Join the on-call roster, it'll change your life

https://serce.me/posts/2025-12-09-join-oncall-it-will-change-your-life

by SerCe • 8 months ago

11 7 8 months ago

your manager ... asks if you would like to join the rotation.

I don't think I've worked anywhere in the last decade where I was not part of the on-call rotation. It's been obligatory, maybe because I've worked at small-to-medium sized companies. I'm on call this week, in fact.

On-call weeks are my least favorite though. It's always nice when my rotation includes a holiday because our users are only active during normal business hours, so we never have issues when everyone's out of the office.

server_man30002• 8 months ago

Oncall is complete bullshit and the fact that we have standardised this without Additional pay has greatly affected my life working in big tech.

fastest963• 7 months ago

I wouldn't say it's without pay. It's in the job description when you're hired and the pay should compensate for that. SREs are typically paid very well.

stevewodil• 7 months ago

On call rotations are part of basically every engineering team that owns any production service at tech companies, not just SRE

server_man30002• 7 months ago

Oncall being in the job description just doesn’t rationalize the abuse and insanity Ive seen myself and my team go through.

I don’t think a bullet in a job description and expected baseline pay for a tech job is reasonable enough to accept that either.

mono442• 7 months ago

It all depends on a software one is supposed to be responsible for. For some, it'll at most a few pages a year, for others it'll be constant pain having to deal with problems.

kotaKat• 7 months ago

I was on-call physical IT for a hospital system and I developed PTSD out of it.

Over ten years later, I still feel the effects. Every notification, every ring just brings life to a stop, for just a few moments.

I can agree, OP: on-call rosters change your life.

Join the on-call roster, it'll change your life

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