Does anybody here have an SO who has to be on call for their job? How do you cope with it?
My boyfriend recently transferred to a job that’s on-call. Whenever I get bummed about him having to leave, my friends will inevitably remind me that it’s not his fault. I know it’s not his fault (well, technically taking the job is his fault, but he loves his job and I don’t hold that against him). But even if it’s not his fault, it’s still upsetting when he has to cancel plans or stay out all night, and it’s still annoying having to go places in two separate cars in case he has to leave.
I know better than to try to look for sympathy from other dopers. We all have our relationship problems, and this is far tamer than problems that many, if not most, couples have to deal with. But if anyone has advice on how to handle your lover having to randomly run out on you, you have a captive audience here.
I’m the one who sometimes has to be on-call in our relationship. We try to think of it as extra not-at-work time. After all, I could be actually at work that whole 24 hours, but instead I’m home for at least some of it. Sometimes all of it. And still getting paid!
And we try not to schedule things that need to be cancelled during my on-call times. On-call time is time spent at home, cleaning together or watching movies or surfing the internet or working on jewelry/chain maille/projects that can be quickly abandoned. That way there’s less FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) around the whole thing, and it doesn’t disrupt things all that badly.
But I only work on-calls for, at most, 72 hours in a row, and that only around major holidays. I’m sure it’s harder for people for whom on-call is regular and longer.
Went to a party last night. A potluck. Wife was going to make a complicated dish, buuuuuut…she got called in to work (hospital, busy with flu patients).
So I picked up some hummus and chips and dip from Trader Joe’s, had a great time at the party, and fielded a LOT of “Hey, where’s the wife? Had to run into work again?”
Just remember that however bad it sucks for you, it sucks way worse for him. How’d you like to be out for a great time with your boyfriend and then YOU get a call and have to not just cancel the plans for great fun, but leave to go back in to WORK?
Hmm. That’s an interesting take on things. My man loves his job, but if plans got canceled I’d rather do whatever the hell I want than go to work, no matter how much I love my job.
Yeah, we’re mainly just grateful that he doesn’t have to go in any more often than he does. We did three years of in-house call two to three times a week, where he was at the hospital the whole time and we couldn’t even talk on the phone for five minutes without the bleeping beeper going off. We did a few more years of him being the primary person on call for a pretty large primary care practice, where he very seldom had to go back in, but he got calls approximately every 45 minutes. (Unless we were trying to eat a meal or have sex, when the calls came about every 5 minutes.) During the first patch, I was working night shift at an animal ER and we sometimes went a couple days without ever laying eyes on each other. The second patch, I was working at a regular vet clinic and was also on call a fair bit of the time. Now I don’t ever have call, and he has residents who mainly just call if they need a little backup. No matter what gets interrupted or canceled, no matter how often, it’s still orders of magnitude better than what we’ve had in the past.
And what she said about not scheduling that much during call.
Don’t mean to sound rude so apologies in advance, was just wondering, why make plans at all on nights you know you/your SO is on call? Do you/they not get normal days off which you can designate the going out/doing stuff nights, and use the on-call nights as potential extra nights in?
~90% of the time I am on call I do not have to do anything other than maybe make a phone call. Why not go out and have fun? Plus, personally, I am “on call” 24/7/340.
Ummm … I’m trying to think of how to explain this without divulging too much on the internet. He works in law enforcement. This means:
(1) Every other week of the month, he’s on the primary on-call team, and not making plans for an entire week would be worse than having plans canceled, in my opinion.
(2) On the weeks that he’s not on the primary on-call team, he still will be called in occasionally, just not as frequently.
(3) He’s supposed to have weekends off, but he’ll sometimes be called in because some local sports team won and they have to be on hand to control possible rioters, or there will be a big concert at a stadium and he needs to come in for security. I try to keep an eye on the stadium he’s responsible for, but occasionally there will be an event at a local college, and it just becomes too much to keep track of. (I guess this last thing is not so much “on-call” as finding out that a weekend I thought he had off is not off.)
ETA: Also, what Kayaker said. Except for the part about only having to make a phone call.
SWMBO and I are both in that boat. She will have the occasional hair-on-fire crisis that she has to control and won’t get home till after midnight. I have the occasional hair-on-fire server crash that I have to control, same problem.
We cope. It’s about communication; we let each other know ASAP and…we cope. There’s no other way to put it.
Not technically on call, but for the last couple of years Mr. S had to work tons of overtime, often with little or no notice, and lots of weekends. Our social life was in the toilet, and I did the “Where’s Mr. S?”/“He’s working” bit a LOT.