Yeah but I don't even want to have the pressure of being on call.
If you don't have on-call and you help out after hours everyone's appreciative. Might even get a small thank-you from the recognition portal for it, and "don't worry about that early meeting tomorrow, someone else will handle that". That kind of thing.
With on-call there's pressure all the time but it's not visible to anyone, and if you happen to be not immediately available everyone's angry. It's the total opposite in terms of experience.
So I try to be around when needed specifically to avoid having on-call commitments. As long as the occasional issue works out fine this way, nobody will bother setting up a formal on-call requirement. Most of my colleagues feel the same and it works out great. When shit hits the fan we're there anyway.
And the times I help out after hours... Plenty of times I'm not doing much during working hours, or have a personal things to do.. It's give and take. I love that flexibility.
I don’t even understand the label of on call. If you’re on call, you’re obligated to your employer. If you’re obligated to your employer, you should be getting paid.
If your employer wants to pay you for time that you spend at home doing non work stuff until they call, that’s up to them.
How is the pressure of “on call” any different than any other day at work? Unless you mean that your employer wants you to work 7 days a week, with 2 of them where you’re at home waiting to get a call. But then that issue is working 7 days a week.
This is not how it works in Europe. Usually you get some minimal stupid fee of say 50 euro per month for "being on call" (usually during one week per month or so) and you only get paid for the hours if something actually happens.
This is shit because the 50 bucks does not make up for the enormous loss of flexibility in your free time. Even if nothing happens your whole off-time for a week is restricted.
In Czech Republic and Slovakia it's at least 10% of your hourly salary. I've worked in a company where they payed 20% plus a fee of 50 euro or so to cover your connectivity cost. So a week of base Oncall was around 10% of your salary.
If you don't have on-call and you help out after hours everyone's appreciative. Might even get a small thank-you from the recognition portal for it, and "don't worry about that early meeting tomorrow, someone else will handle that". That kind of thing.
With on-call there's pressure all the time but it's not visible to anyone, and if you happen to be not immediately available everyone's angry. It's the total opposite in terms of experience.
So I try to be around when needed specifically to avoid having on-call commitments. As long as the occasional issue works out fine this way, nobody will bother setting up a formal on-call requirement. Most of my colleagues feel the same and it works out great. When shit hits the fan we're there anyway.
And the times I help out after hours... Plenty of times I'm not doing much during working hours, or have a personal things to do.. It's give and take. I love that flexibility.