What's your compensation for carrying a pager???

[Richard]

My employer currently pays me $1/hour when I carry a pager. I have to
carry the pager every fourth week. The problem is that my employer
insists that I be available when I'm carrying the pager. So, for $1/hr
they expect me to remain within pager range, remain sober, and be
available to come to work. That really sucks on weekends. No going
to the beach (out of pager range) or out to a friend's cottage (out of pager
range), etc. Declining to carry the pager is NOT an option.

I'm curious what compensation others get and more importantly, what's
your employers expectation of your availability when you're on-call?

Thanks.

[Mark A]

Re: What's your compensation for carrying a pager???

"Richard" <pager_boy@spam ex.com> wrote in message
news:eI6bc.9796 $Ig.3374@pd7tw2 no...[color=blue]
> My employer currently pays me $1/hour when I carry a pager. I have to
> carry the pager every fourth week. The problem is that my employer
> insists that I be available when I'm carrying the pager. So, for $1/hr
> they expect me to remain within pager range, remain sober, and be
> available to come to work. That really sucks on weekends. No going
> to the beach (out of pager range) or out to a friend's cottage (out of[/color]
pager[color=blue]
> range), etc. Declining to carry the pager is NOT an option.
>
> I'm curious what compensation others get and more importantly, what's
> your employers expectation of your availability when you're on-call?
>
> Thanks.
>[/color]
For most employee's in a support role, carrying a pager and being available
on nights and weekends to respond to problems is a condition of employment
and they do not receive anything extra. The $1 per hour is probably to just
protect themselves from legal problems. In reality, the amount you receive
for carrying the pager is irrelevant. What is important is the total
compensation you receive. If you don't like your job or your total
compensation package, look for another job.

[Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)]

Re: What's your compensation for carrying a pager???


"Richard" <pager_boy@spam ex.com> wrote in message
news:eI6bc.9796 $Ig.3374@pd7tw2 no...[color=blue]
> My employer currently pays me $1/hour when I carry a pager. I have to
> carry the pager every fourth week. The problem is that my employer
> insists that I be available when I'm carrying the pager. So, for $1/hr
> they expect me to remain within pager range, remain sober, and be
> available to come to work. That really sucks on weekends. No going
> to the beach (out of pager range) or out to a friend's cottage (out of[/color]
pager[color=blue]
> range), etc. Declining to carry the pager is NOT an option.
>[/color]

We pay $100/week. That's generally 12 hours overnight, and 48 hours on the
weekend.

So, I guess that's less than $1/hour.

We expect them to generally be within 15-30 minutes of a computer.

They don't need to come into work, they can work from home.

If any call takes an hour or more they also earn 1:1 comp time for those
calls.

We are flexible though and permit folks to change shifts as often as they
want (typically every other night it's a new person).

We only have 2 people currently carrying the page however, so it can get
rough.

On the same token we don't get too many pages and most are resolved within
10 minutes.

[color=blue]
> I'm curious what compensation others get and more importantly, what's
> your employers expectation of your availability when you're on-call?
>
> Thanks.
>
>[/color]

[Jim Kennedy]

Re: What's your compensation for carrying a pager???


"Richard" <pager_boy@spam ex.com> wrote in message
news:eI6bc.9796 $Ig.3374@pd7tw2 no...[color=blue]
> My employer currently pays me $1/hour when I carry a pager. I have to
> carry the pager every fourth week. The problem is that my employer
> insists that I be available when I'm carrying the pager. So, for $1/hr
> they expect me to remain within pager range, remain sober, and be
> available to come to work. That really sucks on weekends. No going
> to the beach (out of pager range) or out to a friend's cottage (out of[/color]
pager[color=blue]
> range), etc. Declining to carry the pager is NOT an option.
>
> I'm curious what compensation others get and more importantly, what's
> your employers expectation of your availability when you're on-call?
>
> Thanks.
>
>[/color]
One employer I worked for was $250 per week another was $1 per non-work hour
(outside of the normal 9-5 weekday) plus time and a half if a call was
received in 15 minute increments.
Jim

[Mark C. Stock]

Re: What's your compensation for carrying a pager???


"Jim Kennedy" <kennedy-downwithspammer sfamily@attbi.n et> wrote in message
news:Z7gbc.6116 4$JO3.38313@att bi_s04...
|
| "Richard" <pager_boy@spam ex.com> wrote in message
| news:eI6bc.9796 $Ig.3374@pd7tw2 no...
| > My employer currently pays me $1/hour when I carry a pager. I have to
| > carry the pager every fourth week. The problem is that my employer
| > insists that I be available when I'm carrying the pager. So, for $1/hr
| > they expect me to remain within pager range, remain sober, and be
| > available to come to work. That really sucks on weekends. No going
| > to the beach (out of pager range) or out to a friend's cottage (out of
| pager
| > range), etc. Declining to carry the pager is NOT an option.
| >
| > I'm curious what compensation others get and more importantly, what's
| > your employers expectation of your availability when you're on-call?
| >
| > Thanks.
| >
| >
| One employer I worked for was $250 per week another was $1 per non-work
hour
| (outside of the normal 9-5 weekday) plus time and a half if a call was
| received in 15 minute increments.
| Jim
|
|

the time+half at 15 min intervals seems reasonable (much more reasonable
than the 1st hour free, rest at comp time -- if i understood the earlier
post properly)

;-{ mcs

[Glen A Stromquist]

Re: What's your compensation for carrying a pager???

Richard wrote:
[color=blue]
> My employer currently pays me $1/hour when I carry a pager. I have to
> carry the pager every fourth week. The problem is that my employer
> insists that I be available when I'm carrying the pager. So, for $1/hr
> they expect me to remain within pager range, remain sober, and be
> available to come to work. That really sucks on weekends. No going
> to the beach (out of pager range) or out to a friend's cottage (out of pager
> range), etc. Declining to carry the pager is NOT an option.
>
> I'm curious what compensation others get and more importantly, what's
> your employers expectation of your availability when you're on-call?
>
> Thanks.
>
>[/color]
I carry a pager and a cell, and get squat for it, its a condition of
employment. We take turns being on call for weekends, but basically we
all are anyway, the on-call person will just contact me if the problem
is db related anyway, same goes for our network guys, as400 guys etc.
I do a lot of after hours monitoring & work on my own anyway, in turn I
get a lot of flexibility, if I want to leave early to watch one of my
kids school event I go, no questions asked. As long as everything runs
and runs smoothly things are ok. Works for me anyway...


cheers

[AnaCDent]

Re: What's your compensation for carrying a pager???

Richard wrote:[color=blue]
> My employer currently pays me $1/hour when I carry a pager. I have to
> carry the pager every fourth week. The problem is that my employer
> insists that I be available when I'm carrying the pager. So, for $1/hr
> they expect me to remain within pager range, remain sober, and be
> available to come to work. That really sucks on weekends. No going
> to the beach (out of pager range) or out to a friend's cottage (out of pager
> range), etc. Declining to carry the pager is NOT an option.
>
> I'm curious what compensation others get and more importantly, what's
> your employers expectation of your availability when you're on-call?[/color]

ZERO!

[(Pete Cresswell)]

Re: What's your compensation for carrying a pager???

RE/[color=blue]
>I'm curious what compensation others get and more importantly, what's
>your employers expectation of your availability when you're on-call?[/color]

Same as my compensation for carrying a cell phone 24-7, giving the number to
everybody I work with, and always answering it unless I'm sitting on the
crapper: my clients don't ditch me in favor of somebody who does.
--
PeteCresswell

[Jim Kennedy]

Re: What's your compensation for carrying a pager???


"Richard" <pager_boy@spam ex.com> wrote in message
news:eI6bc.9796 $Ig.3374@pd7tw2 no...[color=blue]
> My employer currently pays me $1/hour when I carry a pager. I have to
> carry the pager every fourth week. The problem is that my employer
> insists that I be available when I'm carrying the pager. So, for $1/hr
> they expect me to remain within pager range, remain sober, and be
> available to come to work. That really sucks on weekends. No going
> to the beach (out of pager range) or out to a friend's cottage (out of[/color]
pager[color=blue]
> range), etc. Declining to carry the pager is NOT an option.
>
> I'm curious what compensation others get and more importantly, what's
> your employers expectation of your availability when you're on-call?
>
> Thanks.
>
>[/color]
Richard,
I've been thinking on this more. One incentive that paying the on call
person for their after hours time is to have the system run smoothly and
make the occasion rare when someone actually has to be called. By paying
more when the on call person has to respond to an emergency there is
incentive to minimize emergencies. (I don't mean by not calling when there
is a problem, but rather trying to set up processes and proper maint. so
these are fewer.) Everyone wins in this situation. (more up time, less
emergencies)
Jim

[Neil Pike]

Re: What's your compensation for carrying a pager???

> Same as my compensation for carrying a cell phone 24-7, giving the number to[color=blue]
> everybody I work with, and always answering it unless I'm sitting on the
> crapper: my clients don't ditch me in favor of somebody who does.[/color]

I'm sorry, a true consultant answers the phone even on the crapper ;-)

Neil Pike MVP/MCSE. Protech Computing Ltd
Reply here - no email
SQL FAQ (484 entries) see

http://forumsb.compuserve.com/gvforums/UK/default.asp?SRV=MSDevApps

(faqxxx.zip in lib 7)
or https://www.ntfaq.com/Articles/Index...partmentID=800
or www.sqlserverfaq.com
or www.mssqlserver.com/faq

[Jari Ivanoff]

Re: What's your compensation for carrying a pager???

Well... When I started at this company we shared the time on 3 persons, so
we had to be on call every third week.. Then we had around $5.5/hr on
outofoffice time... And $40/hr when the phone rang. 1:st hr paid in full no
matter if we solved the problem in 5 minutes or in 1 hr. Same if we had to
log on remotely from home. If we had to go to the office we got 3 hrs paid
directly ( no matter if it took 5 minutes or 3 hrs ). If it took longer than
the time we already got paid for it was $40/hr... And we had to be available
24hrs a day from Monday 5am to Saturday 4.30pm ( we didn't have to be on
call after that since there were no production then )

But then we had to be able to either get logged in or be at the factory
within 1 hr.

The the factory was sold and we got another agreement that gaves us $1.85/hr
no matter if we have to go in or not. Now we don't have to be on call at all
since everything has been running so smoothly and we haven't got a single
call for over a year that is systemsrelated ( databases and servers ) and
the IT support has been outsourced.... :-)

/Jari

"Richard" <pager_boy@spam ex.com> wrote in message
news:eI6bc.9796 $Ig.3374@pd7tw2 no...[color=blue]
> My employer currently pays me $1/hour when I carry a pager. I have to
> carry the pager every fourth week. The problem is that my employer
> insists that I be available when I'm carrying the pager. So, for $1/hr
> they expect me to remain within pager range, remain sober, and be
> available to come to work. That really sucks on weekends. No going
> to the beach (out of pager range) or out to a friend's cottage (out of[/color]
pager[color=blue]
> range), etc. Declining to carry the pager is NOT an option.
>
> I'm curious what compensation others get and more importantly, what's
> your employers expectation of your availability when you're on-call?
>
> Thanks.
>
>[/color]

[Jim Kennedy]

Re: What's your compensation for carrying a pager???


"Neil Pike" <neilpike@compu serve.com> wrote in message
news:VA.0000101 3.04f8a14f@comp userve.com...[color=blue][color=green]
> > Same as my compensation for carrying a cell phone 24-7, giving the[/color][/color]
number to[color=blue][color=green]
> > everybody I work with, and always answering it unless I'm sitting on the
> > crapper: my clients don't ditch me in favor of somebody who does.[/color]
>
> I'm sorry, a true consultant answers the phone even on the crapper ;-)
>
> Neil Pike MVP/MCSE. Protech Computing Ltd
> Reply here - no email
> SQL FAQ (484 entries) see
> http://forumsb.compuserve.com/gvforu...?SRV=MSDevApps
> (faqxxx.zip in lib 7)
> or https://www.ntfaq.com/Articles/Index...partmentID=800
> or www.sqlserverfaq.com
> or www.mssqlserver.com/faq
>[/color]
Just don't flush while on the phone!
Jim

[noone]

Re: What's your compensation for carrying a pager???

Richard wrote:
[color=blue]
> My employer currently pays me $1/hour when I carry a pager. I have to
> carry the pager every fourth week. The problem is that my employer
> insists that I be available when I'm carrying the pager. So, for $1/hr
> they expect me to remain within pager range, remain sober, and be
> available to come to work. That really sucks on weekends. No going
> to the beach (out of pager range) or out to a friend's cottage (out of pager
> range), etc. Declining to carry the pager is NOT an option.
>
> I'm curious what compensation others get and more importantly, what's
> your employers expectation of your availability when you're on-call?
>
> Thanks.
>
>[/color]

When I started with my employer 2 years ago, we did not get any compensation at all for after hours 2nd level support.
During those days, you can almost expect a call when you are on shift.
Either 1st level support calls us directly or the boss does.

Nowadays, however, we get an additional $1000(AU) before tax per month to our pay,
after a change in the structure of the company. Plus there are not too much calls
after several of the issues from before have been sorted out one at a time.

[(Pete Cresswell)]

Re: What's your compensation for carrying a pager???

RE/[color=blue]
>I'm sorry, a true consultant answers the phone even on the crapper ;-)[/color]

Mea Culpa.... I *was* doing that..but kept getting caught when the guy next to
me flushed. "Gsssssssssshhh hhhh" "Pete...wha t's that noise?
Eeeeeewwww...Gr oss!"
--
PeteCresswell

[Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)]

Re: What's your compensation for carrying a pager???


"Mark C. Stock" <mcstockX@Xenqu ery .com> wrote in message
news:zbidnTpl4N EOEvDdRVn-jw@comcast.com. ..[color=blue][color=green]
>>[/color]
> the time+half at 15 min intervals seems reasonable (much more reasonable
> than the 1st hour free, rest at comp time -- if i understood the earlier
> post properly)[/color]

Not quite clear in my post.

If the problem takes 5 minutes to fix, no pay... if it takes an hour to fix,
you get an hour of comp time.

What if it take 35 minutes... eh... I tell my folks to round up. :-)

(actually in general, especially at night I recommend they round up since
once you figure lack of sleep, etc... even the simpler calls take an hour.)

It's not as good as I'd like, but about the best we can do.

[color=blue]
>
> ;-{ mcs
>
>[/color]