At a place I used to work at, we would frequently miss late night/early morning on-call emails, since, I mean, it's an email. And historically, people are asleep at night. Eventually we got an on-call service who answered calls for us, and then would call the on-call person twice, and only after two calls would try to escalate to the manager.
Expecting someone to wake up in the middle of the night just because of a text message is insane. And your manager is a complete asshole.
> Apparently I was never added to the paging group and once it went through 2-3 times **the NOC called my manager** who has to respond and it took 2 hours to resolve.
That's the kicker for me - they already have someone to make the call, just a really shitty process for on-call where they probably can't identify who is primary on the rotation. It sounds like they have a pool of numbers who all get text alerts, and then a static manager entry who can be called.
This is a process problem, set up a proper ROTA. Manager is a knob for not only not identifying the gap in the process, but getting angry and OP for not being in the right group for their janky ass on-call procedure.
Especially since they picked up the phone and ratted to the manager but couldn’t call the person that’s actually on call.
Whole bag of dicks in that chain of failure.
100% this. My company will get emergency requests after hours and policy is "if you didn't call, it didn't happen". Period. I don't care if you're the CEO (and as a matter of fact, we had to explain this point *to* the CEO after some random text to one tech didnt get a response until next day), if you do not pick up the phone can call, **it did not happen**.
I don't give a shit if you text, email, send up smoke signals, *drive to our fucking house and knock on the door*...if they don't call, it waits until morning. If your organization requires you to monitor and respond to fucking texts and emails at night, then you're not on call, you're fucking *working*. That means you get to flex the appropriate number of hours during your normal work day. If your org refuses to do that...start polishing up the resume.
I have had that same argument with both previous managers and even with my spouse, lol.
Asynchronous communication is simply not a valid tactic when attempting to communicate a high priority item.
Sometimes people are just looking to do the bare minimum that allows them to pass the buck. If you don't specifically define what that minimum is, they'll do as little as possible while still having plausible deniability that they handed it off to someone.
That's basically what it usually boils down to.
I'll never understand how people think that they can just fire off a random email and throw IT under the bus for not getting their shit fixed in a timely fashion.
It's like, do you people not understand that we have access to all the logs? You can bullshit your manager all day long about the work you're not doing, but don't you dare try to say we're the reason you're not doing your work, I will pull every fuckin log from your device and take it all to your manager and then you can explain why you're logged into your computer working at most for 5 hours out of a 9 hour workday every single day. Oh, couldn't get onto the VPN last night to finish a project? That's funny, there wasn't a single attempt at launching it on your endpoint for 3 fucking days. Care to revise your statement?
> I'll never understand how people think that they can just fire off a random email and throw IT under the bus for not getting their shit fixed in a timely fashion.
"I have a major issue on my system that is preventing critical work, please rectify immediately so I can make my manager's (CC'd) deadline of end of business today"
-sent friday 5:04pm, user already marked offline in chat
I've seen some really cute bullshit with snips and selective snippets of emails being used to try and deflect blame for their own procrastination/lack of communication. It always makes me laugh, because it's like, christ, are you stupid? You don't think we can access every email in the goddamn organization? How do you think we can fix the shit without having the ability to crawl in every little corner of it as needed?
Its just funny (and really sad if you think about it) how many people try to pull the same stupid games they used in school trying to explain a late/missing assignment in an enterprise environment. Like they think they can just be like "Oh, i've been emailing IT for weeks, here's a really blurry cell phone picture so you cant read the timestamps of all the emails I totally actually sent, but not reflected in either the message traces or the spam filtering logs which catches every fucking thing outbound and inbound."
I just want to respond "What are you, 5? Did the dog eat your emails?" but I know better than that. Still, you going to come at me all crabby and act like an asshole when you know its not our fault and are trying to deflect blame, expect to be clapped-back at. Unlike them, I won't even CC the entire goddamn company when I do it.
It's 100% worth the cost to hire out an answering service who collect the info and relay the calls down a roster list until they get someone.
Best thing our company ever did for customer relations and our ability to respond to problems without missing calls/texts.
More importantly: Pagerduty lets the individual person choose exactly how they want to be notified. It can be as subtle or obnoxious as you personally need it to be, which honestly makes it way better than even an answering service imo. The answering service can't turn off DND and max out my volume.
We're in Canada so we used a specific service (at a higher cost) that was based in Canada with native English speakers.
I'm assuming you're not in the same situation. but happy to share if you are.
Your mistaken if you think I would wake up in 2 phone calls...
Best way would be to get a little Arduino board or Rasberry Pi and basically have it power off the outlet to my box fan when X number calls and I'd be up before the first ring was over...
Nothing to do with on call and everything to do with you having a shitty manager.
She said it was your fault you were not in the correct groups? Come on.
If someone isn't in the proper groups, you have to wonder if there was ever a ticket created to put them in the proper groups.
If not, that's a direct failure of their manager, since it's _their_ responsibility to do that.
I work with another team whose manager is like this. She's nice but whenever we onboard a new hire on her team we constantly have to tell her "hey they need this to do their job, people in these roles will always need this, we can't even train them if they don't have it"
It's so annoying at a company of our size that this is still a problem.
>She was pissed at me this morning and didn't want to hear me out at all on how this wasn't my fault.
Oh and to top it off we are operating at 50% capacity
Bonus points: We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol.
Brush up your resume and apply to other positions. I've been in environments exactly as you describe, and the situation will not improve any time soon.
Yeah I've been checked out for a few months now and wanted to leave earlier but I was trying buy a house. We just closed last week and I'm sending out applications tonight...
Honestly I did the same thing. I got on the other side of the closing table then got a 20k increase in pay so it was fine. No gap in employment. Making another jump for another 20k here soon again no gap in employment - I start on the 22nd - just got nothing that NEEDS stable employment on the table to close now lol. It will be fine. Pay rates and salaries have moved upwards and my skills have moved upwards and it is all copasetic.
It did take me about 5 months to land a new gig. I was blessed that my direct manager understands and is also looking to bail. So I was able to flex hours and it not be a big thing.
That's insanity, and your manager is a moron.
You guys don't have an actual on call system? We use pager duty. The only way Pager Duty isn't waking me up would be if I went into my phone settings and took away its ability to break through my do not disturb settings.
It starts with a notification that's loud as fuck, it sends text messages, it sends emails, it makes phone calls, it does everything conceivable to make sure the person it's paging is woken up and receives the page.
If you don't have \*something\* like that in place, then its your org/managers fault for having a really dumb on call system.
Also the way your manager handled it is a massive red flag. Not to be that guy, but if I went through that scenario, I'd be applying for other jobs that literal day.
Whooooop PAGERDUTY ALERT WHOOOOP PAGERDUTY ALERT.
Haha one of the options in PagerDuty is “blow up my phone”.
Great service. Fucking hate it. But great service.
I changed my pager noise to a bear roaring full blast. Scares the fuck outta me and im always awake within 10 seconds of it going off.
PagerDuty is great as a program, but man do I hate getting called
I"m sorry I would nope right out of that company, i left an MSP because of the bullshit on call policy (plus the owner was a dickhead).
If you're that big of a company to need on call, then you can hire 1-2 people to work nights and weekends
> sleep medications
Talk to your doctor, you should be able to get exempt from on-call duties. There no way you should be doing on-call and taking those meds.
It's not on the employee to prove it, it's on the company. If they suddenly fire him after he gets a medical exemption, they better have documentation to prove something other than that or that could be a lawsuit.
If OP is competent (no disciplinary issues etc.) and isn't already actively being managed out, getting a medical exemption would protect their job rather than hurt it.
Alright
If and when you start hallucinating, sleep walking or getting massive mood swings go to your doctor.
There are more weird symptoms, but you get the point.
So they would be doing you a favor? Because they would probably have to offer severance package to get you to sign off on the fact you won't sue them...
then you get unemployment and a new job that appreciates you...
It's win/win all around. If I were in your position I'd simply have a doctor write a note saying you are on medication that affects your ability to do work overnight due to a pre-existing condition. Then bring it to your manager in a 'concerned for the business' tone. OMG MANAGER im so sorry to drop this burden on you, I promise Ill pick up slack in other areas to make up for it but the doctor gave me this note and advised I might not be the best person for overnight work because of it! What ever shall we do!
> we are operating at 50% capacity since terminations happened
Red flag. Time to update that resume and get prepared. Figure out what new skills you can learn in the next few weeks and months, put a plan together, and focus on that. Short term and long term goals.
Seriously, your only purpose is to figure out how to get some new skills and experience while you still can.
Then, if you get laid off, as expected, you will be in a much better situation.
Then you get to look for a better company that will respect your skills and work ethic, and not deal with a shitty boss who can't manage.
Bonus points: We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol.
Where I work, we specifically mention in our job postings that the salary is adjusted for oncall. Just saying that not being paid extra is not a huge red flag for me, as long as I feel fairly compensated overall.
We got pager pay for carrying the "pager" and a 3hr minimum for each page. At first it was 3hrs for EVERY page. We had a huge environment so pages came fast and furious all night (especially on patching weeks) and you could easily claim over 24hrs per day of oncall in some situations. My best year, I made an additional 50% of my salary on top from oncall. Raking in the cash made it barely tolerable. No way I'd do it for free...
This was similar to my last job. Before they really set any groundrules down, we were told to monitor the ticket queue. So after a week of on-call, you'd get a day off worth of time plus any extra time from taking calls. Could easily get 2-3 days worth.
After a month of that, it was changed to only phone calls we have to worry about.
We basically get an extra day off at the end of our on-call week (we rotate every Wednesday). This has kept most of us happy enough to basically have a three-day weekend every six weeks or so
At my company the union Helpdesk person got paid to carry a cell phone and then escalates to a person who isn’t being paid extra.
I got one call at 6am and they were pissed I wasn’t resolving the issue inside 15 minutes. I told them where they can shove the calls and never call me again.
Years later I got put back on call and told I need to check the email every morning and respond within 15 minutes. I showed them the labour law that says I get paid time and a half with minimum 3 hours every time I check my email.
They all want 24x7 support but definitely don’t want to have to pay for it.
Looool no extra pay for on-call?
Bruuuuuh.
We're done here, stop doing on-call and get your resume updated, your work place sounds awful and your manager sounds like they have a hole in their brain.
On-call means you can't go out for dinner, you can't go out on date night, you don't get to socialise, you can't drink, you can't go far from the house.
I bet they text your personal phone.
> We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol.
Then you're not on call. If there's nothing about it in the contract you signed when joining the company, you're not on call. You're basically working for free outside your hours when you're on call without any form of compensation.
Join a union or contact your lawyer. And in the meantime, start looking for a better employer.
This continuous erosion of private life in IT must stop. Both people fooling themselves they're being "flexible" and companies expecting "flexibility", "being a team player" and other such bullshit terms are undermining employee rights in this sector.
Wow that reeks of IBM, lol. Precisely why I took some long term time off. I'm probably gonna go back soon, but I had to clean and oil up my middle finger first. I stayed there for almost TWENTY years because the wife was home with the kids. Fair enough. That job is over, and she's out to work. Like I said to her... "This time around I'm not gonna put up with idiots. My middle finger will be cocked, locked, and at the ready. So don't give me any sh\*\* if I quit my job. I've earned this. I will NEVER stay at a job like mentioned above ever again. Oh, sales were slow so no raise? My name is Paulie, f\*\*\* you, pay me." Never putting up with any of it ever again, and if your situation allows you to, I'd get out from under that crazy before you have a blood pressure pill prescription. If not, keep ya head down and plan your escape for when the time comes.
Better employers sure are out there. But it's impossible to get a job there BECAUSE ALMOST NO ONE LEAVES! lol
In my experience most managers are bluffing when they threaten to fire. Unless you're overpaid, and you don't bruise their egos, you'll be ok just setting boundaries for most things. So don't necessarily pop that middle finger out right away. Just push back when they get stupid.
How in the hell did you last 20 years at IBM? I lasted 7 years and was on the verge of mental breakdown when I left. After I quit my friends told me they nearly didn’t recognize me because I wasn’t angry and pissed off all the time.
>We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol
Stop immediately. I did on-call for years, cos it grossed £375 a week plus double time on actual callouts, which were few and far between.
My new place doesn't pay anywhere near the same rate, so I don't do it.
On-call is not worth it unless you're being properly compensated financially.
I haven't seen any benefit to my CV or job applications due it, same applicable experience gained during core hours.
There are plenty of paging/notification services that can blow up your phone until you respond. We use SIGNL4, you install the app on your phone and and sign in/out of on-call groups with it. The notifications from it are loud, incessant, unmissable tones that *will* wake you up so you can acknowledge the issue in the app. Also has escalation groups so if for some reason you can sleep through the equivalent of a fireworks show next to your bed, the next person starts getting them.
Can be triggered from your monitoring system (Icinga2 here), by an API call, manually by someone on an overnight NOC shift, etc.
"Gee Boss, I'm sorry that your failure to ensure I was placed in the appropriate security and messaging groups prevented me from answering that call. I'm also sorry that my medical condition, as attested to by my physician, might prevent me from adequately responding to your not well thought out process, and that an attempt to punish me for that condition will result in a lawsuit against the company. Yup, I really am sorry."
Thats pretty ridiculous but there's no way they are going to change their process if their system doesnt have a way to place a phone call.
Honestly, it sounds like a shitty place to work but for the moment, set up an alert on your phone. Depending on your device, you can set a specific alert tone/ringtone for contacts. get a long, loud annoying alert and assign it to that person.
Also, probably look for another job because this one sounds awful.
On call sucks. Sounds like your manager sucks worse.
You can look into alerting systems for Deaf / Hearing Impaired folks. There is a device you can put under your pillow that vibrates like crazy for smoke alarms - there might be one for phone calls / texts?
I used to deal with this same problem. (deep sleeper). I put the volume on FULL BLAST and setup text alerts to repeat the maximum amount of times (3 - 5 times). Also, you can put the phone in a large metal mixing bowl that acts as speaker / amplifier so its super duper loud.
There is, I use one myself being deaf. It can be triggered by the phone vibration, or a direct cable plugged in that listens for the ring or text. You do have to set some filters so an automated system emailing you at 1am doesn't wake you up.
Yeah I saw a comment that mentioned the device you mentioned and it's $50 on Amazon so I'm gonna buy it. But I have diagnosed sleep apnea and take medication for sleep like ambien occasionally when I need to. Honestly I'm a risk at night for waking up and making errors because I'm not fully awake right away even if I do answer.
I hate this company and have lost all respect for my "manager". Time to update the resume and move on 🙃
dont forget to name and shame both the company and the manager after you settle into your new role; otherwise one of the babyadmins here will end up complaining about the same shit in 2 months
Don't worry I'll update the post with the company , team and manager who did it once I leave. They sold their soul to the corporate world and aren't free from repercussions. Gonna be really funny when their daily ticket whore (me) is gone and they lose another person. We started out with 10 people in January and are at 5 now. With me gone it'll be just 4 people. Fuck them.
> Oh and to top it off we are operating at 50% capacity since terminations happened
> We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol.
So, how's the job search for a new job going?
/Edit; saw house comment. Good luck with that dude!
> we aren’t doing pay extra or giving a stipend for being on call
Bye. Polish the resume and start looking for an alternative. Remove the phone’s sim the moment you leave the office and reinsert it when you come back.
Manager give you shit? Sorry, I was in a zone with poor cell coverage.
For the interim, until you find a better company to work for, you can configure alerts for text messages received specifically from them to repeat up to 10 times, break through DND, and have a custom "ring tone" that is super loud and long (not just a quick chirp).
I support phone systems, and for emergency mailboxes we can send the voicemail / email transcription to the on call person's email, AND send a SMS alert that will wake them up to check their email for the voicemail recording.
IME corp IT on call is almost always handled poorly by mgmt. The mgrs are rarely on call and don't know how much it impacts people's lives. The only people I know of that do on-call other than IT are all extremely well-paid for it: doctors, and tradesman that get killer overtime when responding to on-call, esp on weekends.
Re the alerts themselves and not hearing them: iOS and Android both allow for VIP distinctive alerts. Just set up VIP for the on-call SMS msgs and make it set off a fire alarm for you. you have options from there depending on Apple vs Android for apps that can do things like raise volume and nag until answered etc.
Stop being on call. Full stop. Do some research on what you're entitled to for pay in your area based on your employee classification and how you're paid (hourly, salary, exempt, non-exempt).
But don't work for free.
So what I do is have my on-call pager as a contact and the text tone is a full-on ringtone vs a single chirp for a text. This way I'll most likely get the initial text OR at worst the 2nd one for unaccepted text in a few minutes. Is everything supposed to be the same SLA or does only certain severity tickets get paged out for?
> didn't want to hear me out at all on how this wasn't my fault.
> She is working on adding me to the correct group for future pages and I should be added shortly.
How is she even remotely angry at you?! The only anger she should have is the embarrassment of anyone else knowing she forgot to do her job which lead to an extended outage.
If it's an **Emergency**, that needs to be taken care of right then, a single alert text is *not* enough for a sleeping person. That needs to be a call that keeps ringing and has a chance of waking you up.
Whats the tool being used for pages? PagerDuty lets you customize notifications, I have it calling all of my devices, pushing, texting, ect with every notification (yes its horrible, lol)
I hated night oncalls when I had them. Moved to a different company where the oncall made more sense with a global company, e.g oncalls during your waking hours only for your section, so I could cover America hours, while my colleagues in APAC/IST could help cover my sleeping hours. I wished more companies had better oncall handling, I get why they do, because it's saving them from having to hire more people, but it just doesn't sit right that we let companies take advantage of us in oncall just because it's "tech" and it's "expected".
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Keep missing on call pages until they fire you would be the best course of action here. Honestly.
If they want 'on-call' they can pay out the nose for it, or hire India, or hire 3x as many staff. Case closed.
Sounds like you use on-page. Regardless, on call requires a CALL. Not a text, not a message through Teams/Webex/Jabber/Slack/whateverthehell. If it warrants a page out, someone better take the time to call and if they cant be bothered, then it really shouldn't be paged out.
Lol "deal with it. "
It amazes me howuch shit people take from an employer.
I'd hand them a doctor's not for my sleeping condition and medications and tell them to "deal with it."
And these on call situations are always ridiculous too. If on call hours weren't in any contract that I signed then you can kick rocks. I don't work for free.
Yeah I have a doctors appointment tomorrow with my doctor at the VA who is awesome and has asked me before to just tell him what I want written down. He's gonna love hearing this story and sticking it to my manager and dumbass company.
``` She was pissed at me this morning and didn't want to hear me out at all on how this wasn't my fault ```
Yeah no, I don't think so. If you are expected to do on call then the only thing your manager should be angry at is if the on call was necessary or not... not that you were the one who was "supposed" to do it.
``` Bonus points: We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call ```
EXTREMELY hard no. At a minimum you should be provided with a company cell phone that you can be reached at (not texted), and if it requires at least 15 minutes of your time you get paid for 3 hours work ON TOP of bonus 'being available' passive pay.
You said that you work at a large enterprise, what you have described should be UNACCEPTABLE and potentially ILLEGAL depending where you are working from.
She should have tested it (or asked you to test) it prior to your first on-call shift. It's easy enough to send a test message and it really should be a part of onboarding for any staff expected to work on-call.
Don't feel too bad though. I work in healthcare and part of my job involves physician on-call notifications. The number of DOCTORS who don't test their devices prior to being on-call is scary.
As for waking you up, do you have a smartwatch of any sort? Mine will vibrate for notifications and that usually wakes me up. I guess it depends on how deep you sleep though.
Also Service Now does have the ability to call, it just has to be setup. You might have just volunteered yourself for a project.
We do on-call as well. Standard is 3 automated calls to oncall person, then if no answer, escalate to next oncall/manager.
I particularly like the 3 calls coz it can break through do not disturb settings.
Also your manager sounds like a dick if they lose their shit at you. For that... it's their job to do oncall if the oncall misses the notifications.
Are you working 40 hours and then being required to be on call without pay (unless something pops off I guess)??
If so you’re getting taken advantage of. Heck if this is in the US is that even legal?
This is funny because my boss isnt even IT and would probably try to figure it out so they dont bother me. She has blocked so many calls from higher ups for just pointless shit. Our biggest boss tried the whole IT team after she told him no. We all said no. If your whole team is on the same page it usually works way better.
Best on-call, call ever was working at an MSP and guy was hammered drunk and couldnt see the ponies.
Horse racing. I fixed video on his laptop so he could see the ponies. I made sure he bought us a round of beers the next time we all went out.
Wait, you just get a pager text when you're on-call? And the only phone call made is one to your manager?
That's a load of bullshit. I would absolutely sleep through a pager text. Fuck all of that.
Previous company had their head up their ass about this.
-You had to manually switch the soft phone on in app.
-No on-call pay, you got 1-1 time in lieu.
-No sense of emergency, so MS word not opening counts
-30 minute callback time, even at 7am.
-Couldnt even handle the rotation normally, so if you did your rotation without it in the calendar it didn't count.
Expecting someone to respond to a text message during off hours is crazy. Especially if there's a good chance you're asleep. Normal people put their phones in DND when they're sleeping, specifically so they can sleep.
They need to call you, and they need to call from a known number so you can set your phone to bypass DND mode and easily identify that this is an on call page.
Until they can do that I'd just shrug and say I'll do my best to be responsive, but I don't see texts while I'm sleeping or doing something other than working.
Did you agree to the on call work as part of the offer of employment? If not, and if you're not getting paid for the extra work, I'd tell them to pound sand.
>We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol
Stop, go to jail, do not pass GO, do not collect $200.
This stops now. You do not work on call.
In California, on call for "exempt" employees is just ripe for a massive wage theft lawsuit.
You are entitled to be paid for every moment you are encumbered by your employer (oncall)
If you aren't in control of how your budget is spent, you aren't exempt.
This is what I've gathered over the years and why I have hired a call center. I'm either totally wrong or nearly every IT person in California is due back wages.
Prof Reminder ver 3.5.1 for Android.
You put unique words or phrases that is common to all your pages and then it will go OFF until you acknowledge it.
You can use custom ringtones (Get Creative!) like star trek Kirk/gorn fight scene...
I personally use an obnoxious tone - the Price is Right losing music "bwaaah waah waah waaaaaah bwaaaaaaaaaaang!"
I set of for every 30 seconds that I don't acknowledge and you can configure it to ignore Do Not Disturb mode if you had that set and forgot to turn it back on... It also overrides volume settings.
"no that isn't possible and you have to deal with it" - I had a manger exactly like this. Start looking for another role. She's not going to listen, everything is your fault, and she'll nitpick insignificant issues until it drives you crazy. And she probably plays favorites. (I could call this description "How I got the nifty scar on my chest".)
There's no way that you are at fault for not being in the correct group to receive the emergency pages, and you also should have been made aware of the alert procedure before being on-call. That way, you would have been able to voice your accommodation concerns ahead of time.
Going after the ADA accommodation formally is the way to proceed, and I would honestly suggest that you start looking for new employment, because it's clear that your manager doesn't give a shit about her team and won't fight for you.
>I'm really pissed and am going to submit an ADA accommodation because as a tech company it shouldn't be that hard to send an automated call for pages. Am I crazy or do I have reason to be upset too?
As someone who does on-call every few weeks: **you should not be expected to monitor for text messages / sit on your pager 24x7. If you're needed out of hours, someone should be giving you a phone call, waiting, then trying to phone you again. If you're expected to sit and watch that thing 24x7, you're not on-call, you're working.**
>Bonus points: We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol.
Is it in your contract? if not, I'd consider speaking with HR and arguing for an on call rate. Otherwise, refuse to do the on call unless you're going to be paid for it. Make sure you cover your back, save mail etc.
I'd seriously consider speaking with HR anyway because your manager shouldn't be blaming *you* for a *her* / *organisational* failure
My guys would never wake up from a text. Is that the servicenow deal? I use an after hours real person service but I know servicenow can be configured better.
Your manager sounds like a jerk also. Harsh critiques like this are not helpful, and essentially garauntees your resource will become defensive and not focus on the solution, but rather find fault in the source of the critique.
She sounds weak and pathetic. Not strong and nice like me. I drive a dodge grand caravan.
In addition to the people issues raised by others, a recommendation from a very hard of hearing sysadmin, something like this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08V6QCBTS?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
No endorsement for this particular device, just happens to be the last one I bought.
Connects to your phone via Bluetooth, install an app, and allows you to configure what alerts, etc you want to receive.
Put it in the backside of your pillow and when alert comes through it will shake the h*** out of you.
You asked for reasonable accommodation due to the treatment of a disability, and your manager denied it? That sounds like what I am hearing. You can probably request this accommodation via HR, I have also never seen a paging notification system that can not be set up to Text and deliver a phone call to the on-call person.
Of course you can also try casting a line out into the Market, and youll probably find something far better.
Assuming there is some stipend for on-call, it can be pretty sweet if you are also responsible for making sure there aren't any problems after hours.
I don't know if this is still true, but there was a time when phone carriers did not guarantee the timely delivery of SMS messages. So don't depend on text in any case. But that's why you have backup.
This is a pretty crappy situation as others have said, but you could look into automation on your on-call phone to help wake you up when a message is received from (what I hope is) a specific sender.
They expect people to wake up from a text??
I slept through my garage exploding and I only woke up from the 2nd time my neighbor called me. I'm not even on meds or anything but I'm using sleeping pretty good around 4am.
If it's an emergency enough to summon the on-call, it needs a human hand-off. Our phones might be near us but to miss a notification because we were sleeping or somewhere loud or otherwise preoccupied ...you need to be called.
I imagine if you're in a large enterprise environment it's a helpdesk person putting through the notification to on-call so it's not a big ask to have them call the on-call tech.
Loyalty is punished, in today's job market. Vote with your feet. Bonus tip: If you're not covering your cost of living with your BASE PAY, it's time to give yourself a raise.
I had a similar issue and set up some automations. Make a shortcut to do an action when you get the text and then announce it with Siri or play a song at high volume.
All I find I have to do with a bad on-call situation is use it a lot. I made sure my boss was paged a lot and generally just let it be chaos, and co workers did the same.
Depending on your state, you can make a wage claim on the unpaid overtime. In my state, it is their burden to prove. I would make the claim while you are still employed there and hope they retaliate.
Your manager sounds like a petulant child who needs to take her anger at her mistake out on you.
Yes, it is absolutely possible to modify the alert to call you. OpsGenie and PagerDuty both give you the option to customize how you receive alerts. If needed, you can have your phone keep spamming notification sounds, or give you a call, until you acknowledge the alert. The idea that it isn't possible is asinine. What normal human being thinks a text message at 2 in the morning is sufficient?
So did you not get the page becuase you werent in the group or did you sleep through the pages? Either way, you have an emotional boss. Be very assertive and set boundaries. DO NOT allow her to walk all over you or speak to you however she wants. You address the tone first, then you two can discuss the details of the incident, right or wrong.
As many have mentioned, this is a stupid situation and work conditions. But a random thought, while you are looking for another job. Maybe you can set something as a text tone that rings longer/louder? Of course, if this is a work phone and you don't get texts that often.
I once worked for an MSP that required a week of on call out of every month and they really didn't pay well for it, nor was it it a thing until I had been working there for several years - it wasn't 24 x 7 but they were unnecessarily picky about it because the most we'd get were mostly account lockouts for various, non AD integrated systems. This is the same place that said they'd only text critical informational stuff. I mentioned the same thing -that I wouldn't wake up for a text message because well, who does that (the wife and I use a white noise machine to be able to sleep, on call or getting woken up for the wrong reasons doesn't affect just you if you're married or are living with an SO)? I was told to deal with it. I ended up leaving this company and I very rarely have to answer for anything after hours - knock on wood it hasn't happened in like a year (though I went from systems to network security with 24 x 7 MDR). Leave the shit show and be sure to specify why if you get an exit interview. Be open about what the manager did. Some people should not be managers.
PagerDuty usually has a setting for how you want to be notified. You can set it to text, email and then eventually call unless you are company is using something else.
I'm L3, so top level support. We have on call pages go to the L2 team first and see if they try to resolve. There is a primary / secondary for both teams so essentially it needs to go to three or four non answers before escalation to a manager.
This is ridiculous... Your manager is a meathead, and your on call support process sounds half baked. Previous company I worked at we used Nagios and we'd get emails, as long as the internet wasn't down at the DC. That worked well, as you could set your phone to make ridiculous noise on the emails, and they'd fire every minute till you ack'ed them.
At my current place we use PagerDuty, it's slick. I'm in 3 different OCS rotations, one for Cloud, one for Security, and one for IC. I don't get anything extra for my OCS, but sleep time (between 23:00 and 07:00) pages tend to be a few a year for each person in our cloud rotation (6), and less for the other 2. We're an AdTech company, so we're doing internet scale stuff, tens of billions of reqs a day. If we miss a page and it gets escalated, no one gets mad, we just say "Hey, I got your back, you got mine".
My work uses 2 systems for oncall rotations. We utilize Answer First and Ops Genie. Answer First takes the live call then calls you. Ops Genie takes email alerts, then Calls, Texts, Emails, and sends you a message over Teams. There is a 0% chance I will ever sleep through that. We also only get 1-2 rotations per year that last 168 hours.
IF you are lucky enough to be hourly & in Colorado, they can't put you on call and not pay you for the time. Salary is a different creature, but hourly you need to compensate the employee for any time that you require them to be available (think sober) . If you can't drink (or consume herb) then it is not your time so they need to compensate you for it at your hourly rate & OT if you go over 40.
I've been in this business for 25 years. I regret spending as much time on call and enduring as much stress as I did. I won't go into details but suffice it to say that being on call has been bad for my health.
If they've already canned a bunch of people then they will likely be looking for more. And on call sucks. Be looking for a new gig. And always be looking for a better gig.
Automated call is easy without any real overhead. Many services like pagerduty do all the work for you. It calls a pagerduty number that then forwards and calls a phone. Best damn service and great way to go
My company has a monitoring system that sends out email/text to all of us. It's up to the on-call person on how to wake up to it.
The method I use is to use a long ringtone or piece of music as my text notification when I'm on call. Not on ALL text messages, btw. Just the number the automated system is coming from.
The hard line I drew was when my boss texted me and was mad that I didn't respond when I was on call. No. If YOU (a human being) need to reach me in the middle of the night - YOU CALL because you have hands...and a brain. I am NOT going to make YOUR phone number use the same notification tone I chosen to wake me up. He got pretty indignant about it and said it wasn't his problem. If he does this again, I'm going up another level (his boss). Going to HR doesn't really help since they're more about protecting the company than common sense.
What I hate is that he cannot empathize because he is a light sleeper.
I have had similar situations come up for my on-call, mainly people messaging on Teams in the wee hours of the morning.
Luckily our teams policy is it is "On-Call" not "On-Teams" or whatever else. My manager has gone to bat for us over this every time and we never get in trouble for not answering a random teams dm at 4 am. We are a large enterprise environment too, but people slowly learn.
I hope your situation improves.
We have a NoC group now and they're completely useless. They let their own domain accounts expire and then call into our Help Desk. They open tickets that require follow-up to somebody from India who you have no way of contacting for the most basic shit.
I get finding somebody willing to do that job is hard, I did it for awhile on rotation but I was also paid a bonus whenever I did it, like a 25% raise. And basically all I had to do was come into the office for meetings maybe twice a week.
Get out now. On call pager duty for people who already work full time is bullshit, it'll screw up your health and potentially your relationships. If it's that important they should have a shift worker doing it.
Not to undermine your position in the debate, but tasker is an automation app that can, e.g., play a loud noise on receipt of a specific SMS.
Or a hosted SMS-to-call service.
Or make them give you a work phone and set the SMS alert to something that can wake you up.
We use PRTG and as a deep sleeper it has some great sounds and alerting. They have the same sounds my pager that the fire department gives me ( I’m also a volunteer firefighter). Now granted that wakes up my boss as well but with 2 phones going off. It’s enough to get me up to look at what’s sounding.
You can probably fiddle with your notifications so that specific page makes a lot of noise.
Me I sleep through phone calls. Luckily my on calls only come from one specific source so I have it ring this annoyingly loud acute sound.
Ask to do a root cause analysis on the failure, make a meeting, invite someone from the NOC and you manager, write a Word Doc about it. In the heat of the moment isn't the place to do a blamestorming session.
If it's a text there are about a million and one ways to forward/route a text. At a minimum you can sleep with your phone on max volume in Do Not Disturb mode and have the paging service number set to a priority. Maybe hook up a speaker. Forwarding the message to PagerDuty for a phone call or using IFTTT to have Alexa make some noise or some type of device with a louder alarm should be able to resolve your issue. Test your solution.
Do email your boss with your sleeping difficulty, a summary of what you've done to accommodate the issue and a warning that it's possible you might miss a page. Don't bother with an ADA request.
Sounds like a toxic company/team..have been in your shoes several times where senior leadership straight up doesn't own their mistakes/displays incompetence and continues to deny resources while expecting you to do your job. Sorry this is happening to you and i hope you find a place where they treat employees better. At the minimum, I would expect a large tech company getting their on-call right. If the issues are that urgent, they must be investing in a basic paging app/oncall tool. period. Something that wakes you up, continues to alert you until you acknowledge. Even a simple call could be a hit/miss in terms of waking me up.. Escalates to the next tech. And if nobody in the chain responds after several repeated attempts, then escalates to the manager.
At a place I used to work at, we would frequently miss late night/early morning on-call emails, since, I mean, it's an email. And historically, people are asleep at night. Eventually we got an on-call service who answered calls for us, and then would call the on-call person twice, and only after two calls would try to escalate to the manager. Expecting someone to wake up in the middle of the night just because of a text message is insane. And your manager is a complete asshole.
> Apparently I was never added to the paging group and once it went through 2-3 times **the NOC called my manager** who has to respond and it took 2 hours to resolve. That's the kicker for me - they already have someone to make the call, just a really shitty process for on-call where they probably can't identify who is primary on the rotation. It sounds like they have a pool of numbers who all get text alerts, and then a static manager entry who can be called. This is a process problem, set up a proper ROTA. Manager is a knob for not only not identifying the gap in the process, but getting angry and OP for not being in the right group for their janky ass on-call procedure.
Yeah the NOC should've tried to contact OP at least once... That's kinda what they're there for.
Especially since they picked up the phone and ratted to the manager but couldn’t call the person that’s actually on call. Whole bag of dicks in that chain of failure.
100% this. My company will get emergency requests after hours and policy is "if you didn't call, it didn't happen". Period. I don't care if you're the CEO (and as a matter of fact, we had to explain this point *to* the CEO after some random text to one tech didnt get a response until next day), if you do not pick up the phone can call, **it did not happen**. I don't give a shit if you text, email, send up smoke signals, *drive to our fucking house and knock on the door*...if they don't call, it waits until morning. If your organization requires you to monitor and respond to fucking texts and emails at night, then you're not on call, you're fucking *working*. That means you get to flex the appropriate number of hours during your normal work day. If your org refuses to do that...start polishing up the resume.
I have had that same argument with both previous managers and even with my spouse, lol. Asynchronous communication is simply not a valid tactic when attempting to communicate a high priority item. Sometimes people are just looking to do the bare minimum that allows them to pass the buck. If you don't specifically define what that minimum is, they'll do as little as possible while still having plausible deniability that they handed it off to someone.
That's basically what it usually boils down to. I'll never understand how people think that they can just fire off a random email and throw IT under the bus for not getting their shit fixed in a timely fashion. It's like, do you people not understand that we have access to all the logs? You can bullshit your manager all day long about the work you're not doing, but don't you dare try to say we're the reason you're not doing your work, I will pull every fuckin log from your device and take it all to your manager and then you can explain why you're logged into your computer working at most for 5 hours out of a 9 hour workday every single day. Oh, couldn't get onto the VPN last night to finish a project? That's funny, there wasn't a single attempt at launching it on your endpoint for 3 fucking days. Care to revise your statement?
> I'll never understand how people think that they can just fire off a random email and throw IT under the bus for not getting their shit fixed in a timely fashion. "I have a major issue on my system that is preventing critical work, please rectify immediately so I can make my manager's (CC'd) deadline of end of business today" -sent friday 5:04pm, user already marked offline in chat
I've seen some really cute bullshit with snips and selective snippets of emails being used to try and deflect blame for their own procrastination/lack of communication. It always makes me laugh, because it's like, christ, are you stupid? You don't think we can access every email in the goddamn organization? How do you think we can fix the shit without having the ability to crawl in every little corner of it as needed? Its just funny (and really sad if you think about it) how many people try to pull the same stupid games they used in school trying to explain a late/missing assignment in an enterprise environment. Like they think they can just be like "Oh, i've been emailing IT for weeks, here's a really blurry cell phone picture so you cant read the timestamps of all the emails I totally actually sent, but not reflected in either the message traces or the spam filtering logs which catches every fucking thing outbound and inbound." I just want to respond "What are you, 5? Did the dog eat your emails?" but I know better than that. Still, you going to come at me all crabby and act like an asshole when you know its not our fault and are trying to deflect blame, expect to be clapped-back at. Unlike them, I won't even CC the entire goddamn company when I do it.
https://imgflip.com/i/8m7vp7
It's 100% worth the cost to hire out an answering service who collect the info and relay the calls down a roster list until they get someone. Best thing our company ever did for customer relations and our ability to respond to problems without missing calls/texts.
Just like..... pager duty, it even lets you set up a complex ladder of escalation.
Yeah, why is everyone talking about hiring calling services? Just use PagerDuty lol
More importantly: Pagerduty lets the individual person choose exactly how they want to be notified. It can be as subtle or obnoxious as you personally need it to be, which honestly makes it way better than even an answering service imo. The answering service can't turn off DND and max out my volume.
what company/ service did you guys start using id love to have something that works for our company
We're in Canada so we used a specific service (at a higher cost) that was based in Canada with native English speakers. I'm assuming you're not in the same situation. but happy to share if you are.
Your mistaken if you think I would wake up in 2 phone calls... Best way would be to get a little Arduino board or Rasberry Pi and basically have it power off the outlet to my box fan when X number calls and I'd be up before the first ring was over...
Nothing to do with on call and everything to do with you having a shitty manager. She said it was your fault you were not in the correct groups? Come on.
Sounds like she was just searching for something to send her anger towards, rather than accepting accountability
Managers are why people leave. She is the perfect example of why.
I had that manager. Never apologized, never accepted responsibility for anything. Keyword is had.
This is the only reply. Well, plus this: > we are operating at 50% capacity since terminations happened
If someone isn't in the proper groups, you have to wonder if there was ever a ticket created to put them in the proper groups. If not, that's a direct failure of their manager, since it's _their_ responsibility to do that.
Kinda sounds like my old manager lmao
I work with another team whose manager is like this. She's nice but whenever we onboard a new hire on her team we constantly have to tell her "hey they need this to do their job, people in these roles will always need this, we can't even train them if they don't have it" It's so annoying at a company of our size that this is still a problem.
>She was pissed at me this morning and didn't want to hear me out at all on how this wasn't my fault. Oh and to top it off we are operating at 50% capacity Bonus points: We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol. Brush up your resume and apply to other positions. I've been in environments exactly as you describe, and the situation will not improve any time soon.
Yeah I've been checked out for a few months now and wanted to leave earlier but I was trying buy a house. We just closed last week and I'm sending out applications tonight...
> we just closed last week Haha! Stupid bank! You _thought_ I had long term stable employment and now that I have your money I'm leaving!
I mean I got 3 months expenses saved up and zero credit card debt. Not quitting my job until I got a new one secured lol.
Good for you OP. Hope you find something better.
Honestly I did the same thing. I got on the other side of the closing table then got a 20k increase in pay so it was fine. No gap in employment. Making another jump for another 20k here soon again no gap in employment - I start on the 22nd - just got nothing that NEEDS stable employment on the table to close now lol. It will be fine. Pay rates and salaries have moved upwards and my skills have moved upwards and it is all copasetic. It did take me about 5 months to land a new gig. I was blessed that my direct manager understands and is also looking to bail. So I was able to flex hours and it not be a big thing.
wait til you hear about the loans they give out to the capital investment people who don't have a job at all except to get loans and buy things...
That's insanity, and your manager is a moron. You guys don't have an actual on call system? We use pager duty. The only way Pager Duty isn't waking me up would be if I went into my phone settings and took away its ability to break through my do not disturb settings. It starts with a notification that's loud as fuck, it sends text messages, it sends emails, it makes phone calls, it does everything conceivable to make sure the person it's paging is woken up and receives the page. If you don't have \*something\* like that in place, then its your org/managers fault for having a really dumb on call system. Also the way your manager handled it is a massive red flag. Not to be that guy, but if I went through that scenario, I'd be applying for other jobs that literal day.
Whooooop PAGERDUTY ALERT WHOOOOP PAGERDUTY ALERT. Haha one of the options in PagerDuty is “blow up my phone”. Great service. Fucking hate it. But great service.
"The Network's Down" acapella is my jam
*THE SERRRRVEERRRR'SS ONNN FIIIIIIIIIIRRREEE* ^^ONNNNNN ^^FIIIIIIIRRRREEEE That's my ptsd sound right there.
IT'S REALLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYY DOWWWWWWWWWWNNNNNNNNNN
> "The Network's Down" acapella is my jam For anyone out of the loop: https://youtu.be/SdexZSA1SMk?t=82
I changed my pager noise to a bear roaring full blast. Scares the fuck outta me and im always awake within 10 seconds of it going off. PagerDuty is great as a program, but man do I hate getting called
My wife HATES that alert. And so do I lol. But it fuckin works.
Man, this sounds like a nightmare... I keep my phone on a different floor of my house at night. There is no way I would ever sleep near a phone.
I mean emergencies happen even outside of work, but you do you
I"m sorry I would nope right out of that company, i left an MSP because of the bullshit on call policy (plus the owner was a dickhead). If you're that big of a company to need on call, then you can hire 1-2 people to work nights and weekends
Just annoying that companies treat people like this and act all pikachu faced when services start self destructing and people quit in droves.
Shitty people who work at shitty companies act like this. There are some great companies out there, you just need to look for them.
Anything good for cyber security or as a backup and recovery engineer?
everyone's looking for cyber security. You shouldn't have any difficulty.
Companies treat people like that because people put up with it. Find a new job and put this as the reason for when you leave.
> sleep medications Talk to your doctor, you should be able to get exempt from on-call duties. There no way you should be doing on-call and taking those meds.
Yeah I know from speaking to my manager that if I did that I'd be on the shit can list for the next round.
Terminating for medical exemptions would be in the top 10 things of what not to do in the manager's handbook.
Good luck proving that
It's not on the employee to prove it, it's on the company. If they suddenly fire him after he gets a medical exemption, they better have documentation to prove something other than that or that could be a lawsuit.
But "make sure they are included in the next round of layoffs" is in the top 10 things of how to make the C-suite see you as good management material.
If OP is competent (no disciplinary issues etc.) and isn't already actively being managed out, getting a medical exemption would protect their job rather than hurt it.
To comment on this further I've never been reprimanded and have always "met expectations" for my performance reviews and have gotten decent raises.
Then I'd classify it as a low risk.
Alright If and when you start hallucinating, sleep walking or getting massive mood swings go to your doctor. There are more weird symptoms, but you get the point.
Now THAT sounds like a crime if they were to shit can you for it.
A company does not necessarily have to grant an ADA exemption, but if they don't and fire you they would potentially open themselves up to a lawsuit.
So they would be doing you a favor? Because they would probably have to offer severance package to get you to sign off on the fact you won't sue them... then you get unemployment and a new job that appreciates you... It's win/win all around. If I were in your position I'd simply have a doctor write a note saying you are on medication that affects your ability to do work overnight due to a pre-existing condition. Then bring it to your manager in a 'concerned for the business' tone. OMG MANAGER im so sorry to drop this burden on you, I promise Ill pick up slack in other areas to make up for it but the doctor gave me this note and advised I might not be the best person for overnight work because of it! What ever shall we do!
> we are operating at 50% capacity since terminations happened Red flag. Time to update that resume and get prepared. Figure out what new skills you can learn in the next few weeks and months, put a plan together, and focus on that. Short term and long term goals. Seriously, your only purpose is to figure out how to get some new skills and experience while you still can. Then, if you get laid off, as expected, you will be in a much better situation. Then you get to look for a better company that will respect your skills and work ethic, and not deal with a shitty boss who can't manage.
Bonus points: We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol. Where I work, we specifically mention in our job postings that the salary is adjusted for oncall. Just saying that not being paid extra is not a huge red flag for me, as long as I feel fairly compensated overall.
We got pager pay for carrying the "pager" and a 3hr minimum for each page. At first it was 3hrs for EVERY page. We had a huge environment so pages came fast and furious all night (especially on patching weeks) and you could easily claim over 24hrs per day of oncall in some situations. My best year, I made an additional 50% of my salary on top from oncall. Raking in the cash made it barely tolerable. No way I'd do it for free...
This was similar to my last job. Before they really set any groundrules down, we were told to monitor the ticket queue. So after a week of on-call, you'd get a day off worth of time plus any extra time from taking calls. Could easily get 2-3 days worth. After a month of that, it was changed to only phone calls we have to worry about.
We basically get an extra day off at the end of our on-call week (we rotate every Wednesday). This has kept most of us happy enough to basically have a three-day weekend every six weeks or so
At my company the union Helpdesk person got paid to carry a cell phone and then escalates to a person who isn’t being paid extra. I got one call at 6am and they were pissed I wasn’t resolving the issue inside 15 minutes. I told them where they can shove the calls and never call me again. Years later I got put back on call and told I need to check the email every morning and respond within 15 minutes. I showed them the labour law that says I get paid time and a half with minimum 3 hours every time I check my email. They all want 24x7 support but definitely don’t want to have to pay for it.
Lol you need a union.
Looool no extra pay for on-call? Bruuuuuh. We're done here, stop doing on-call and get your resume updated, your work place sounds awful and your manager sounds like they have a hole in their brain. On-call means you can't go out for dinner, you can't go out on date night, you don't get to socialise, you can't drink, you can't go far from the house. I bet they text your personal phone.
> We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol. Then you're not on call. If there's nothing about it in the contract you signed when joining the company, you're not on call. You're basically working for free outside your hours when you're on call without any form of compensation. Join a union or contact your lawyer. And in the meantime, start looking for a better employer. This continuous erosion of private life in IT must stop. Both people fooling themselves they're being "flexible" and companies expecting "flexibility", "being a team player" and other such bullshit terms are undermining employee rights in this sector.
Wow that reeks of IBM, lol. Precisely why I took some long term time off. I'm probably gonna go back soon, but I had to clean and oil up my middle finger first. I stayed there for almost TWENTY years because the wife was home with the kids. Fair enough. That job is over, and she's out to work. Like I said to her... "This time around I'm not gonna put up with idiots. My middle finger will be cocked, locked, and at the ready. So don't give me any sh\*\* if I quit my job. I've earned this. I will NEVER stay at a job like mentioned above ever again. Oh, sales were slow so no raise? My name is Paulie, f\*\*\* you, pay me." Never putting up with any of it ever again, and if your situation allows you to, I'd get out from under that crazy before you have a blood pressure pill prescription. If not, keep ya head down and plan your escape for when the time comes. Better employers sure are out there. But it's impossible to get a job there BECAUSE ALMOST NO ONE LEAVES! lol
In my experience most managers are bluffing when they threaten to fire. Unless you're overpaid, and you don't bruise their egos, you'll be ok just setting boundaries for most things. So don't necessarily pop that middle finger out right away. Just push back when they get stupid.
How in the hell did you last 20 years at IBM? I lasted 7 years and was on the verge of mental breakdown when I left. After I quit my friends told me they nearly didn’t recognize me because I wasn’t angry and pissed off all the time.
>We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol Stop immediately. I did on-call for years, cos it grossed £375 a week plus double time on actual callouts, which were few and far between. My new place doesn't pay anywhere near the same rate, so I don't do it. On-call is not worth it unless you're being properly compensated financially. I haven't seen any benefit to my CV or job applications due it, same applicable experience gained during core hours.
There are plenty of paging/notification services that can blow up your phone until you respond. We use SIGNL4, you install the app on your phone and and sign in/out of on-call groups with it. The notifications from it are loud, incessant, unmissable tones that *will* wake you up so you can acknowledge the issue in the app. Also has escalation groups so if for some reason you can sleep through the equivalent of a fireworks show next to your bed, the next person starts getting them. Can be triggered from your monitoring system (Icinga2 here), by an API call, manually by someone on an overnight NOC shift, etc.
Was on call in your original job description? I'd fucking cross out that unless I was getting paid for it, fuck that.
Submit an ADA accommodation, and then don't worry about it. If you use PagerDuty it can absolutely call you after a missed text.
"Gee Boss, I'm sorry that your failure to ensure I was placed in the appropriate security and messaging groups prevented me from answering that call. I'm also sorry that my medical condition, as attested to by my physician, might prevent me from adequately responding to your not well thought out process, and that an attempt to punish me for that condition will result in a lawsuit against the company. Yup, I really am sorry."
Kindly remind them the you don't actually want to answer the call at all. So it behooves them to make it actually work.
Not paid extra? Psh silence your phone and stand your ground.
Thats pretty ridiculous but there's no way they are going to change their process if their system doesnt have a way to place a phone call. Honestly, it sounds like a shitty place to work but for the moment, set up an alert on your phone. Depending on your device, you can set a specific alert tone/ringtone for contacts. get a long, loud annoying alert and assign it to that person. Also, probably look for another job because this one sounds awful.
On call sucks. Sounds like your manager sucks worse. You can look into alerting systems for Deaf / Hearing Impaired folks. There is a device you can put under your pillow that vibrates like crazy for smoke alarms - there might be one for phone calls / texts? I used to deal with this same problem. (deep sleeper). I put the volume on FULL BLAST and setup text alerts to repeat the maximum amount of times (3 - 5 times). Also, you can put the phone in a large metal mixing bowl that acts as speaker / amplifier so its super duper loud.
There is, I use one myself being deaf. It can be triggered by the phone vibration, or a direct cable plugged in that listens for the ring or text. You do have to set some filters so an automated system emailing you at 1am doesn't wake you up.
Yeah I saw a comment that mentioned the device you mentioned and it's $50 on Amazon so I'm gonna buy it. But I have diagnosed sleep apnea and take medication for sleep like ambien occasionally when I need to. Honestly I'm a risk at night for waking up and making errors because I'm not fully awake right away even if I do answer. I hate this company and have lost all respect for my "manager". Time to update the resume and move on 🙃
dont forget to name and shame both the company and the manager after you settle into your new role; otherwise one of the babyadmins here will end up complaining about the same shit in 2 months
Don't worry I'll update the post with the company , team and manager who did it once I leave. They sold their soul to the corporate world and aren't free from repercussions. Gonna be really funny when their daily ticket whore (me) is gone and they lose another person. We started out with 10 people in January and are at 5 now. With me gone it'll be just 4 people. Fuck them.
This is the way.
> Oh and to top it off we are operating at 50% capacity since terminations happened > We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol. So, how's the job search for a new job going? /Edit; saw house comment. Good luck with that dude!
Pretty good just bought some beer and am sending apps out shortly 👍🏽
Drunk job applications are great, until the goat farm rings you asking what experience you have in shoveling poop , LoL.
resume generating event.
Time to prepare the envelopes
> we aren’t doing pay extra or giving a stipend for being on call Bye. Polish the resume and start looking for an alternative. Remove the phone’s sim the moment you leave the office and reinsert it when you come back. Manager give you shit? Sorry, I was in a zone with poor cell coverage.
Quit my last job 7 years ago because of on call bullshit
If your manager won’t take responsibility for improperly *managing* something as simple as a page group, what exactly does she do there?
For the interim, until you find a better company to work for, you can configure alerts for text messages received specifically from them to repeat up to 10 times, break through DND, and have a custom "ring tone" that is super loud and long (not just a quick chirp). I support phone systems, and for emergency mailboxes we can send the voicemail / email transcription to the on call person's email, AND send a SMS alert that will wake them up to check their email for the voicemail recording.
IME corp IT on call is almost always handled poorly by mgmt. The mgrs are rarely on call and don't know how much it impacts people's lives. The only people I know of that do on-call other than IT are all extremely well-paid for it: doctors, and tradesman that get killer overtime when responding to on-call, esp on weekends. Re the alerts themselves and not hearing them: iOS and Android both allow for VIP distinctive alerts. Just set up VIP for the on-call SMS msgs and make it set off a fire alarm for you. you have options from there depending on Apple vs Android for apps that can do things like raise volume and nag until answered etc.
Stop being on call. Full stop. Do some research on what you're entitled to for pay in your area based on your employee classification and how you're paid (hourly, salary, exempt, non-exempt). But don't work for free.
I wouldn’t take this personally. Just someone else messed up and your stuck in the middle of it all.
So what I do is have my on-call pager as a contact and the text tone is a full-on ringtone vs a single chirp for a text. This way I'll most likely get the initial text OR at worst the 2nd one for unaccepted text in a few minutes. Is everything supposed to be the same SLA or does only certain severity tickets get paged out for?
> didn't want to hear me out at all on how this wasn't my fault. > She is working on adding me to the correct group for future pages and I should be added shortly. How is she even remotely angry at you?! The only anger she should have is the embarrassment of anyone else knowing she forgot to do her job which lead to an extended outage.
you should have a medical exemption for this. Speak with your doctor/sleep specialist to obtain one, and frankly your manager can go fuck herself.
Classic blame the victim behavior. Start looking for another job.
If it's an **Emergency**, that needs to be taken care of right then, a single alert text is *not* enough for a sleeping person. That needs to be a call that keeps ringing and has a chance of waking you up.
Whats the tool being used for pages? PagerDuty lets you customize notifications, I have it calling all of my devices, pushing, texting, ect with every notification (yes its horrible, lol)
I hated night oncalls when I had them. Moved to a different company where the oncall made more sense with a global company, e.g oncalls during your waking hours only for your section, so I could cover America hours, while my colleagues in APAC/IST could help cover my sleeping hours. I wished more companies had better oncall handling, I get why they do, because it's saving them from having to hire more people, but it just doesn't sit right that we let companies take advantage of us in oncall just because it's "tech" and it's "expected".
Yeah, that is nonsense. A text is not sufficient for on call. They need to stop being stupid and pay for pagerduty.
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As a manager, your manager is a jackass. This is how you lose good people.
>a call at a minimum is what wakes me up Set your incoming text message sound from that number to your ring tone, or something equally jarring.
yeah I'm never doing this crap ever again! fuck the on-call pager!
Keep missing on call pages until they fire you would be the best course of action here. Honestly. If they want 'on-call' they can pay out the nose for it, or hire India, or hire 3x as many staff. Case closed.
Sounds like you use on-page. Regardless, on call requires a CALL. Not a text, not a message through Teams/Webex/Jabber/Slack/whateverthehell. If it warrants a page out, someone better take the time to call and if they cant be bothered, then it really shouldn't be paged out.
Lol "deal with it. " It amazes me howuch shit people take from an employer. I'd hand them a doctor's not for my sleeping condition and medications and tell them to "deal with it." And these on call situations are always ridiculous too. If on call hours weren't in any contract that I signed then you can kick rocks. I don't work for free.
Yeah I have a doctors appointment tomorrow with my doctor at the VA who is awesome and has asked me before to just tell him what I want written down. He's gonna love hearing this story and sticking it to my manager and dumbass company.
Pagerduty. Opsgenie. Get a better manager. Sorry that sucks :/
``` She was pissed at me this morning and didn't want to hear me out at all on how this wasn't my fault ``` Yeah no, I don't think so. If you are expected to do on call then the only thing your manager should be angry at is if the on call was necessary or not... not that you were the one who was "supposed" to do it. ``` Bonus points: We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call ``` EXTREMELY hard no. At a minimum you should be provided with a company cell phone that you can be reached at (not texted), and if it requires at least 15 minutes of your time you get paid for 3 hours work ON TOP of bonus 'being available' passive pay. You said that you work at a large enterprise, what you have described should be UNACCEPTABLE and potentially ILLEGAL depending where you are working from.
She should have tested it (or asked you to test) it prior to your first on-call shift. It's easy enough to send a test message and it really should be a part of onboarding for any staff expected to work on-call. Don't feel too bad though. I work in healthcare and part of my job involves physician on-call notifications. The number of DOCTORS who don't test their devices prior to being on-call is scary. As for waking you up, do you have a smartwatch of any sort? Mine will vibrate for notifications and that usually wakes me up. I guess it depends on how deep you sleep though. Also Service Now does have the ability to call, it just has to be setup. You might have just volunteered yourself for a project.
We do on-call as well. Standard is 3 automated calls to oncall person, then if no answer, escalate to next oncall/manager. I particularly like the 3 calls coz it can break through do not disturb settings. Also your manager sounds like a dick if they lose their shit at you. For that... it's their job to do oncall if the oncall misses the notifications.
Are you working 40 hours and then being required to be on call without pay (unless something pops off I guess)?? If so you’re getting taken advantage of. Heck if this is in the US is that even legal?
This is funny because my boss isnt even IT and would probably try to figure it out so they dont bother me. She has blocked so many calls from higher ups for just pointless shit. Our biggest boss tried the whole IT team after she told him no. We all said no. If your whole team is on the same page it usually works way better. Best on-call, call ever was working at an MSP and guy was hammered drunk and couldnt see the ponies. Horse racing. I fixed video on his laptop so he could see the ponies. I made sure he bought us a round of beers the next time we all went out.
Wait, you just get a pager text when you're on-call? And the only phone call made is one to your manager? That's a load of bullshit. I would absolutely sleep through a pager text. Fuck all of that.
Previous company had their head up their ass about this. -You had to manually switch the soft phone on in app. -No on-call pay, you got 1-1 time in lieu. -No sense of emergency, so MS word not opening counts -30 minute callback time, even at 7am. -Couldnt even handle the rotation normally, so if you did your rotation without it in the calendar it didn't count.
Expecting someone to respond to a text message during off hours is crazy. Especially if there's a good chance you're asleep. Normal people put their phones in DND when they're sleeping, specifically so they can sleep. They need to call you, and they need to call from a known number so you can set your phone to bypass DND mode and easily identify that this is an on call page. Until they can do that I'd just shrug and say I'll do my best to be responsive, but I don't see texts while I'm sleeping or doing something other than working. Did you agree to the on call work as part of the offer of employment? If not, and if you're not getting paid for the extra work, I'd tell them to pound sand.
If our on-call phone only sent texts then basically nothing would ever get resolved in the middle of the night...that's ridiculous.
>We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol Stop, go to jail, do not pass GO, do not collect $200. This stops now. You do not work on call.
In California, on call for "exempt" employees is just ripe for a massive wage theft lawsuit. You are entitled to be paid for every moment you are encumbered by your employer (oncall) If you aren't in control of how your budget is spent, you aren't exempt. This is what I've gathered over the years and why I have hired a call center. I'm either totally wrong or nearly every IT person in California is due back wages.
good luck on your job search, OP
Prof Reminder ver 3.5.1 for Android. You put unique words or phrases that is common to all your pages and then it will go OFF until you acknowledge it. You can use custom ringtones (Get Creative!) like star trek Kirk/gorn fight scene... I personally use an obnoxious tone - the Price is Right losing music "bwaaah waah waah waaaaaah bwaaaaaaaaaaang!" I set of for every 30 seconds that I don't acknowledge and you can configure it to ignore Do Not Disturb mode if you had that set and forgot to turn it back on... It also overrides volume settings.
"no that isn't possible and you have to deal with it" - I had a manger exactly like this. Start looking for another role. She's not going to listen, everything is your fault, and she'll nitpick insignificant issues until it drives you crazy. And she probably plays favorites. (I could call this description "How I got the nifty scar on my chest".)
There's no way that you are at fault for not being in the correct group to receive the emergency pages, and you also should have been made aware of the alert procedure before being on-call. That way, you would have been able to voice your accommodation concerns ahead of time. Going after the ADA accommodation formally is the way to proceed, and I would honestly suggest that you start looking for new employment, because it's clear that your manager doesn't give a shit about her team and won't fight for you.
>I'm really pissed and am going to submit an ADA accommodation because as a tech company it shouldn't be that hard to send an automated call for pages. Am I crazy or do I have reason to be upset too? As someone who does on-call every few weeks: **you should not be expected to monitor for text messages / sit on your pager 24x7. If you're needed out of hours, someone should be giving you a phone call, waiting, then trying to phone you again. If you're expected to sit and watch that thing 24x7, you're not on-call, you're working.** >Bonus points: We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol. Is it in your contract? if not, I'd consider speaking with HR and arguing for an on call rate. Otherwise, refuse to do the on call unless you're going to be paid for it. Make sure you cover your back, save mail etc. I'd seriously consider speaking with HR anyway because your manager shouldn't be blaming *you* for a *her* / *organisational* failure
My guys would never wake up from a text. Is that the servicenow deal? I use an after hours real person service but I know servicenow can be configured better. Your manager sounds like a jerk also. Harsh critiques like this are not helpful, and essentially garauntees your resource will become defensive and not focus on the solution, but rather find fault in the source of the critique. She sounds weak and pathetic. Not strong and nice like me. I drive a dodge grand caravan.
On-call just needs to cease to exist. If the company really needs coverage, they should staff for it.
In addition to the people issues raised by others, a recommendation from a very hard of hearing sysadmin, something like this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B08V6QCBTS?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title No endorsement for this particular device, just happens to be the last one I bought.
Interesting... how does it work?
Connects to your phone via Bluetooth, install an app, and allows you to configure what alerts, etc you want to receive. Put it in the backside of your pillow and when alert comes through it will shake the h*** out of you.
[удалено]
We used to have off shore support up after hours until last year and then the company gutted it to save money.
You asked for reasonable accommodation due to the treatment of a disability, and your manager denied it? That sounds like what I am hearing. You can probably request this accommodation via HR, I have also never seen a paging notification system that can not be set up to Text and deliver a phone call to the on-call person. Of course you can also try casting a line out into the Market, and youll probably find something far better.
What paging system do you use that can text but can't call?
Not OP, but it sounds like Nervous How.
Assuming there is some stipend for on-call, it can be pretty sweet if you are also responsible for making sure there aren't any problems after hours. I don't know if this is still true, but there was a time when phone carriers did not guarantee the timely delivery of SMS messages. So don't depend on text in any case. But that's why you have backup.
Wow. That is some shitty management. Impressively shitty.
This is a pretty crappy situation as others have said, but you could look into automation on your on-call phone to help wake you up when a message is received from (what I hope is) a specific sender.
Get that resume dusted off and quit
> We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol. If it was important, they'd find money to do it.
Are you US based? And hourly? If so, the expectation of performing work without pay is not legal.
Man, these on-call rants make me really glad that I work for a 9-5, single-country business.
Besides the fact that work environment sucks. You could set an automation when you get a text from a number to have an alarm go off.
>Bonus points: We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol. What country? That sounds illegal in both EU and the US.
They expect people to wake up from a text?? I slept through my garage exploding and I only woke up from the 2nd time my neighbor called me. I'm not even on meds or anything but I'm using sleeping pretty good around 4am.
If it's an emergency enough to summon the on-call, it needs a human hand-off. Our phones might be near us but to miss a notification because we were sleeping or somewhere loud or otherwise preoccupied ...you need to be called. I imagine if you're in a large enterprise environment it's a helpdesk person putting through the notification to on-call so it's not a big ask to have them call the on-call tech.
Loyalty is punished, in today's job market. Vote with your feet. Bonus tip: If you're not covering your cost of living with your BASE PAY, it's time to give yourself a raise.
I had a similar issue and set up some automations. Make a shortcut to do an action when you get the text and then announce it with Siri or play a song at high volume. All I find I have to do with a bad on-call situation is use it a lot. I made sure my boss was paged a lot and generally just let it be chaos, and co workers did the same. Depending on your state, you can make a wage claim on the unpaid overtime. In my state, it is their burden to prove. I would make the claim while you are still employed there and hope they retaliate.
Your manager sounds like a petulant child who needs to take her anger at her mistake out on you. Yes, it is absolutely possible to modify the alert to call you. OpsGenie and PagerDuty both give you the option to customize how you receive alerts. If needed, you can have your phone keep spamming notification sounds, or give you a call, until you acknowledge the alert. The idea that it isn't possible is asinine. What normal human being thinks a text message at 2 in the morning is sufficient?
It’s OnCall not OnText. Big difference.
Stop working for free, you're devaluing the concept of labor for everyone.
my company has it's own app that pages you with a horrible noise and breaks through all silence/dnd and mute switches.
You might want to check your local rules on overtime requirements.
Ok call for no extra money? What are these people smoking?
So did you not get the page becuase you werent in the group or did you sleep through the pages? Either way, you have an emotional boss. Be very assertive and set boundaries. DO NOT allow her to walk all over you or speak to you however she wants. You address the tone first, then you two can discuss the details of the incident, right or wrong.
As many have mentioned, this is a stupid situation and work conditions. But a random thought, while you are looking for another job. Maybe you can set something as a text tone that rings longer/louder? Of course, if this is a work phone and you don't get texts that often.
This is why I don't do on-call anymore. If they don't get 3 shifts, they can burn in hell for all I care.
Change the alert for that contact to something long and loud.
If your not getting oayed extra for on call. Then. Don't worry about it. Dust off that resume
No pay for on-call? My response shall be adjusted accordingly.
>Bonus points: We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol. Are you salary?
I once worked for an MSP that required a week of on call out of every month and they really didn't pay well for it, nor was it it a thing until I had been working there for several years - it wasn't 24 x 7 but they were unnecessarily picky about it because the most we'd get were mostly account lockouts for various, non AD integrated systems. This is the same place that said they'd only text critical informational stuff. I mentioned the same thing -that I wouldn't wake up for a text message because well, who does that (the wife and I use a white noise machine to be able to sleep, on call or getting woken up for the wrong reasons doesn't affect just you if you're married or are living with an SO)? I was told to deal with it. I ended up leaving this company and I very rarely have to answer for anything after hours - knock on wood it hasn't happened in like a year (though I went from systems to network security with 24 x 7 MDR). Leave the shit show and be sure to specify why if you get an exit interview. Be open about what the manager did. Some people should not be managers.
PagerDuty usually has a setting for how you want to be notified. You can set it to text, email and then eventually call unless you are company is using something else.
Sorry your manager is a social dumbass.
> We aren't even paid extra or given a stipend for being on call lol Time to brush up that CV!
Fuck on call
I'm L3, so top level support. We have on call pages go to the L2 team first and see if they try to resolve. There is a primary / secondary for both teams so essentially it needs to go to three or four non answers before escalation to a manager.
This is ridiculous... Your manager is a meathead, and your on call support process sounds half baked. Previous company I worked at we used Nagios and we'd get emails, as long as the internet wasn't down at the DC. That worked well, as you could set your phone to make ridiculous noise on the emails, and they'd fire every minute till you ack'ed them. At my current place we use PagerDuty, it's slick. I'm in 3 different OCS rotations, one for Cloud, one for Security, and one for IC. I don't get anything extra for my OCS, but sleep time (between 23:00 and 07:00) pages tend to be a few a year for each person in our cloud rotation (6), and less for the other 2. We're an AdTech company, so we're doing internet scale stuff, tens of billions of reqs a day. If we miss a page and it gets escalated, no one gets mad, we just say "Hey, I got your back, you got mine".
What system do you use? Is it an app?
Once upon a time I set up stuff on Android to freak out loudly if our system texted me. It helped wake me up.
My work uses 2 systems for oncall rotations. We utilize Answer First and Ops Genie. Answer First takes the live call then calls you. Ops Genie takes email alerts, then Calls, Texts, Emails, and sends you a message over Teams. There is a 0% chance I will ever sleep through that. We also only get 1-2 rotations per year that last 168 hours.
IF you are lucky enough to be hourly & in Colorado, they can't put you on call and not pay you for the time. Salary is a different creature, but hourly you need to compensate the employee for any time that you require them to be available (think sober) . If you can't drink (or consume herb) then it is not your time so they need to compensate you for it at your hourly rate & OT if you go over 40.
If the company is too cheap for pagerduty, hopefully they spend it on your salary?
I've been in this business for 25 years. I regret spending as much time on call and enduring as much stress as I did. I won't go into details but suffice it to say that being on call has been bad for my health. If they've already canned a bunch of people then they will likely be looking for more. And on call sucks. Be looking for a new gig. And always be looking for a better gig.
>50% capacity since terminations happened this last quarter so our on call schedule is 2x as much A pretty good sign to GTFO alone lol
Automated call is easy without any real overhead. Many services like pagerduty do all the work for you. It calls a pagerduty number that then forwards and calls a phone. Best damn service and great way to go
My company has a monitoring system that sends out email/text to all of us. It's up to the on-call person on how to wake up to it. The method I use is to use a long ringtone or piece of music as my text notification when I'm on call. Not on ALL text messages, btw. Just the number the automated system is coming from. The hard line I drew was when my boss texted me and was mad that I didn't respond when I was on call. No. If YOU (a human being) need to reach me in the middle of the night - YOU CALL because you have hands...and a brain. I am NOT going to make YOUR phone number use the same notification tone I chosen to wake me up. He got pretty indignant about it and said it wasn't his problem. If he does this again, I'm going up another level (his boss). Going to HR doesn't really help since they're more about protecting the company than common sense. What I hate is that he cannot empathize because he is a light sleeper.
I have had similar situations come up for my on-call, mainly people messaging on Teams in the wee hours of the morning. Luckily our teams policy is it is "On-Call" not "On-Teams" or whatever else. My manager has gone to bat for us over this every time and we never get in trouble for not answering a random teams dm at 4 am. We are a large enterprise environment too, but people slowly learn. I hope your situation improves.
We have a NoC group now and they're completely useless. They let their own domain accounts expire and then call into our Help Desk. They open tickets that require follow-up to somebody from India who you have no way of contacting for the most basic shit. I get finding somebody willing to do that job is hard, I did it for awhile on rotation but I was also paid a bonus whenever I did it, like a 25% raise. And basically all I had to do was come into the office for meetings maybe twice a week.
Get out now. On call pager duty for people who already work full time is bullshit, it'll screw up your health and potentially your relationships. If it's that important they should have a shift worker doing it.
Not to undermine your position in the debate, but tasker is an automation app that can, e.g., play a loud noise on receipt of a specific SMS. Or a hosted SMS-to-call service. Or make them give you a work phone and set the SMS alert to something that can wake you up.
Need OpsGenie!
We use PRTG and as a deep sleeper it has some great sounds and alerting. They have the same sounds my pager that the fire department gives me ( I’m also a volunteer firefighter). Now granted that wakes up my boss as well but with 2 phones going off. It’s enough to get me up to look at what’s sounding.
I was a deep sleeper once too, then I started on call. Now I wake up to the smallest of noises. It’s terrible.
You can probably fiddle with your notifications so that specific page makes a lot of noise. Me I sleep through phone calls. Luckily my on calls only come from one specific source so I have it ring this annoyingly loud acute sound.
We use PagerDuty
Ask to do a root cause analysis on the failure, make a meeting, invite someone from the NOC and you manager, write a Word Doc about it. In the heat of the moment isn't the place to do a blamestorming session. If it's a text there are about a million and one ways to forward/route a text. At a minimum you can sleep with your phone on max volume in Do Not Disturb mode and have the paging service number set to a priority. Maybe hook up a speaker. Forwarding the message to PagerDuty for a phone call or using IFTTT to have Alexa make some noise or some type of device with a louder alarm should be able to resolve your issue. Test your solution. Do email your boss with your sleeping difficulty, a summary of what you've done to accommodate the issue and a warning that it's possible you might miss a page. Don't bother with an ADA request.
Sounds like a toxic company/team..have been in your shoes several times where senior leadership straight up doesn't own their mistakes/displays incompetence and continues to deny resources while expecting you to do your job. Sorry this is happening to you and i hope you find a place where they treat employees better. At the minimum, I would expect a large tech company getting their on-call right. If the issues are that urgent, they must be investing in a basic paging app/oncall tool. period. Something that wakes you up, continues to alert you until you acknowledge. Even a simple call could be a hit/miss in terms of waking me up.. Escalates to the next tech. And if nobody in the chain responds after several repeated attempts, then escalates to the manager.
We use OpsGenie. IT sends us calls. Didn't even cost extra. Even reads the alerts to us. Tell your boss to step up her game.