on-call rates

[Dominic Thoreau]

On 28 June 2012 09:38, Dirk Koopman <djk at tobit.co.uk> wrote:
> I have been asked to make myself available "on-call" 24/7 (for defined
> periods of time) on third line support on a product that rarely goes wrong.
> Nearly all problems are infrastructure or user cockup. However, said users
> are a) paranoid about blame and b) by default, it must be our product's
> fault until proved (*PROVED* I say!) it isn't (99.9% success rate on that so
> far :-). Oh, and by the way, *please* get us working PDQ (pretty please).
>
> I believe I might get called 1->4 times year. Are there any standards or
> bits of common practice out there that can help me price this up?
>
> Dirk

Consider on-call to be almost like working:
- If you need to respond within a short time-scale, you can't do
anything that would stop you being able to work. No drinking, no going
out etc. You'll want compensating for this
- If you get called, you possibly want to have a rate for what you get
paid will working at that time (in addition to your 9-5 pay). There
should be a minimum. If you do get called, you probably want
stand-down until you have to start work again (ie if you work late in
the night, don't expect a 9am start that day)
- You want on-call times to be planned well in advance, so you can
have a life. I know my employer was talking about having staff on an
on-call rota. I wasn't in this, but they were considering a formal
rota between 3 of the senior staff. This might be closer to reasonable
(1 week in three), although I never found out what was eventually
decided on.

Just my 2p.


Dominic
-- 
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