Have you ever had a job that required you to be on "standby"?

[Yah-Tah-Hey]

When my generating unit went down with mechanical problems, I was often out there doing my part getting the unit back on line. Big $$$$$ being lost, especially if we were laying off power on the open market. Like knowing where a metric oil line fitting on a German designed fan might be. Only had to have that bite me in the rear once. From then on, I knew where two reposed. One in the warehouse(maybe) and one in my cubicle locker(most definitely).

 

[Yah-Tah-Hey]

Yes, when I was the , "chief fixer of everything that could go wrong" in IT 20+ years ago. I learned a lot that has served me well since then, but it was majorly intrusive in everything I did. I was the guy who would get there at 4:00 in the morning and stay until midnight if needed. Pretty soon it was mostly on me, as the other people I worked with didn't care to work that hard and didn't care to learn deep and wide. I don't miss wondering how many times my pager or cell phone would ring and at what time any day.

That 'deep and wide' I have found works both ways, but mostly worked for me except for some cranky shift supervisor who would call people out trying to trouble shoot the problem and didn't know squat.

 

[zzyzzx]

If I were paid extra for it, I wouldn't mind it so much. Otherwise it's objectionable.

 

[JeffKeryk]

If you wanna play with the big boys, you gotta be in charge of something mission critical.
You just might have to drop everything and get on a plane at any time.

Or you can be an "8 to 5" guy and just collect your paycheck.
Your call.

 

[CleanSump]

Just everyday business in DOD. Even civilians on the watchbill in many offices I've worked in.

 

[PWMDMD]

Every 3rd week I'm on-call. This means I have to stay within 1 hour of the office, I can't get hammered, and my cell phone stays on 24-7 during that week. We rotate on-call holidays and some years that means I'm eating Thanksgiving by myself while my family is at my in-laws 2.5 hours away. Sometimes this means going out to dinner and bringing two cars in case I need to leave. I knew this when I picked this profession.

 

[Chris142]

When I drove a propane truck we rotated weekends on call. If we got called to deliver just once we got a full days pay. I didn't keep a full load as hauling that much weight made for a long trip if I had to go into the hills or something. Only had about 500 gallons on. Enough to get someone enough gas till they could schedule them in a few days later.

 

[P10crew]

In power generation I was on standby 24/7. All of management was.

Same here. Power transmission 40 years

 

[methusaleh]

I was a supervisor with one of the big three letter federal law enforcement agencies. I was expected to carry a roster of the recall info for all of my employees at all times.

I had been at a baby shower with an open bar for quite a few hours when my work phone rang. Thankfully my boss’s boss who was calling was sympathetic that I had had a few drinks and was in no condition to be calling employees. It was a weekend late night drill to see how quickly we could reach all of our employees.

Awkward, but I survived.

 

[svtrit]

There is blue collar standby and white collar standby.

On the white collar front, career wise its started when I hit VP Global sales at a fairly large public or private company you are essentially on call eternally.

CEO also creates an on call reality beyond that.



UD

I was in a role at one time where I believed the C-suite worked 24-7, as they had no boundaries on contact. I had a Conference Call at 2am one time. Glad I was traveling, as I think my wife would have not made that a comfortable call.

Also got the “be there tomorrow” calls that involved expensive airline tickets or late night driving.

Glad to not be living like that anymore.

 

[vwmaniaman]

I was on call for many years and yes it takes away your family plans. I had an MRI with a phone dialer on it that would call me if it saw an alert. Can't say how many night that thing called me for chiller problems. Nobody else in my area was trained on it. Finally got a different job with the same company and worked from home for 3 years before taking retirement.

 

[Dave Hess]

Every 3rd week I'm on-call. This means I have to stay within 1 hour of the office, I can't get hammered, and my cell phone stays on 24-7 during that week. We rotate on-call holidays and some years that means I'm eating Thanksgiving by myself while my family is at my in-laws 2.5 hours away. Sometimes this means going out to dinner and bringing two cars in case I need to leave. I knew this when I picked this profession.

Sounds like you’re a doctor ?

 

[javacontour]

Funny this should pop up today.

I have to spend a few days in Milwaukee next week as they have two engineers and one is out sick and the other had a trip planned with his son. So I get to shag calls in a metro I'm not normally in.

So I'm picking up an extra three days of standby coverage, away from home, in Wisconsin in February.

Why couldn't it have been the Alabama Gulf Coast, LOL.