[getmeinrn]

At one place I worked, I specifically asked in the interview if we would be on call. "Nope." Within 2 months of being hired, everyone on my team went on call, with no talk of compensation bumps. I was put in the awkward position of attempting to renegotiate my salary after just getting hired, or not being a team player. Don't let this happen to you.

It's good that you're thinking about compensation for this work, because it is work, it is extra, and it should never be done for free. Don't let your employer guilt you into it because "everyone else is on call too." Everyone should have a compensation bump then.

[thiht]

> on call, with no talk of compensation bumps

Is this legal where you live?

In my previous team, when we got on-call it was roughly 1 week per month (we were 4 in the team), we got an on-call phone, and we were compensated 600€/week of on call without counting the actual interventions. Just being on-call was paid. Having to intervene was compensated on 15 minutes « slices » based on our salary. So if I worked 5 minutes I was paid 15. If I worked 16 minutes I was paid 30. Also we legally needed 11 consecutive hours of sleep, so if I stopped working at 6PM and had to intervene at 0AM, I wouldn’t come to work the next day before 11AM. Oh, and week-end/holiday interventions were paid double.

All of this made sure we almost never had to intervene, because making sure the prod doesn’t break, ever, was top priority.

[SheinhardtWigCo]

> Don't let this happen to you.

What can you really do if they lie in the interview?

[kcplate]

In a nearly 40 year career one thing has been constant for me…your position will always change and evolve beyond what you were told in your interview. That leaves you with the options to either adapt to the new normal, to reject the change and move on, or to try and renegotiate (and good luck with that last one).

[kgwxd]

> I was put in the awkward position of attempting to renegotiate my salary after just getting hired, or not being a team player.

Stop letting them make you feel bad for renegotiating salary after the job description changed, and call them out on the complete bullshit "team player" phrase. If they fire you, might suck for a bit, but hopefully you'll end up better off. If they keep you, start looking for another job ASAP anyway. Good companies don't play those games, fuck them.

[alex_lav]

They say they don't have an on call rotation. You say you want some amount increase during on-call rotations included in your offer, even though they don't currently do an on call rotation. If they push back, you say "Well you don't have an on-call, so if it never comes up it never comes up". If they flatout refuse, they intend to have you work for free.

[kcplate]

If you want to get paid by the hour, choose a gig that pays you hourly. If you choose a gig that pays you a salary and is exempt (like many SWEs)…well, you are not technically working for free no matter if you are working inside or outside your regular working hours.

[piva00]

That's a very weird view of what a salaried position means. I'd even say very US-centric, since most other developed countries consider a salaried position as being paid for a certain amount of hours worked per month, there are limits on hours worked because if not there's nothing limiting the employer on requesting you to work as many hours as they please ("I pay you a salary, of course you need to work 14h/day").

In most parts of the globe, yes, you are working for free in this case, your contract does not stipulate you are available to work at all times, or more than the allocated hours per week/month of your contract. If there's a need for work outside of these hours they are considered overtime.

On top of that, on-call work disrupts your life outside of work, you can't do anything that requires complete disassociation from work life since you can be paged at any time, not paying a premium for this type of alertness and labour is pure exploitation.

[kcplate]

I am definitely speaking of US definitions of exempt and salary. Here in the US if your role is categorized that you are both exempt and salaried (most states this allows companies to categorized SWEs this way), you are not paid on the number of hours worked. So that said, if you only work 20 hours instead of 40, you are paid the same as if you work 80 instead of 40. The logic is that over the course of a year you will likely average 40.

[alex_lav]

It's very normal to have on-call and overtime stipulations in employment contracts for salaried positions.

[kcplate]

Sure, but it’s also very normal not to as well. Positions evolve.