Should You Be Paid For Being On Call?

theodp writes "Fortune's Dear Annie takes on the case of poor Dazed and Confused, an independent webmaster who's expected to be on call for his client at all hours of the day and night, but doesn't get paid for being on call, only for the 40 hours a week that he's in the office. Surprisingly, Annie throws cold water on the contractor's dreams of paid OT, citing these pearls of wisdom from an attorney who's apparently never had the 'privilege' of being a techie on call: 'Many companies see the on-call issue as analogous to a fire fighter's job. Most of the time, a fire fighter is off-duty but on call, hanging around the firehouse, cooking, sleeping, or whatever. What that person really gets paid for is the relatively small, but crucial, amount of time he spends walking into a burning building with an ax. A webmaster, likewise, has slow times and busy times.'" What on call policies are you used to working with and how should it work in an ideal world?

Re:Of course you should be paid

[bberens]

No worries, most of the code where I work appears to have been written while inebriated.

Re:Of course you should be paid

[soupforare]

And you need to be sober.

I drink when I'm *at* work, I'm certainly not changing that when I'm on-call!

Re:Of course you should be paid

[Amouth]

i remember this becoming an issue for me - i was on vacation - got an e-mail on my phone - had been drinking considerably and was in the car with the wife driving us back to the hotel.

the next week when i was back in the office there was a print out of the e-mail i sent with a huge ? on it on my desk.. apparently my response was so bad the thought my e-mail got "corrupted"