[praptak]

"If you are being paid specifically to put work in front of your hobbies"

...then it is most probably illegal in quite a lot of countries. Labor codes exist for a good reason. Most people are a) employees b) not willing to put life ahead of work and c) not willing to be forced to by competition from desperate/workaholic co-workers.

Database uptime employees work shifts, so even they should not be forced to put life before work.

[randyrand]

I suspect you are wrong about legality, but lets put that aside.

Do you think it's reasonable to expect a CEO to put work in front of hobbies?

[johnnyhillbilly]

Not as a goal in itself, no. In the case of real priorities, yes. In the case of apparent priorities, no.

Nevertheless, how numerous are CEOs compared to other employees?

[rhizome]

By whose authority are you imagining that expectation is enforced?

[lsc]

Pager jobs at smaller companies are often not on shifts. Larger companies are usually much more realistic about it. Larger companies tend to give you shifts, along with the better compensation and more realistic expectations, at least in my experienice.

Legally, as an exempt employee, at least in California, my employer is in the clear. Hell, I believe they do it to hourly workers, too. I have worked in the computer industry my whole life, but I am told that it is not uncommon for minimum wage jobs to insist you come in at unexpected hours to cover unexpected events.