Funny story: I once did IT helpdesk stuff for Alberta Health Services. I was contracted out by Kelly Services to work for IBM, who had the contract for all the IT work for the entire province of...
Funny story: I once did IT helpdesk stuff for Alberta Health Services. I was contracted out by Kelly Services to work for IBM, who had the contract for all the IT work for the entire province of Alberta. I was being paid $17.50/hr. I excelled at my job. I was put in charge of training new-hires. Many of which were hired directly by IBM, and thus made more money than me. I eventually got "promoted" to 24hr duty as "SPOC", or "Single Point Of Contact" for all of Alberta Health Service after-hours calls. This meant I had to carry a pager at all times, and be ready to field problems 24hrs a day in case the province's hospitals lose power in the middle of the night or there's a tornado or something. I was paid fifty cents an hour for this, 24 hours per day, so like $12 per day, and I couldn't be more than 15 minutes away from internet, so I had to carry the laptop with me and I couldn't go shopping if it might take 20 minutes to get back home and logged in.
Anyway, one of the hats they had me wear was "OWA Specialist", so I would deal with all Outlook Web Access issues for the whole province. I'm so, so glad I'm not working there right now, or I'd be involved with talking to directors despite making only a couple bucks over minimum wage.
Full-time on call is the one and only time I think salaries are not bullshit to underpay you. Because you're litterally being expected to work any time in your life. I'm defacto on call 24/7...
Full-time on call is the one and only time I think salaries are not bullshit to underpay you. Because you're litterally being expected to work any time in your life.
I'm defacto on call 24/7 (rotation, but it's mostly a formality because others refuse to learn multiple systems). 15 years into doing it, I'm paid the equivalent of $11 an hour..less if you factor in what would normally be overtime.
It might seem excessive to think of being paid 24/7 365, but being at the beck and call of your employer any time of day means you can't ever really live your life however you want. I've been reparmanded for not answering my phone at 3 AM on a week I wasn't officially on-call, on vacation, after telling them I was muting my phone all week. The only time I was ever 100% off, regardless of PTO or sick leave, was when I was on FMLA following a stay at the mental ward for stress-induced mania.
If you are on-call 24/7, you deserve minimum wage 24/7.
Sorry for this comment but I had a hard time understanding what you wrote so I'll try rewrite it in my own words and you can correct me. You're saying that you're happy to be payed minimum wage...
Sorry for this comment but I had a hard time understanding what you wrote so I'll try rewrite it in my own words and you can correct me.
You're saying that you're happy to be payed minimum wage per hour, but the amount of hours counted should be every hour of the day? ($11 per hour payed 24/7 is acceptable for this job?)
Sort of. Less the minimum wage, more of a 'if you can't truely punch out from a job, your pay should be reflective of a 24/7 workweek, not a 8/5 one. @psuedolobster was probably being paid about...
Sort of. Less the minimum wage, more of a 'if you can't truely punch out from a job, your pay should be reflective of a 24/7 workweek, not a 8/5 one.
@psuedolobster was probably being paid about $40k annually. I'm paid in the vicinity of $100k. It sounds like a lot, because it honestly would be in a rural area.
But when I log out from the 8-5, I'm only one phone call away from having to drop everything else in my life to heed my employers demands.
My kid hasn't hit grade school yet and I'm already feeling the guilt. 'Sorry, daddy can't play with you at all this weekend because there's a problem at work.'
I have a lot more material comfort than I did when working on a factory line (paying off all the debt from those years helped tremendously). But at least back then, when I punched out, my hell was over.
Now I'd give anything to drop my job and find a new carreer path. Wife and kid means there's too much risk. I need a home for them. I need health insurance. Job stability. I have to do right by them.
And that means keeping this shitty job, automating as much as I can while telling nobody, telling everyone I'm too busy, and fix other people's problems so I never get 3 AM phone calls again.
Funny story: I once did IT helpdesk stuff for Alberta Health Services. I was contracted out by Kelly Services to work for IBM, who had the contract for all the IT work for the entire province of Alberta. I was being paid $17.50/hr. I excelled at my job. I was put in charge of training new-hires. Many of which were hired directly by IBM, and thus made more money than me. I eventually got "promoted" to 24hr duty as "SPOC", or "Single Point Of Contact" for all of Alberta Health Service after-hours calls. This meant I had to carry a pager at all times, and be ready to field problems 24hrs a day in case the province's hospitals lose power in the middle of the night or there's a tornado or something. I was paid fifty cents an hour for this, 24 hours per day, so like $12 per day, and I couldn't be more than 15 minutes away from internet, so I had to carry the laptop with me and I couldn't go shopping if it might take 20 minutes to get back home and logged in.
Anyway, one of the hats they had me wear was "OWA Specialist", so I would deal with all Outlook Web Access issues for the whole province. I'm so, so glad I'm not working there right now, or I'd be involved with talking to directors despite making only a couple bucks over minimum wage.
Full-time on call is the one and only time I think salaries are not bullshit to underpay you. Because you're litterally being expected to work any time in your life.
I'm defacto on call 24/7 (rotation, but it's mostly a formality because others refuse to learn multiple systems). 15 years into doing it, I'm paid the equivalent of $11 an hour..less if you factor in what would normally be overtime.
It might seem excessive to think of being paid 24/7 365, but being at the beck and call of your employer any time of day means you can't ever really live your life however you want. I've been reparmanded for not answering my phone at 3 AM on a week I wasn't officially on-call, on vacation, after telling them I was muting my phone all week. The only time I was ever 100% off, regardless of PTO or sick leave, was when I was on FMLA following a stay at the mental ward for stress-induced mania.
If you are on-call 24/7, you deserve minimum wage 24/7.
Sorry for this comment but I had a hard time understanding what you wrote so I'll try rewrite it in my own words and you can correct me.
You're saying that you're happy to be payed minimum wage per hour, but the amount of hours counted should be every hour of the day? ($11 per hour payed 24/7 is acceptable for this job?)
Sort of. Less the minimum wage, more of a 'if you can't truely punch out from a job, your pay should be reflective of a 24/7 workweek, not a 8/5 one.
@psuedolobster was probably being paid about $40k annually. I'm paid in the vicinity of $100k. It sounds like a lot, because it honestly would be in a rural area.
But when I log out from the 8-5, I'm only one phone call away from having to drop everything else in my life to heed my employers demands.
My kid hasn't hit grade school yet and I'm already feeling the guilt. 'Sorry, daddy can't play with you at all this weekend because there's a problem at work.'
I have a lot more material comfort than I did when working on a factory line (paying off all the debt from those years helped tremendously). But at least back then, when I punched out, my hell was over.
Now I'd give anything to drop my job and find a new carreer path. Wife and kid means there's too much risk. I need a home for them. I need health insurance. Job stability. I have to do right by them.
And that means keeping this shitty job, automating as much as I can while telling nobody, telling everyone I'm too busy, and fix other people's problems so I never get 3 AM phone calls again.
Yeah, very glad I'm not working call center anymore right now.