Are non on call IT jobs a rarity?

A recent thread posted on this forum in regards to the harshness of being on call got me thinking if being on call is something that most of us will have to get used to.

In my current job I work for a support department and am on call maybe once every 9 weeks. The on call can be a breeze or hell depending on if the overnight staff are there.

However, there are others in my company like database or server admins who basically work two full time jobs due to being on call 24x7. These are guys who are very commonly on 6-10 hour conference calls after hours when things break, or stress tests are taking place.

Seeing this horrible work/life balance makes me not even want to consider moving up into a higher position because the higher you are, the more you're expected to be available after hours and during the night. It also makes me rethink if I want to even continue in the IT field.

It appears the only department in my company who are not on call are the developers. This isn't a field I'm generally interested in but would pursue just to avoid the hellish on call expectations of other departments.

So is this something I should just come to expect if I decide to continue on? I don't mind my current rotation of once every 9 weeks too much but the thought of moving up and having zero work/life balance while having to sleep with one eye open each night really steers me away from this career choice.

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Comments

lsud00d

I've never been "on call" or in a rotation however I have been emailed/called after hours for production issues and during big deployments/upgrades if I am not directly involved then I am still "available" to an extent.

It moreso depends on the core business model, the amount of IT staff available, your position, and what your relationship is to these things. There are a few other factors but I find these few to be the biggest indicators of this need.

battletoad

Came in here to ask a similiar question. Although we dont have the very long conference calls. Im on a 3 week rotation with 3 other guys and it can be pretty bad. I enjoy this field I just want to get into a non after hours career.

boobobobobob

I have also never been officially "on call" before. I work a normal 9-5. But, if my network explodes overnight i'll definitely be pulling out my laptop. I think think this is true for all IT people, if your **** breaks and nobody else can fix it, you need to be available. The above scenario has only happened to be once before.

RouteMyPacket

tom_dub wrote: »

A recent thread posted on this forum in regards to the harshness of being on call got me thinking if being on call is something that most of us will have to get used to.

In my current job I work for a support department and am on call maybe once every 9 weeks. The on call can be a breeze or hell depending on if the overnight staff are there.

However, there are others in my company like database or server admins who basically work two full time jobs due to being on call 24x7. These are guys who are very commonly on 6-10 hour conference calls after hours when things break, or stress tests are taking place.

Seeing this horrible work/life balance makes me not even want to consider moving up into a higher position because the higher you are, the more you're expected to be available after hours and during the night. It also makes me rethink if I want to even continue in the IT field.

It appears the only department in my company who are not on call are the developers. This isn't a field I'm generally interested in but would pursue just to avoid the hellish on call expectations of other departments.

So is this something I should just come to expect if I decide to continue on? I don't mind my current rotation of once every 9 weeks too much but the thought of moving up and having zero work/life balance while having to sleep with one eye open each night really steers me away from this career choice.

Any Admin/Engineer that spends 6-10hrs on conference calls on a regular basis are pretty blatantly not very competent at what they do. I would dare say the underlying infrastructure design is ugly. Now sure there are always going to be times when you have to put in more hours, be it break/fix or planned maintenance schedules but to be doing it "regularly" and to the point it is like a second job is pretty funny actually.

Ok, so let me not be so harsh. People who we described above are either

1. Good Admin/Engineer stuck in a **** where they can make no true changes to improve the functionality of the enterprise and are relegated to break/fix only. Ugh!

2. They suck and refuse to accept that fact so they work twice as much as most people to attempt to compensate

I would think number one above would leave ASAP, people who fit number 2 have infested Enterprise environments and tend to thrive in them for years.

battletoad

Just out of curiosity to the guys saying they are never or rarely on call what kind of places are you working at? Im currently doing support for software based solely in hospitals so there is no off time for us. I would eventually one day like to get into a non on call position even if it means I have to leave tech support and jump into development (which would require me to go to school).

markulous

If you work at a remote MSP then I know it's not on-call. The pay is usually decent too.

RHEL

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to make anything near what I do in IT without being on-call unless I was in management. Sad.

certoi

You mean a good MSP^^. I work for one and the pay is crap and I am on-call every other week. When a server or network crashes and I am on-call at the time, I am the only one that have to get that device working....on-call sucks when stuff goes bad!

Mr. Meeseeks

My first IT job I was the entire IT staff. Hourly. Basically worked 40 hours a week a majority of the year. 60 hours per week during peak production. And basically on-call 24/7. The on-call part wasnt too bad. They didnt provide/pay for a phone so they quickly learned that they would be eating voicemail unless something went down.

Current job I am salary. Work 40 hours a week. They provide me with a cell phone but I think I have received about 2 calls after 5pm over the last 12 months. If I work 10 hours one day, I'll work 6-7 hours another day. We try to keep it balanced at 40.

So really it just depends on where you work. If you answer an ad stating OT and/or being on-call. You better expect being on-call quite a bit. If they dont mention it, I'd expect very little on-call duty.

Alif_Sadida_Ekin

And this is why I moved from support/administration to development. Less stress with more pay. I'll never go back.

Segovia

Alif_Sadida_Ekin wrote: »

And this is why I moved from support/administration to development. Less stress with more pay. I'll never go back.

This is usually easier said than done, but good job :P
I'm trying to learn some languages on the side, but I feel like it's not enough to know how to do it for a living.

jibbajabba

I.T. would include jobs like Consulta:nt, Architect, Project Engineer / Management etc. - no oncall there.

In all I.T. departments I worked for (MSP and Finance), on call was always part of it. Luckily we got a guy here who loves on call and takes everyone's so I don't have to (he's in for the money).

Jon_Cisco

There are plenty of options for avoiding excessive work hours.

If you are good at what you do and clear about your goals you should be able to make something work.

Being on call is not always bad. A lot of it depends on how often you are called upon and what is expected of you. If a server breaks and your the one that can fix it then go do it. If someones computer is slow and you get a call it's probably not gonna be a very good job.

Good Luck!

networker050184

The higher you get the less likely you are to be on call. It's been a few years since I've been on call, but I spent plenty of time as part of a rotation.

boobobobobob

battletoad wrote: »

Just out of curiosity to the guys saying they are never or rarely on call what kind of places are you working at? Im currently doing support for software based solely in hospitals so there is no off time for us. I would eventually one day like to get into a non on call position even if it means I have to leave tech support and jump into development (which would require me to go to school).

I'm a network engineer at a huge consultant company. The customer I currently work for is a huge corperation, with large data centers around the world.

tom_dub

networker050184 wrote: »

The higher you get the less likely you are to be on call. It's been a few years since I've been on call, but I spent plenty of time as part of a rotation.

I wish that were the case at my company. Managers get called more than the on call analysts do. Any time something breaks after hours a team of managers need to be woken up or called on the weekend so they can "manage the event" which includes sending out notifications to our customers and communicating with upper management. That also doesn't include being woken up at 3AM because overnight analysts have concerns or requests that only their team lead can address.

Lord knows there's a lot my company can change, and unfortunately upper management is more concerned about what color scheme our new building interior has or how to better brown nose the directors than the morale of its workers. I'm just hoping this isn't the norm since it's my first real corporate IT job.

jvrlopez

Haven't been on call as a contractor. If we stay late or get called in and work extra time, we have to either get that time off to stay at 40 hours a week or we get paid overtime (something that management does not like).

eLs

NOC monitoring for MSP and paid hourly and no on call but it is really shift work and pay can be better especially in NYC but cannot complain. Higher positions are on call but they do not get bothered much with having techs work overnight shift handling as much as they know first so all in all not bad.

gorebrush

My last role had some on call but now I work as part of 24/7, 12 hour shift rotation so i'm usually the man on point for Telecoms overnight.

down77

I haven't been on call for about 4 years now. Previous roles had me on call for about one week per month.

the_Grinch

IT is one of those jobs where you expect to be called at various times. I've never had an on-call rotation, but generally speaking any big issues I'd get a call about to fix. It honestly comes with the territory. Currently I am 8 to 4 no holidays and no weekends. But we had a deadline and I worked 15 hour days for awhile and odd shifts (3 pm to 3 am) to make sure things were running properly. For the most part it shouldn't be too often that problems occur and if they do then there are bigger issues to contend with.

tpatt100

Really depends on what you do and the company you work for. If you get called after hours sometimes because you are the "go to person" but it's infrequent then that's job security for you. If it's a frequent thing then your company needs to hire more people.....

The only time I experienced having to work when everybody was off was during the holidays and I was the only person cleared to perform log reviews and backups. It only meant I had to go in at least once during the break, I don't consider that "on call" though.

One place I worked had a rotational on call but it was rare anybody was called. Then when somebody was called it was obvious the "on call" procedure was a farce because the person that was on call had no experience with the problem and ended up calling several people to get help. After that management ended up making cross training a requirement.

--chris--

IT is one of those "it goes with the territory" kind of jobs. But there are lower level exceptions.

My new job has no on calls and its your basic Jr JOAT/road warrior working for a small MSP in a metro area.

I was told to expect to work early/late or possible weekends, but all are planned ahead of time.

--chris--

tpatt100 wrote: »

Really depends on what you do and the company you work for. If you get called after hours sometimes because you are the "go to person" but it's infrequent then that's job security for you. If it's a frequent thing then your company needs to hire more people.....

The only time I experienced having to work when everybody was off was during the holidays and I was the only person cleared to perform log reviews and backups. It only meant I had to go in at least once during the break, I don't consider that "on call" though.

One place I worked had a rotational on call but it was rare anybody was called. Then when somebody was called it was obvious the "on call" procedure was a farce because the person that was on call had no experience with the problem and ended up calling several people to get help. After that management ended up making cross training a requirement.

You bring up two great points:

On call should be for true emergencies. A decent tech should be able to find a workaround in a pinch for most issues. Use the workaround until the next day when more people are awake and able to assist with the issue then do some RCA and fix it proper.

In reality (IME) on call is turned into a 24/7 extension of the service you provide instead of emergency calls only.

Also like you have said, lots of calls during on call suggests another warm body is needed. I believe that is true. The place I am at now could really use a overnight shift for this exact reason.

citinerd18

As a network engineer I am on call once every 7-8 weeks. Most weeks are fine. I have only had 1 hell week when an exchange server crashed, other than that it has not been an issue.