[geeks] What do you get paid for wearing a pager?

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Bill Bradford <mrbill at mrbill.net>
>Date: 2006/09/25 Mon AM 12:41:21 CDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] What do you get paid for wearing a pager?

>On Sun, Sep 24, 2006 at 09:47:11PM -0400, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
>> I have done lots of sysadmin work, but really do not quite understand 
>> how to price the "wear pager and respond in 15 minutes" work.
>> What are *your* experiences or ideas?
>
>One week a month (Thursday to Thursday), I'm on call 24/7 (mostly to 
>support our outsourced operations due to the time difference).  The other 
>three weeks, I'm asked (not required) to be available by cell phone in 
>case of an emergency.
>
>This is all part of my normal salary (almost six figures).
>
>No pager, just a phone (which work pays for).

Oh, meant to add another data point to my previous post - when I carried a pager at work, it was compensated pretty fairly I thought:

Carry pager for one week, get 1/2 day off (in addition to vacation/personal/etc.)

IF a call comes in, and it takes more than 15 minutes to "get rid of the call" (the client agrees to wait till morning), you get actual overtime for all time worked. If multiple calls came in in one night, time was cumulative for the night.

This company had a 24x7 help desk to field initial calls after hours and would encourage clients to wait till morning, but clients did have pager number if they needed it (it was an odd situation, clients actually "owned" the company, os in a way we were their employees)...

My product *never* got calls, and for a while there were only two of us on that product, so we each got an extra day off each month. That was nice, but those types of jobs are long gone...

Lionel