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If only I was paid for all those "on call" hours when I was a sysadmin :)


Our team is paid no overtime, because we're considered "able to tend any emergencies and organize themselves if required" at off-hours too.

Well, our system almost never creates that kind of emergency, but we think this is a fair assumption.


> Our team is paid no overtime, because we're considered "able to tend any emergencies and organize themselves if required" at off-hours too.

Imagine a private business accepting these terms from a client.


The private business in question will suddenly find enough time to fix the repeating problems, in that case, eliminating the need for overtime.


My point is this would be an unfair clause, no private business would sign terms that would force them to work for free. Yet, somehow it's enforced and acceptable for private individuals.


In our case it's not enforced, and we're not under any 5 nines obligation.

On the other hand, we're a bunch of lazy sysadmins and don't prefer to work if it's not necessary. As a result, we design our systems for resilience, so any problem both doesn't get big, and can wait the next morning, or next Monday 99% of the time.

Also, we definitely love what we do, hence we sometimes choose to take some work off of our colleagues' hand on a slow night. So, I personally prefer to read a tech doc, learn something and apply to on our systems if I have nothing better to do instead of watching TV.

IOW, we're not losing sleep doing our job.

TL;DR: It's acceptability depends on the circumstances a lot. If the employer is abusing you with that stick, that's bad. Otherwise, I see no problem.


What kind of fucked up country lets you be on call without getting paid for it?


The kind that leads the world in software development and also happens to have the highest ceiling for take-home pay.


Which makes not being paid overtime for being on call even more appalling.


You know the answer to that.




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