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I've been the on call engineer on my team for 75+% of the last year (most of my team is contractors, new hire not onboarded to on call rotation yet, etc.).

It's not an issue because we don't break prod. I also feel I'm well compensated. When there have been issues at inconvenient hours, my manager has encouraged me to take it easy after resolving the incident. We've also prioritized improving our integration tests and addressing other issues noted during root cause analysis (RCA), which I suspect is why we haven't had any incidents in recent memory.

If on call duties are this frustrating, I'd argue it's team/organizational dysfunction that is the real problem, and bad on call shifts is just one of the symptoms.

Ultimately, somebody needs to be available to fix a production incident. One person suffering from on call duties is better than thousands of paying customers suffering from broken software.

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alemanek 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

On call even if you aren’t actually called is still a burden. No drinking or other impairing substances. Need to be available and ready to help on weekends. So unable to disconnect and go on a hike or some other activity without internet and your laptop.

75% on call even if I was never called would be profoundly unhealthy for me. So I wouldn’t dismiss the toll of just being available 24/7.

EDIT: I forgot to mention I am on an on call rotation but it is 1week on and 7 weeks off. So, not too horrible.

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nosefurhairdo 2 days ago | parent [-]

This is a good point. I am fortunate to have a good manager who recognizes the unfair burden. I have missed a pagerduty notification before, which my manager dealt with. The incident did not appear to affect my subsequent performance review, as evidenced by top of band compensation.

I would expect stricter accountability with a more reasonable on-call schedule.

	▲	darkwater 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Congrats, you have a very good work ethic but a very poor personal health ethic. I was like you, and probably still am deep below, and I will fall again in the same trap. But please, try to think about flipping your point of view here and instead of being your manager generous and your company good for not taking into account the time you failed to answer on duty, think about how you are being exploited covering 75% of on duty alone, and the money the company didn't loose just because of you. And how much of that money you got.

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11mariom 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I used to be 50% on-call and it was exhausting. I was just glued to my backpack with laptop in it. It just was BAD.

Even that I had very good manager and if something broke at night I could just disable all the morning alarms and get to office when I wake up… but still. Having all the time in head that you're responsible… nope.

When I stopped being on on-calls it was like HUGE breath to take, and clean the head. I feel a lot better now.