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Comment by fredley | Hacker News Reader

On the other hand, "if you're not here on Saturday, don't bother coming in on Sunday." When did this become admirable again?

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It should be admirable, precisely because it should be exceptional.

Sometimes it really does hit the fan, and sometimes it really does need to be now. That is the nature of the industry. We just need to make sure it’s remarkable for the right reasons.

Even in Germany, and Scandinavia – with our extreme employee protection laws – in such emergencies, employees are allowed to work during the night, on a weekend (just for double pay).

These are exceptional examples, but completely normal, and acceptable.

The question is whether whoever did the work got weekend overtime pay.

At Google, you get extra pay for off-hours oncall.

At OT rates I trust and a payment for being on call

No, certainly not. Most of my off-hours oncall shifts look like me sleeping while nothing is happening. But it is a nice bonus that I'd prefer not to give up.

These days I accept nothing less than full time pay for on-call status, even if that looks like me sleeping while nothing is happening. Of course, that means I almost never get asked to provide on-call service, but if a company is exerting some control over my time, they're going to pay full value for that. It's not about what I'm doing, it's about what I'm not able to do. I can't travel, I can't drink excessively, I can't ignore my phone or put it on do not disturb, I can't be too far away from an internet connection, etc.

And those things deserve compensation. Full time pay? I mean everything is negotiable but that one is a hard sell.

Yes having a payment for being on call say £500 for 1 in 4 but expecting fulltime pay while you on call is just silly

Price is just the intersection of supply vs demand. You arbitrarily choosing £500 is no more or less silly than me choosing 1x base rate or even 10x base rate. It just sounds like you're more willing to let work intrude on your private time than I am. Neither of us is silly for that.

There's negotiation and asking for the moon on a stick - you just get laughed at.

I guess that's a matter of perspective. I'm not trying to sell it. In fact, quite the opposite.

There are several different tiers based on the SLO of the oncall, usually measured in something like minutes to a keyboard after a page.

The compensation varies based on the tier.

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