[nucleardog]

I think it depends on the size and how organized you are.

Most of the smaller organizations I've worked at don't have an on-call schedule for various reasons, but I'd posit it's primarily that there aren't enough people for a good rotation.

One guy might be able to do something with a server in a pinch, but there's probably only one guy that deals with them as a regular part of his day.

Imagine if, instead of trying to find one 'unicorn', PA hired four separate positions: Server Admin, Developer, General IT, DBA.

Is it really all that effective to have the Server Admin picking up when the issue is that payments on the website have stopped going through? Or the General IT guy answering because the server's down? Sure, if someone gets hit by a bus the other people can probably put out fires if need be, but it's a lot more effective to have the person who regularly works on something and specializes in it working on it when possible.

The 'good' IT departments you're thinking of are probably large enough to have multiple employees in a role.

[scott_karana]

> I think it depends on the size and how organized you are.

This is the argument, of course. If four people were hired for the various jobs, as the post advocates, there could be a reasonable rotation of on-call responsibility.

There are three technicians at my organization (2000 users) and we get interrupted on-call only once or twice a year.