "well what would it have hurt you to fix his problem on the weekend" ask him how much of a raise you're going to get for being on call all the time.

      The only acceptable way something like this happens is if your BOSS calls you up because there's something really major going on. Then based on whether you have an understanding that such situations would be very rare and you'd be compensated in some way (time off the following week to make up for it if nothing else) maybe you handle it. But it should be 100% unacceptable to have randos contacting you for support. If I was in that guy's position and had someone repeatedly calling me early Sunday morning I'd make sure to do the same to him the following Sunday morning and when he asked why the hell I was waking him up I'd say "just to be an asshole like you". Let him report me to his boss, you'd find out a lot about whether you want to start looking for another job based on the response you'd get from management.

    6. JulieM Silver badge

      Re: Dual SIM phone

      As far as anyone in my workplace needs to know, my "mobile number" is an internal number.

      The actual number could be found in extensions.conf, obviously; but the only other person in the company who can make sense of that knows better than to dare .....

  2. Rudy

    Not just IT

    It's not just IT Support people who get this.

    I'm a HR manager at a University. One of my team members got a call on a weekend evening at 11:30PM, demanding an employment letter so she could complete her mortgage application before the cut-off time of midnight (in her home country).

    I told the employee (a department director) that if she ever did that again, I would report her for gross misconduct. I also gave my team member a bunch of flowers and a (paid) day off.

    1. 42656e4d203239 Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Not just IT

      >>I'm a HR manager at a University.

      >>...I would report her for gross misconduct. I also gave my team member a bunch of flowers and a (paid) day off.

      Hmm shurely shome mishtake? The guild of HR managers may want a word - displaying feelings, feelings of an almost human nature? That will not do!

      Seriously - well done. The sooner people, at all levels, realise that work != life the better.

      1. upsidedowncreature

        Re: Not just IT

        As the HR manager, would you have to report their misconduct to yourself?

      2. FrogsAndChips Silver badge

        Re: Not just IT

        Have an upvote for the Pink Floyd reference!

        1. Roopee Silver badge
          Thumb Up

          Re: Not just IT

          You beat me to it!

      3. Ian Johnston Silver badge

        Re: Not just IT

        HR droids don't, in general care about anyone except themselves. Which is why the "gross misconduct" was disturbing the writer.

        Revolution, wall, first.

    2. Ian Johnston Silver badge

      Re: Not just IT

      Gross misconduct? Your definition of that is ...

      1. Anonymous IV
        Headmaster

        Re: Not just IT

        > Gross misconduct? Your definition of that is ...

        All together now: "Gross misconduct is 144 times worse than ordinary misconduct."

        1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

          Re: Not just IT

          In the days of tenure, academics could only be sacked for "gross and persistent moral turpitude". A colleague explained it thus "Gross moral turpitude is sleeping with your students; gross and persistent moral turpitude is sleeping with lots of your students." I don't know if you had to bonk 144 of them to qualify, though.

  3. disgruntled yank

    Rarely

    I have seldom been called on work matters out of normal hours.

    But a few memorable incidents have made me prefer vacations east of the office rather than west, though. The crisis discovered when the office opens on the East Coast can lead to a call that awakens the techie on vacation in California at 0600; if the techie is vacationing in Europe, it will be early or-mid afternoon, the techie will be awake and alert, and the techie will have readily understood reasons for not having a computer to hand. (Gee, Mike, I'd like to help you, but I'm at the British Museum right now.)

    1. John Robson Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Rarely

      "reasons for not having a computer to hand. (Gee, Mike, I'd like to help you, but I'm at the British Museum right now.)"

      Surely you'll have everyone's computers then?

    2. that one in the corner Silver badge

      Re: Rarely

      > techie will have readily understood reasons for not having a computer to hand. (Gee, Mike, I'd like to help you, but I'm at the British Museum right now.)

      So that explains the sign in front of the abacus displays: "in emergency, break glass".

    3. Sceptic Tank Silver badge
      Trollface

      Re: Rarely

      My equipment is so old that I might just use that line when somebody contacts me for support: "Gee, sorry boss, this laptop is so old it feels like I'm working at the museum".

  4. Fonant

    Barclays

    We used to be Barclays customers, but not for many years now. I was surprised, therefore, to get an email from them apologising for the weekend's outages.

    Do they not know who their customers are? Did they restore their customer table from a ten-year-old backup?

    Sheesh. I fired off an email asking their Data Protection Officer to delete us from their mailing list.

    1. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
      Stop

      Re: Barclays

      Having had dealings with them in relation to a non-profit organisation, they really are a shambles. No concept of procedures; paperwork that literally needs to be completed in triplicate and then lost multiple times. Closing accounts for no reason. Unable to change signatories.

      Frankly, I'm amazed they're still trading.

      1. My other car WAS an IAV Stryker
        Pint

        Re: Barclays

        "...paperwork that literally needs to be completed in triplicate and then lost multiple times."

        Did it also need to be buried in soft peat and recycled as firelighters?

        Beer before hitchhiking with Vogons, Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster after -->

      2. Neil Barnes Silver badge

        Re: Barclays

        And yet... I've had four Barclays accounts for nearly fifty years (and had a business account for a number of years, though no longer) and I have _never_ had an issue with them (except when things stopped working this weekend; they've got better now).

        My biggest annoyance with them is the 2.75% they take off the international exchange rate.

        1. snowpages

          Re: Barclays

          Barclays > Wise > other currency > Wise > Barclays

          Other cost effective international payment providers available, but Wise has worked well for me so far..

      3. Caver_Dave Silver badge
        Flame

        Re: Barclays

        Shutting down accounts!

        Yes been there with a rural youth charity that had circa $45K in the various accounts at the time. When it was raised at the charity board meeting, almost everyone who was connected with another countryside based charity, (5 charities in all) reported that their accounts had been shut down in the same with no reason given. We had to pay our single, part time, staff member out of our own pockets for a couple of months (discussed with the Charity Commission first!) before we could get the money out of the closed account and into somewhere else we could pay the salary from. It didn't help that they wanted all the signatories to sign the paperwork and one of them was backpacking around SE Asia.

        After at least 60 years, they just shut down our account without notice - disgusting!

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Barclays

        Ha, i had the opposite.

        I don't live in the uk anymore, but i kept my Barclays account for some time after i left because it had some subscriptions coming from it that if i had to move bank, i'd need to restart the subscription at 3 times the cost. (eg. still on a New Scientist student subscription 15 years after graduating, they were fine with it, even posting overseas.)

        Eventually i had to close them as Brexit had just been announced. Traveled the 800 miles to my branch after making an appointment.

        They said 'oh, we can't close the account today, because it's a Saturday and so it won't go through until Monday morning.' Ok, fine.

        Traveled back home on Monday morning. However, just after midnight on Monday, the account fee was taken out, putting the account overdrawn. So it wasn't closed.

        Every month they sent me a 'please pay your unauthorized overdraft' email, and every month i replied with the copy of the account close request.

        They kept taking the account fees every month, leaving the account more and more overdrawn, until Brexit actually happened and the had to close the account.

        Still overdrawn, they still send me the emails. i gave up replying several years ago.

      5. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Barclays

        Ach yes. My wife, a Brown Owl, has had this in her GirlGuides/Brownie non-profit business account with Barclays.

        Endless demands for complex and irrelevant admin information that they already have anyway and various forms about credit requirements for an account that is not allowed to go negative or request loans. All obviously automated as required so that a simple "this is not applicable" letter just results in a further demand for information, much of which simply doesn't exist.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Barclays

      I haven't dealt with them for my own accounts since 1993 as they were abysmal then and all the subsequent evidence suggests they haven't got any better. Their recent treatment of charity accounts has been somewhere between shambolic and appalling, and when I did have to deal with them, only yesterday (trying to take my recently deceased mother off a charity account), I came to the conclusion that they just don't want any customers, at least in this town - the "Barclays Local" turns out to be a single desk in a small serviced office in a trading estate on the edge of town, over half a mile from the nearest bus stop.

    3. Chris Miller

      Re: Barclays

      25 years ago, I attended an AIX (IBM Unix) conference for large UK users. There were about 30 organisations represented, and 10 of them were from different teams at Barclays, half of whom weren't aware of the other Barclays installations' existence.

      1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

        Re: Barclays

        And this is the reason that shortly after that, Barclays started consolidating their AIX infrastructure under a single banner called Midrange Systems, and centralised all of the support and deployments onto managed server farms of known configuration and with a model AIX implementation that applications had to be written for, part of a project called Stretch that I was involved in when contracting at Barclays.

        As a team, we ended up producing mobile application workloads that had encapsulated import and export methods, network addresses and specific requirements all stored on the SAN disk containing the application and data, that allowed the workload to be moved between different systems in the server farm by re-presenting the disks, years before Cloud was even a thing.

        It worked really well, and I later went back when they updated the model implementation for Power5 systems with jumps in AIX and various other infrastructure components, and added additional rapid deployment tools to stand up systems and workloads very quickly.

        They tried to do something similar for their other UNIX platforms, but they never quite managed the flexibility or control that we achieved with AIX.

        Unfortunately, I contracted back with them again a few years later, just before they outsourced a significant part of their UK support to India as part of a 'Follow the Sun' support model, only to find that the momentum had not been maintained, and everything was falling apart. The automatic deployment systems that had been created were being 'augmented' with manual hacks, because all of the people who understood the automation had left or been let go, and nobody remaining knew how to (or attempted to read the instructions for) modifying the deployment code. I was brought back to do something very specific, so I was not able to fix anything to make it work properly again.

        Because they moved support to a cheaper country, I never did work for them again, so I don't know what happened next.

    4. wolfetone Silver badge

      Re: Barclays

      "Do they not know who their customers are? Did they restore their customer table from a ten-year-old backup?"

      I'm a Barclays customer and I didn't get an email.

      Yet some bloke at work told me he got an email from them, but he's never been a customer with them.

      1. John Miles

        Re: Barclays

        I'm also a customer (they took over a building society I had a mortgage and current account with) - I didn't get an email, but then I've not given them an email address.

        That sort of outage is why I've accounts with two banks and enough in either of them to cover most things I'll need short term.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Barclays

      I'm really not surprised. I once missed a payment on my Barclaycard (my fault), and when double-checking the interest fee, discovered it didn't seem to match their explanation of how it was calculated. I calculated it every way I could think of, but could never match their number. Their "support" simply read me what was printed on my statement, and despite me pointing out that the interest fee they quoted didn't seem to agree with a "daily compounding" system like the statement said, they had nothing else to add. Never could get someone to actually look at the account and calculation and tell me how they got it.

      Switched to Citi, where I get 2% cash back instead of Barclaycard's 1.5%.

      1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

        Re: Barclays

        Barclaycard used to be run as a separate business unit within Barclays, run almost as a separate company. They had a high opinion of themselves and their importance because of the amount of profit they delivered back to the main bank.

        I know that when we were doing the Stretch project I talked about above, they were very reluctant to take part. There was a lot of metaphorical kicking and screaming, and it took a significant amount of higher management 'encouragement' for them to eventually cooperate and allow their systems to be brought into the fold.

        No idea about it now, of course.

  5. may_i Silver badge

    Solutions exist

    If you gave your personal phone number to your colleagues, more fool you.

    If you keep your company phone turned on after working hours, more fool you.

    If you check Teams or work e-mail after working hours, more fool you.

    If you regularly agree to do work outside working hours for no payment, more fool you.

    All these events where people are forced to do work outside working hours can easily be avoided by clearly separating your working hours from your own hours. Anyone who lets themselves get abused by colleagues or management like this are failing to assert themselves. If you don't get paid to be on call, there is nothing which requires you be on call. If your employer tries to make it any other way, start looking for a new job. Talk to your union. Report your employer to the authorities.

    Being employed does not give the employer any rights to your time outside your contractually agreed working hours. Any attempts by manglement or colleagues to ignore that should result in a firm refusal. If you don't do that, they will take advantage of your lack of backbone again and again and again. More fool you.

    1. markr555

      Re: Solutions exist

      Exactly this!! No-one is obliged to do ANYTHING outside of their contract of employment, so if you don't wanna do it, don't do it. Even if your work phone is turned on, and Teams is bonging away on your personal (why would you install works stuff to your own equipment!?!?), you can simply ignore it. The only person to blame is you if you are answering outside of work hours.

      1. rafff

        Re: Solutions exist

        "why would you install works stuff to your own equipment!?!?"

        Regardless of the current discussion about out of hours calls, you should always keep clear water between your work equipment and accounts, and your personal stuff. If you don't, you open yourself up to accusations of unauthorised access and other naughty things.

        So, no dual SIM phones; always two separate devices. Ensure everything is air-gapped.

        Me, paranoid? You should see my collection of T-shirts.

    2. Anonymous Coward Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Solutions exist

      I do have work email on my personal phone, but the notifications are set to silent.

      I do it like this so that I have a bit of an idea of what to expect when I'm next working - what might need prioritising etc. Yes, I could do that at the start of the day but I prefer to be forewarned.

      Occasionally I'll see a request that I'll deal with right away, but none of my colleagues or clients expect that (and I account for that time in the next shift)

      In a big project I may even spend a week working beyond end-of-shift, but only because it's convenient for me - and 1.5 hours/day for a week grants me a day off later.

      Basically, make sure your work allows you the flexibility that you want (which may be none, that's fine) and realise that it works both ways.

      1. My other car WAS an IAV Stryker
        Thumb Up

        Re: Solutions exist

        I keep work stuff on the phone because I'm remote, I homeschool, and sometimes we leave the house (where the company laptop stays). It also helps when travelling, especially when the company travel app wants to verify something using email when I'm away from the laptop or Wi-Fi.

        But outside of working hours, I set an alert profile called "Personal" that, like the above post, mutes the email + Teams (including the work softphone) entirely. You'd have to text/call me directly, which I only allow some to do, and if so I know I better answer.

        1. 42656e4d203239 Silver badge

          Re: Solutions exist

          >>I keep work stuff on the phone because I'm remote, I homeschool, and sometimes we leave the house (where the company laptop stays). It also helps when travelling, especially when the company travel app wants to verify something using email when I'm away from the laptop or Wi-Fi.

          Horses for courses but definitely see what you can do to sort something out regarding a work phone. The cost isn't great, in the grand scheme of things, and there are options besides them paying for everything.... e.g. you could buy a suitable (cheap disposable)smartphone and they could buy the SIM....

          What I ask people here is "If somene sent you a compromising/contractural email to your personal phone, which then got involved in something legal, your personal phone could become evidence. Do you want to take that risk?"

  6. Julian Bradfield

    turn it off

    I don't understand this. If you don't want to see things out of hours, shut down teams and work email, turn off the work phone. (And never give a personal number except to people who can be trusted to know what an emergency is - I made that mistake once, never again!) Like many of my colleagues, both academic and administrative, I do work out of hours whenever I feel like it, but I never feel obliged to *do* anything out of hours.

    1. wolfetone Silver badge

      Re: turn it off

      This 100%.

      I've a work laptop and that is the only thing that I get work emails and phone calls on. When it goes in my bag at the end of the day that is where it stays until the next time I need it. Fuck this noise of having to keep your work phone on, or having work communications, on a personal device.

      It's not just IT though. My wife is a lawyer and last week I needed to work in her office (as my dock wasn't working and I could not be fucked going to the office to get a new one). She had her work phone on the desk and she told me don't answer it if it rings. Fine. But the bloody thing kept going off for various things. I decided I'll put it in flight mode. And I left it. I forgot about it. She bollocked me for it on the evening saying she missed emails and a call - but it was her day off. She felt the need to return calls or look at emails on her day off.

      I think really, and I mean this in the best possible way to my wife and others, just grow a pair and tell these people to fuck. off. You'll call them back during the period of time you're contracted to work, which is not 24/7 365.

      1. Like a badger

        Re: turn it off

        "My wife is a lawyer and...."

        Rules are a bit different in some lines of work. You might argue that personal time should always be personal time, but I've worked for a City law firm (not a lawyer myself) and the prevailing attitude is "we'll pay big bucks, but you play by our rules. And our rules include looonnnggg hours, and still contacting you whenever we like - if you're not happy there are other employers."

    2. phuzz Silver badge
      Unhappy

      Re: turn it off

      Easy for us to say on this side of the Atlantic with our worker protections, from what I hear about the US, saying 'no' to a boss can lead to you being fired with no recourse.

      1. lnLog

        Re: turn it off

        Most are on what is known as 'at will' which involves zero notice for them firing you or you leaving.

        If there is lot of jobs all power to the employee, otherwise all power to the employer.

        1. Jou (Mxyzptlk) Silver badge

          Re: turn it off

          > Most are on what is known as 'at will' which involves zero notice for them firing you or you leaving.

          US. Maybe some other countries, but no other "developed" country.

          But as those many German-living-in-US Youtube channels say: You can also go away without notice. And getting a new job does not seem to be that difficult for IT people in the US. Especially since new employer don't care about an "Arbeitszeugnis" of the previous employer. But I can only speak for 3rd party experience of Germans living in US, not for me.

  7. ColinPa Silver badge

    Hello .. I'm the manager

    I was a manager in the days before mobile phones. On the whole people treated my team OK, but there were some people who wanted out of hours service - mainly because they were not organised enough.

    I told my team that if there were people they didn't want to deal with (out of hours) for any reason to give me a call.

    I had several responses I used.

    Hello, I'm the manager... if you want this work done before next week, I'll need your manager to OK for me to charge them the overtime. Minimum charge £1000. ... Ok speak to you next week

    Hello, I'm the manager, ... You say it's urgent - that's fine. I'll get my team working on it, once I've contacted the senior manager to OK the change in priorities. ... Hello.. Hello?

    And once... Hello I'm the manager, hello Senior manager... Yes, I see that it is urgent. I'll see if any of my team are free.

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      Re: Hello .. I'm the manager

      In the days before mobile phones I worked with a team that used a pager to summon the on-call techie. There was only an informal rota, and it became standard practice for them to check coat pockets before going home on Friday in case the pager had "fallen" into the pocket.

  8. 42656e4d203239 Silver badge

    Your work should be completed in your contracted hours

    That's my fondest memory of my current boss boss. He said that when I was asking for a bit of flexibility around start and end times; I now have a much better work/life balance.

    Now they get nothing out of hours unless they pay - work phone is switched off at end of day and on again when I get in the following working day.

    As a union rep I advise my members to do the same. Don't look at work email on personal devices, don't answer phones/emails after hours, set Teams to Away. If the boss complains about you not reading email out of hours, point him in my direction.

    1. Andrew Scott Bronze badge

      Re: Your work should be completed in your contracted hours

      pretty much my weekend.

  9. nemo omnibus

    Work Ethics

    A couple of times spring to mind.

    Once when we had outsourced to India and some people thought they could still contact us, the onshore team, sometimes on our private home landlines. I spent about 3 months hanging up about 5 times a week, until they had to implement an on-shore on-call on top of their off-shore on-call. This was in France where the laws obout being contacted by work out of hours are fairly strict, so even hanging up on directors was perfectly reasonable.

    Another, although not technically an on-call call, when a manager insisted that something had to be completed with the utmost urgency as it was vital. Somehow, he didn't appreciate me phoning and waking him at 03h30 in the morning to let him know it was finished. My response when he asked why I was calling him ? "As it was so urgent, I assumed you would be still up waiting for my call to confirm that it was finished." Needless to say he never did anything remotely like it again.

    1. heyrick Silver badge
      Pint

      Re: Work Ethics

      "This was in France where the laws obout being contacted by work out of hours are fairly strict"

      Yup, we have the "right to disconnect" which means that outside of my contacted hours, NMFP (unless, of course, I'm being paid for it to be MFP, but I'm not so it's not).

      "waking him at 03h30 in the morning to let him know it was finished"

      And for that, an upvote and a beer. Well played.

  10. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Bill the department whose member of staff raised the call. Double rate at least, minimum 4 hours. There's no point in warning that you'll do this because morons like that will ignore the warning.

    I used to refuse on-call rotas on the basis that if you call I'll respond if at all possible but I won't undertake to sit by a phone all weekend or whatever - this in the days long before mobile phones. OTOH if I was called it would have been serious, usually nothing short of a murder enquiry.

    There was one exception when my local police station contacted me directly. They wanted an independent witness to the behaviour of a drunk in the cells. He'd already damaged one cell door - double layer of thick wood with a steel plate between the layers - by head butting it.

  11. Edwin

    Homeless?

    C'mon El Reg - reading your linked story, that "apparently homeless" family was homeless in only the most technical way - they couldn't move into their new house because of the Barclays glitch, for which the bank should perhaps be made to pay but the family is hardly destitute and sleeping rough...

    1. localzuk

      Re: Homeless?

      Did they have a home they could live in? No? Was it Barclays fault because of the system issues? Yes? Then they were homeless because of the Barclays glitch.

      1. FirstTangoInParis Silver badge

        Re: Homeless?

        Homeless due to bank snafu ... almost been there back in late 80s due to bank not clearing funds for house purchase on the Friday evening before a holiday weekend. Sitting there with a hired removal van to be returned next day and not being allowed keys, 100 miles from our previous des res. Fortunately it all went through last minute so we got keys and moved in.

        So yes it's a real thing. My sympathies to families affected by Barclays. Oh and charity accounts, both Natwest and Barclays are tortuous for changing signatories, but Barclays get extra rotten tomatoes for losing paperwork emailed to their mandate team by one of their own branches. Local county Building Society? Wha a breeze, how it should be.

    2. Altrux

      Re: Homeless?

      It nearly happened to us, during the previous Barclays IT glitch in 2016. Our house completion failed at 6pm on a Friday before a bank holiday festival weekend - there were no hotel rooms for miles. Our solicitor, thank goodness, was also a personal friend with a big house. So the 4 of us (including toddler and elderly m-i-l in tow) moved into their house for a few days, then a hotel later in the week, until we finally got our keys 6 days later. Thanks, Barclays - it cost them around £3k but we only ever got £500 in compensation out of them.

  12. NapTime ForTruth
    Pint

    Off-time phone calls? Ha, that's just the beginning.

    Back around the turn of the century I worked at a company that was pushing hard into an IPO. We were shepherded through the process by a team of cutthroat investors and stand-in leadership, and everything reliably sucked. The company philosophy changed from "kind, supportive, collaborative, and communicative" to very much "move fast and break everything (people included), fire anyone involved with the broken part, and repeat until successful".

    And, yeah, company or client calls flooding in 24/7, be sure to keep your cellphone on and be responsive.

    We burned through people like kindling. The reduction in headcount was sold as "lean attrition", demonstrating to potential investors that we were cutting away the dead weight and doing more with less.

    We pushed, god did we push. Ten hour days became fifteen became twenty became twenty-four. Dedication was measured in days without sleep or showers or change of clothes. We smelled like a frat house, we smelled like dead men.

    And our exhaustion built failure, with code as a side effect

    In the midst of this, and an entirely predictable divorce at home, I had a relatively minor heart attack lovingly distilled from pure stress and lack of sleep, was out of work for a couple of months, and returned not to my office but to the bullpen where new employees started and failing employees ended. I lasted maybe three weeks and hit the silk.

    A few weeks or maybe a couple or three months after, I received a call from my equally-cursed successor, a good colleague - smart, capable, great with people. One of our teammates had committed suicide on the eve of their planned wedding. He was a good man. We lost him to effing software.

    It is worth noting that this had no discernable effect on the great machine; it continued separating wheat from chaff and grinding each to powder. The IPO proceeded, remnant leaders succeeded. One former colleague acquired a gorgeous vineyard in Argentina, another executive bought a giant yacht and sailed around the world with his family.

    The point of this recitation, dear reader, is that "we need you to take some calls after hours" is a gateway drug, just a little taste to get you hooked, a loyalty test hidden in a nod, a wink, and a secret handshake.

    Don't sign up for that. Go do something sane and constructive that benefits you and the world around you as much as it does your clients or employers.

    Icon for raising a glass to absent friends.

    1. Old Used Programmer

      At one job, during the annual review, I was asked about my loyalty to the company. I replied that I was just as loyal to the company as the company was loyal to me. My boss really didn't like that answer, and--sure enough--during the next "reduction in force", I was one of the ones that was reduced, thus answering both questions.

      1. DJO Silver badge

        I once had to explain to a manager that respect is something you have to earn and is not part of his job description - he didn't like that one bit.

        1. OhForF' Silver badge

          That is just a tad more diplomatic than telling the CEO leading zeroes do not contribute to the result.

          1. Bebu sa Ware
            Thumb Up

            "CEO leading zeroes do not contribute to the result."

            Rather good!

            I initially read it as those being led amounted to zeroes† rather than in the arithmetic sense although 0100 conventionally evaluates to 64. :)

            Loyalty: God, King and country. None of which have ever offered y.t. renumerated employment and the rest can sod off.

            † the evergreen observation of peanuts and monkeys.

        2. Not Yb Silver badge

          Respect is easily lost, and hardly gained.

  13. SteveMC

    I once had a customer track down me by calling my parents' home number on a Sunday morning, on the off-chance that I was there! (The customer wasn't even a friend of theirs, my mum just happened to do some part time work at the place) Luckily they told the customer that no, they wouldn't be passing on the message, and they could wait until Monday.

    1. The Oncoming Scorn Silver badge
      Coat

      A colleague was always being called in at all hours day night weekend.

      He planned a night out with his wife to see a film, phone off halfway through the film... up comes the usherette..& whispers. "Are you Darryl... the plant wants you to ring them about an issue!"

      He had mistaken let slip he was going to see a film, so the plant rang the closest one to his address. He never did that again.

  14. GlenP Silver badge

    Small Departments...

    I've worked in, and managed, small IT departments for over 30 years and for much of that time I've effectively been providing 24/7 cover but with a caveat - I've nearly always been able to trust my colleagues to respect that and only seek help in emergencies.

    The most common out--of-hours call was at one employer where the night-shift in the warehouse would have password problems every few months, but they'd just text me and I could deal with the issue remotely in a few minutes (generally when I got pack from the pub!) That one was fair enough, 5 minutes of my time against a whole shift standing largely idle and missed deliveries.

    I had one manager though who tried phoning me three times successively at about 2am. I didn't answer, he should have known to leave a message after the first call but didn't. It turned out to be a problem with a spreadsheet that could easily wait until the next day. I let it be known that if he repeated that I would be raising a formal grievance.

  15. Old Used Programmer

    Not just phones...

    Back in the day when the company issued pagers to those on call--and some who weren't. I was asked to keep my pager on while on vacation. I agreed to do so, but didn't mention that I'd be camping in a remote valley in the Sierra Nevada that was certain not to have pager coverage...and, sure enough, didn't. I did leave the pager on, since I was asked to.

    I always made in plain that, if I were driving, I wouldn't respond to pages until I got to some convenient stopping place, such as my destination. I still hold to that principle with cell phones.

  16. trevorde Silver badge

    On call cash

    Worked for a company who were bought by IBM. They had a blanket "24/7 follow the sun" policy for support. As devs, we were in third line support. Our manager asked for volunteers to carry the Nokia featureless phone (aka 'Punishment phone') on the weekend for an extra £100. As expected there were no volunteers until we found out our customers worked a strict 9-5 week. After that, the phone was dubbed the 'Golden phone' and was shared amongst the now eager devs.

  17. Tubz Silver badge

    Used to get calls when not on a rota, until they realised that I charged them a minimum of 2 hours @ 4x anti-social overtime rate, even if call lasted 1 minute, they tried to refuse, until union threatened to sue them. It very soon went from a few calls a week to a couple a year for big stuff. In a way, sort of missed them paying for my yearly holidays, now that I left.

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just a little call

    I was in hospital for a time: put it this way, I'd been "feeling a bit tired' and went to the GP drop-in (yes, that long ago), who took a blood count, swore at me(!) and had me on a ward within the hour.

    As I lived alone, I was staying in for recovery when a nurse told me I had a phone call in the evening: a colleague, not part of my team but a friend who had worked with me at our prior company, had been pressured into calling. There was a serious problem with my code that had to be fixed immediately: it was crashing, spitting out a message nobody could understand. She was not happy about making this call.

    I ended up checking out before the recommended end of recuperation (mobile but with a pack of horse tablets to keep taking) and was on the bus to work the next day.

    Got in, sat down, started building the current code - team lead starts trying to nag me, I tell him I'm working on it (ok, kept staring at the screen during that conversation, but, hey, I do that anyway - nerd, not a people person).

    The code fires an assert in my C++ library, before spitting out any other form of message, incomprehensible or otherwise. Never mind, that at least is an easy way to get back into the flow (stack trace displayed as expected, all variables visible...) - and the assert had picked up that that is NOT a pointer to the right class. Back up the stack - and somebody has put in a C-style cast on that argument!

    At this point, my friend comes over and gives me the lowdown: yes, the assert was the incomprehensible message. None of the rest of my team, including the "he has more experience than you" team leader, knew what assert is or how to deal with it! The complaint had been made by the "programmer" who had put in the cast - his bit must be okay now, because the compiler error had gone away!

    I don't think that I swore, but said that I'd fix the code (i.e. figure out wtf that other guy should have passed across!) and then we could talk about it after everyone else was able to get using the blasted thing again.

    That afternoon, I was called into the CEO's office, with the team lead. "Was I sure that I was a Good Fit for the company?".

    I left ASAP - very lucky to quickly find a job at a University one city over. It had its own ups and downs, but nothing that - interesting.

  19. Jou (Mxyzptlk) Silver badge
    Windows

    Switches Employer 2018

    and while I have things to complain about (old age problem, German complain culture in general) there is enough to keep me. One of the things is: Not being on-call ACTUALLY MEANS not being on-call.

  20. Pascal Monett Silver badge

    I don't get called after hours, but . .

    When I was contracting for a rather important company in Luxembourg, I was part of the IT team and thus part of the Helpdesk ticket system.

    What I always adored was the guy filing a ticket at quarter to five on a Friday and, of course, there were never enough details to fully understand the problem and correct it.

    Invariably, when I called his desk to ask some questions about the issue, he was already gone.

    Well if he doesn't care that much about his ticket, it can wait for Monday.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A previous employer had us working 45+ hour weeks. Plant manager swore up and down that the overtime would go away at the beginning of the year. Nope, ended up as 50+ every week, working 6 days a week so the 4 of us had 20-hour-a-day, 6-days-a-week coverage with overlap for jobs that took 2 people. I finally went to my boss and told him that I wouldn't be working 6 days a week every week. His response was "you do what you have to do, but we'll do what we have to do", which I took to mean "if you're not here 6 days a week we'll initiate disciplinary action".

    Despite not being on call (officially, so only paid for time on site), we were routinely called during that 4 uncovered hours (2-6 AM, IIRC), often at least once per week. Typically for stupid, operator-caused issues. I stopped answering the company mobile - so they called our landline instead. My wife got fed up with it and answered the phone with "I don't care who you are, don't call us again! <slam>". So they started calling a different tech instead.

    It wasn't too long before he came in on a Monday morning to find my badge, keys, and mobile on his desk. I should have done it much sooner.

    Contrast to my current employer, who has us officially on call one week in three, has folks on site who can handle 90% of the problems without calling us, and has made it very clear that off-hours calls and work are STRICTLY for emergencies. (Salary position, so no additional pay for on-call or callout, but they do pay more than well enough to compensate.) My manager and co-workers have my personal mobile number, and rarely use it after hours, and only for actual emergencies.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I get paid to be on callout, so I don't particularly care (also I have no children to worry about, so the impact is minimal).

    BUT what I do care about is the pressure from C-Suite to do unpaid training on my own time 'because it will benefit the company'. They refuse to allow time during business hours, and the training suggested is of no benefit to me what-so-ever. It also doesn't seem to count when it comes to promotion prospects....

  23. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
    Happy

    Mentioned this

    in the past , but worth repeating.

    Emergency heart surgery..... the next morning , texted a collegue that I'm "still alive" yay.

    Then the boss finds out and calls me up in the afternoon, not to say get well soon, but "we got a problem.... you know howto solve it... must have information", needless to say I answered him in my best less than diplomatic way. dropped into work a month later with a sick note and blamed being out of my head on various drugs when I told him to 'go forth and fornicate with himself', he said "to be honest, I didn't really notice the difference between then and how you normally talk to me".

    Seriously, unless your contract states you are available(with extra payments for that) turn off your work phone and only answer work e.mails in work time.

  24. AVR Silver badge

    I think the worst I've had was when my manager called me when I wasn't on call and I didn't answer immediately. I'd been driving back from my father's house and left the phone off until I stopped 15 minutes later, when I called her back.. This was an entirely inadequate excuse in her opinion. She wanted me to admit I was in the wrong and beg for her forgiveness and was incandescent when I refused to do so.

    1. OhForF' Silver badge

      At that point i'd have handed her the company cell phone and asked for written confirmation she received it.

    2. tiggity Silver badge

      @AVR

      In the UK could have told her that driving whilst using a mobile is an offence.

      .. For those saying "..but hands free" - you can still be prosecuted if you are regarded as distracted* / driving dangerously.

      At 1 place I worked I had misfortune of occasionally being a passenger on site visits where a "boss" was driving - he would often take "hands free" calls when driving - the quality of his driving frequently dipped massively when he was talking on the phone.

      Like the commentard, I leave phone off & ignored while driving alone (if partner with me, I leave it on & she answers my phone & explains situation & that I cannot be disturbed whilst driving)

      * quite likely to be distracted in a phone call - a driving savvy passenger can see road conditions & know when not to chat as they can see road situation that needs lots of attention, whereas the person on the other end of the phone has no idea of driving conditions & so may well speak at a really bad time.

      1. Bebu sa Ware
        Windows

        In the UK could have told her that driving whilst using a mobile is an offence.

        And in many other jurisdictions except apparently from a previous comment in the ?? States of America.

        I wouldn't carry on any conversation except the most trivial whilst driving as I have found my brain ceases to apply the social filtering that a peaceful existence requires rather like being drugged with scopolamine or pentobital (truth serum.)

        For me driving needs the continuous, even if now largely automatic, integration of nearly a dozen inputs which still requires considerable concentration which can sabotage higher level language processing. eg The real answer to "When did you stop beating your wife?"† is unlikely to be a specific date.

        Took a few blistering rows to learn that lesson. :(

        † perhaps the definitive loaded question.

  25. nhOmega

    Work phone...

    I didn't have a work phone until... 5-6 years ago - and that was for the Nth time when my manager asked me if I want one. I was like - if the company feels I need one then sure, but it stays in the desk when I go home.

    I am unavailable when not at work - and even though I'm the only sysadmin here - it has worked fine 99% of the time.

    Sure on vacation people have my personal email(that I can filter if necessary) to contact me in case of an emergency - but that was in all used 3-4 times - with 1 of those being a true emergency(one of the switches failed) - luckily was already in the replacement stage for it so fired off a here's the offer, purchase it, replace it, I'll sort out any details after I'm back. I did have to come to the office same day(5 minute visit, and I live close enough to not care) because they managed to unplug the router and didn't plug it back in correctly... because you know... internet = network so why bother checking what exactly failed xD

    But that was like the only exception. That said I would love the bulk delete any emails while on vacation policy.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    simple.

    Work devices stay at work or, on the occasions I WFH, they get switched off and put away when I'm outside my contracted hours.

  27. Peter Ford

    Working for a small company, I was effectively always on call.

    Being the only system admin I made as sure as I could that things wouldn't break, and of course in a small company there was not too much to go wrong.

    Of course it only ever actually happened when I was on holiday. Three times.

    First time when I was staying with relatives in Canada (I'm UK-based): luckily the chap I was staying with had a Mac that I could SSH into the system and sort it out.

    Second time I was on a yacht in the Hebrides. That one had to wait, but it was a simple talk-through a restart operation with the boss.

    Third time was a proper breakdown while staying with the in-laws at Christmas - massive RAID array failure (RAID-6, but three drives failed in a cascade...). I could SSH in and recover enough to keep emails going, but it also had to wait until I could get replacement hardware and physical access and then recover from off-site backups. Again, small company and Christmas was a quiet time, so we got away with that.

    Now I work for a bigger company with more critical systems, and we have a rota: twenty-odd people taking the first call and a bunch of people who will work out-of-hours to fix something if they have to...

    1. mgb2

      Yeah, I've always been at very small companies. Usually everyone respected off hours and only called for a true emergency. When on vacation, I was backed up by either a past retirement age dev, or my PFY.

      - ESXi would, after a power cycle, sometimes think you might have moved or copied the VMs, and ask you about it. That message would suggest that the safe answer was to say you had moved it. This would create a new MAC address for each VM's NIC. Power had gone out, and the dev took the "safe" route, so none of the VMs were getting their reserved IP from DHCP. So that was a fix when I got to the hotel that night

      - In the early days of using Let's Encrypt, we had several systems that were getting up in age and not able to do automatic cert renewal. Had a manual process to deal with those, and the PFY seemingly had a handle on it. But he got himself completely wrapped around the axle when he was trying to do it, and of course the certs expired. So I'm sitting at one of the few places in Yellowstone with a cell signal trying to talk him through it. Successfully, I might add

      - While walking into the Newgrange visitor center, I get a call from one of our early morning office people saying the Internet is down. He was one of the people entrusted with a key to the closet, so I guided him through resetting things. He could have called the PFY, but honestly, better to call me at midday than him at 0600.

      - In the middle of nowhere at Hadrian's Wall, I get a call from the building alarm monitoring company. One of our folks decided to come in on a Saturday, and he never really had to deal with the alarm system and wasn't able to disarm it. So he called and I guided him through the process. He wasn't in a position to know I was on vacation, much less out of the US.

  28. MrBanana Silver badge

    It's Christmas!

    One year I got picked for the 3 day Christmas on-call shift. I wasn't going anywhere, easy double money, as no one had ever called before while we all celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus. But just before noon on Christmas day, I got a call. Yikes! this must be serious. It wasn't. "I think there is a problem with the SQL statement on page XXX of your documentation". Clearly this particular customer decided it was time to fully test the 24x7 nature of their support contract. Their first disappointment was that there was someone actually taking calls. Their second disappointment, no doubt, was that I insisted on going through the whole rigmarole of checking contract entitlements, logging the call, taking detailed notes, discussing their system configuration, offering suggestions, and generally keeping them on the line for a lot longer than they bargained for. I wasn't bothered as it was a good excuse to evade the "family fun" of playing charades.

  29. Big_Boomer

    Separation is vital, or burnout swiftly follows!

    Before I figured out to keep work and home life (and mobile phones) separate, I spent 3 consecutive weekends in customer server rooms up to my eyeballs in messed up SQL DBs. The following weekend the expected call came at 07:30 on the Saturday but I was at my sisters house at the other end of the country and was physically unable to help so someone else got dragged in. On Monday morning I was called in to the company owners office and before he started in on me I slapped an envelope on his desk. He angrily asked me what that was so I told him it was my resignation. That shocked him out of his impending tirade and set him right back on his heels. When he asked me why, I let rip with my tirade and to be fair he listened to it all. He then calmly told me he couldn't understand why I wasn't willing to work myself to the bone when all the other consultants were quite happy to work evenings and weekends. Turns out they all got share-bonuses, but because I had come up the hard way (via tech-support) I was not in the bonus scheme nor was I earning ANYWHERE near what the others were on despite doing the same job and doing it better (hence me getting called EVERY time the shit hit the fan!). He asked me to take my resignation back and I did, but the offer they made me 2 weeks later was still nowhere near what the others were getting, so I resigned, started a new job the day after I left and never looked back. Their loss.

    Since then I have never allowed any employer to take the piss. Some have tried and have received the "Sorry, I am 200 miles from home riding my motorcycle", or "Sorry, I have to take my partner to hospital" type of excuses (some real, some not). I am happy to work extra hours and am flexible with evening and weekend work, but I get time off in lieu for all extra hours worked and flexibility if I need time off during the week in return. Now I am only ever "on call" by pre-arrangement and for a limited period only.

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    SCIF life

    One benefit of working in a SCIF, you legally can't take your work home with you!

    1. Jou (Mxyzptlk) Silver badge

      Re: SCIF life

      Which SCIF (disambiguation)? You must be US, so I guess "Sensitive compartmented information facility". Don't assume your abbreviation is valid out of your SCIF.

  31. Andrew Scott Bronze badge

    bad timing with support calls

    had just been bought a Nokia phone so i'd always be available. Took two days off to see my niece graduate from high school in NY and hear Alan Alda give a speech. Got a call and had to leave the auditorium to take it and respond. Don't remember what it was, but not the first time. Driving back to work after visiting my Dad in a va hospital recovering from a broken neck and got a call that the server had swallowed an entire directory with its files. Was just getting back, and it turned out that someone moved the directory to a subdirectory when they decided to use a mac rather than a dos on a pc which didn't have that problem. used the mac to move it back to the proper position in the tree.

  32. Sparkus

    I once returned a pager

    to a group manager after their third-shift operators called me in on a "printer problem" that simply required a fresh box of fan-fold.

    The pager was frozen in a block of ice and being a 1980s vintage Motorola, worked fine after being defrosted. That, and a billing for multiple hours of time at double standard rates (after-hours, weekend, etc) I never had this problem again.

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Doing work outside of contracted hours, nah, you're alright thanks.

    Being at a loose end on a new year's eve once, I committed the cardinal sin of having a peek in work emails to see what I might be up against come the first working day back of Jan.

    Noticing the hundreds of unread emails and skimming over them I saw there was an issue. Out of the greater good I decided to email users to advise there was an issue, and here's the workaround if you need to access anything immediately, it shall be fixed in the new year otherwise. Message agreed with manager and out it goes, and users are grateful for the heads up.

    Does any good deed go unpunished? The company decided to slash headcount as part of its "enhancement plan", and I duly get the chop, along wth many others, in to the depths of redundancy where some of us are still swimming.

    That's gratitude for ya - won't be doing that again. You'll get my contracted hours and that'll be that, unless there are other paid arrangements.

    Oh, and never have work email/teams etc on your own personal phone, I've never succumbed to this trend, my own phone is my device. Some people in this organisation did and they were always by far the most frazzled/stressed out.

  34. Altrux

    Free support

    My previous place decided that a new 24/7 trading team (never part of our original plan) would need, you guessed it, 24/7 IT support. From a team of just 3 or 4 geeks. And no, we won't pay you anything extra, unless you actually deal with the problem, then we might give you £100 or something. So yeah, just spend every third weekend on call, within mobile coverage, and not too far away, out of the goodness of your hearts, OK? Sure, no problem! Funnily enough, lots of people left within the next year or so - including me.

    1. IanRS

      Re: Free support

      If you consider that 24/7 support is 7 days of 3x 8-hour shifts, then a week is 21 shifts. Most people work 5 of those, so 4.2 people for full coverage. Now allow for sickess, leave, etc and it is obvious that you need 5 people per support role. You might just get away with 4.75 if you have a large number of roles which can pull from the same pool of people. Anything less and you will get burnout or just piss them off. Either way, you will soon have no support team.

      It is obvious to anybody who thinks about it anyway. Unfortunately, some people don't think.

  35. IanRS

    Not even on call

    A long, long time ago (about 20 years) I got a call on my home landline at about 11pm. It was about a system I was highly experienced with, but I was not on call. I was never even on the on-call rota for that system. The manager calling me started off by shouting that it had taken a long time to even find somebody who had my number. I asked her if she had tried the online BT directory enquiries. I have a rare surname, and just guessing that I lived in the same county as the office was in would have reduced it to two numbers. The other was my uncle. She had not thought to try that. I asked if she had asked my immediate manager for my number. She had not. This was a shame, as he would have been rather robust in his response. I then explained that I was not on call and if she had any issues with me being about to end the call there and then she could complain to my manager, but that it would be better to wait until the morning. The only comment my manager made to me the next day about the incident was along the lines of "She will not call you out of hours again."

    I was fortunate at the time to have a good manager, who did not appreciate anybody bypassing the correct routes to get out-of-hours help: call the on-call mobile number, then the on-duty manager if that fails, then him (and sometimes he was the on-duty manager). In the last thirty years, I've only had two managers I would trust to cover my back like that.

  36. Yer wot?

    Living in rural Norfolk means that no one questions "sorry, my mobile was out of range" or "sorry, my home broadband's not working". We once genuinely had the problem that the home phone line (still copper) was trapped in the hinge of the roadside cabinet; we've also twice had the phone line pulled down by over-height lorries.

  37. Colin Bain

    Modern slavery

    Along with zero hour contracts and unpaid internships, the 24/7 expectations are nothing more than slavery. It seems nothing much has changed since Queen Victoria reigned

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