Inquiring minds want to know:
How often are you on-call?
What are your on-call hours?
Do you get extra $$$ when you have pager duty and/or respond to pages?
How quickly must you respond to a page/show up at work?
Can you give/trade your duty to co-workers?
Do you like/hate being on call? (etc, etc…)
How often are you on-call? Every day when I’m at work.
What are your on-call hours? 24/7/~183ish
Do you get extra $$$ when you have pager duty and/or respond to pages? Nope
**How quickly must you respond to a page/show up at work? **5-10 minutes
Can you give/trade your duty to co-workers? Nope
**Do you like/hate being on call? ** Love it
If there’s some sort of geological emergency on my oil rig, I have to deal with it. I suspect I’m not your average on-call kinda guy 
Inquiring minds want to know:
How often are you on-call? One month per quarter.
What are your on-call hours? Evenings/nights, weekends, company holidays. In other words, any time outside normal business hours.
**Do you get extra $$$ when you have pager duty and/or respond to pages?
** Overtime (1.5 times regular pay) while responding to pages.
How quickly must you respond to a page/show up at work? We have no standard rule for that beyond just calling the person who sent the page ASAP, then actually dealing with the situation ASAP.
Can you give/trade your duty to co-workers? Yes, if some situation occurs that makes it impractical to be on-call for some period of time.
**
Do you like/hate being on call? (etc, etc…)** At this time I am at a “I can live with it” state, not really liking or hating it.
One additional question:
How often are you called?
It varies. I was on-call last month, and was paged just twice. But both were the same night, about the same problem.
There was one month I think a couple years ago I didn’t get any pages at all.
Another extreme was one month roughly two and a half years ago when I got paged every night for a solid week. Ah, the joys of sleep deprivation. (Unfortunately, at that time I was NOT eligible for overtime pay.)
How often are you on-call? Three people including me form a rotation. We each are primary on-call for our system for half a month, secondary for half a month, then off for half a month.
What are your on-call hours? 24/7.
Do you get extra $$$ when you have pager duty and/or respond to pages? I get $525 extra for the half month I’m the primary on-call.
How quickly must you respond to a page/show up at work? I am expected to respond by phone within a half hour, and to be logged on working on the issue within an hour. If I can’t do that, I involve the secondary on-call person.
Can you give/trade your duty to co-workers? Yes, within the three person team.
Do you like/hate being on call? (etc, etc…)I don’t like it or hate it. I don’t get paged often, usually once or twice during a two week stint. It is unpleasant when it happens while I’m sleeping, or while I’m doing something personally important, but the extra money is pretty good compensation for that. On rare occasions, it can be an ordeal when a difficult to repair outage occurs.
I’m on-call 24/7, unless I hire backup to do it for me, which I do a couple of times a month so I can go out of phone range. I have one guy certified to do it too, who I have hired, but nobody else I can dump it on.
I don’t exactly get paid extra for it, but my bid for the contract took that into account.
I have to be within an hour of my job, but practically, things could go terribly wrong if I were as far as 45 minutes away, so I stay closer. I can juggle it a little though - I can tell when things are likely to erupt or not, and go do stuff on the down time.
It gets old sometimes, but the overall money for the contract is well worth it.
How often are you on-call? ~10 days a month. Less when we have more people.
What are your on-call hours? From 8pm till 730am
Do you get extra $$$ when you have pager duty and/or respond to pages?
$50/night for being on standby, 4hrs regular time if I get called in. Usually a callback takes about an hour
How quickly must you respond to a page/show up at work? ASAP.
Can you give/trade your duty to co-workers? Yes, if they’re willing to take it. There’s only two other people who can take it at the moment and they each have to do 10 days a month too.
Do you like/hate being on call? (etc, etc…) Hate it when I get woken up, love it when I get paid.
How often do you get called? Extremely variable. This past week I haven’t been called in once, which is pretty unusual. Generally, you can expect 1 callback a night. If something bad happens, you can be in all night.
How often are you on-call? Semi-randomly - it’s about one week every two months.
**What are your on-call hours? ** 24/7
Do you get extra $$$ when you have pager duty and/or respond to pages? Just standard overtime pay if called. Nothing extra just for being on call.
How quickly must you respond? Pages are via cell phone. If an incoming call goes to voicemail, it’s bad. If I’m not able to log in remotely within 15 minutes, it’s also bad.
Can you give/trade your duty to co-workers? Yes - that’s why it’s one week every two months or so.
Do you like/hate being on call? HATE IT! Having to be within 15 minutes of logging in puts a big ol’ crimp on being able to do things like go out for dinner or even go grocery shopping. Fortunately, third-level calls are pretty rare, but when they come in, they’re pretty serious problems.
How often are you on-call?
All the time that I’m not on vacation.
What are your on-call hours?
24/7
Do you get extra $$$ when you have pager duty and/or respond to pages?
Nope
How quickly must you respond to a page/show up at work?
10 minutes to respond to a page, 1 hour to get into work if need be.
Can you give/trade your duty to co-workers?
Used to, back when there were other people at my level of management.
Do you like/hate being on call? (etc, etc…)
I don’t hate it, it’s mostly meh. But it is the worst part of my job.
1st call 9AM-3PM M-F Even months
2nd call 9AM-3PM M-F Odd months
2nd call the rest of the time (nights & weekends) Even months
3rd call the rest of the time (nights & weekends) Odd months
I call in when I’m able, I never have to actually go in, only give phone orders.
I get no extra pay for it.
Exceptions: I’m not on call when I’m on vacation or out of town (by pre-arrangement).
It’s pretty easy call. Daytime is quiet, because usually other docs take care of the problems. Only if no doc is available at a particular clinic will they call me.
The nights and weekends call is always backup only; and if the 1st call doc is unavailable, he’ll have to tell me why: The 1st call nights and weekends doc DOES get extra money for the duty. I don’t.
I hated being nights and weekends 1st call, because we do it a week at a time. Miserable! I’m glad I don’t do that anymore.
How often are you on-call?
All the time that I’m not on vacation out of the country (Vacations in-country are variable).
What are your on-call hours?
24/7
Do you get extra $$$ when you have pager duty and/or respond to pages?
No
How quickly must you respond to a page/show up at work?
There’s no actual standard, but I generally respond within 10 - 15 minutes.
Can you give/trade your duty to co-workers?
Yes, when I’m going to be out of the country on leave.
Do you like/hate being on call? (etc, etc…)
I don’t really mind too much; I don’t get paged too often.
How often are you on-call?
~350 days/year
What are your on-call hours?
24/7, normally results in 30-50 hrs of work per month
Do you get extra $$$ when you have pager duty and/or respond to pages?
Nope, I’m salaried
How quickly must you respond to a page/show up at work?
I have to answer the phone/email immediately. Normally, it takes 15 minutes to 2 hours to resolve whatever needs attention.
Can you give/trade your duty to co-workers?
Yes, we typically cover about 2 weeks per person per year, a few days at a time.
Do you like/hate being on call? (etc, etc.)
Despise it, but the rigs drill 24/7 and I’d much rather live in my house than in the field.
I guess I’ll play…
How often are you on-call?
One week out of four I’m primary, one week out four I’m secondary.
What are your on-call hours?
24/7
*
Do you get extra $$$ when you have pager duty and/or respond to pages?*
I wish. No such luck.
*How quickly must you respond to a page/show up at work?
A telephonic response is expected in 20 minutes. Serious troubleshooting (i.e., login and start looking for network problems) within the hour. Normally, we’re way faster than that.
*
Can you give/trade your duty to co-workers?
We can, but it’s surprisingly rare. It confuses the first-line supporters, anyway.
Do you like/hate being on call?
Hate it. But it’s part of the job, I knew it when I picked this field of work, and that’s that.
*How often do you get called? *
Highly variable. Some weeks pass by without a single call outside normal hours, some weeks have a call or more every freakin’ night. Very much depends on how the network behaves and how clueless the 2nd-level supporters are that night.
Thanks for your replies!
Now that I have a bit more time, I can answer my own questions:
I have the duty one week a month.
During the week, I’m on-call from 0030–0700, and 24hrs on the weekend.
I get $100/wk “standby” pay. If I spend more than 15 minutes responding to a page, I get 3 hrs pay minimum.
I’m obligated to call in within 15 minutes of being paged. If my physical presence is required in the Data Center, I have to be on-site within 60 minutes.
As far as trading/giving away pager duty – our supervisor leaves it up to us. It says a lot about our crew that someone will always volunteer to cover for vacations, weddings, etc.
I hate being on call, mostly because I can’t really do anything on the weekend. I don’t get paged very often, but I don’t enjoy the week-long, low-level subliminal stress that I feel when carrying the pager.
**How often are you on-call? **
It rotates monthly among 5 of us.
What are your on-call hours?
From the time I get off to the time I come back in.
Do you get extra $$$ when you have pager duty and/or respond to pages?
If I have to drive, I can get reimbursed for my mileage.
How quickly must you respond to a page/show up at work?
No written down time limit, you get judged in hindsight.
Can you give/trade your duty to co-workers?
Yup.
Do you like/hate being on call? (etc, etc…)
It doesn’t really matter. I get calls even when I’m not on call… just because I know the answers to various questions. I even get calls from someone else on call sometimes when they don’t know something.
How often are you on-call? All the time
What are your on-call hours? 24/7
Do you get extra $$$ when you have pager duty and/or respond to pages? $50 each time I get a call
How quickly must you respond to a page/show up at work? It’s not a page, it’s a phone call…so I have to answer the phone and / or go to the program.
Can you give/trade your duty to co-workers? I have a back-up. If I’m not home, the call goes to the next person.
Do you like/hate being on call? I’ve never gotten a call so it really hasn’t effected me one way or the other.
How often are you on-call? Every third week.
What are your on-call hours? 24/7
Do you get extra $$$ when you have pager duty and/or respond to pages? Standard pay if working from home. OT 2 hour minimum if I have to come in, plus mileage. Plus a buck and a half an hour while on call and not on regular clock.
How quickly must you respond to a page/show up at work? 30 minutes to contact customer and get ticket updated. Resolving issue asap thereafter.
Can you give/trade your duty to co-workers? Yes. I cover for the guy with kids in scouts fairly frequently.
Do you like/hate being on call? (etc, etc…) I’m a bit grumpy at 3 in the morning, but otherwise it’s okay.
How often are you on-call? About every eight weeks, for two weeks at a time.
What are your on-call hours? 24/7 - but really just from 5 p.m. to 8:30 a.m. Every day, though.
Do you get extra $$$ when you have pager duty and/or respond to pages? Nope. I would submit for mileage for any travel though, as I would for any time I use my car for work.
How quickly must you respond to a page/show up at work? It depends. Most pages can be taken care of with a few phone calls. I’m in a property management office. There was a fire, once, when I was on call, but the property manager whose property it was drove out to the scene as requested by the fire department. (She’s a property manager, I’m not, and she lives closer to the site of the fire.)
Can you give/trade your duty to co-workers? Yes.
Do you like/hate being on call? (etc, etc…) I hate it, actually. If I wanted the responsibility, I would have taken the property management course and gotten my licence. I feel like I can’t have a drink after work as I’d need to be able to think clearly, make decisions, and perhaps drive to the site of a problem.
When I was in university I had a part-time job at the answering service in town. We answered the office phones after hours for businesses and doctors (and real estate offices), and sent out pages. I used to page messages to the duty pager for the property management division of the company I now work for. And now it’s me carrying that very pager! I didn’t see this in my future. (It’s still the same pager, too–no reason to upgrade it…)