Work related B#B#B#B#B#B#B#B#B#B#B#B# $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[John Bolene]

Forgot to mention.

We normally have a work your own flex time schedule. I normally work 7:30 AM to 4:30 PM. Other times as required by tasks at hand.

If we work weekend time, we can come in late on Monday. If we work late on a weekday, we can come in late the next day.

It all sorta works out.

Most days off are approved, we normally have to give a number where we can be reached if a disaster happens and we are needed or possibly carry a national pager.

[ian Dennison]

I do not know if anyone has worked for their government, but I was UNIX Tech. Team Leader for a large (and mission critical) Government Agency, and earning 60% of average commercial salary for my position.

For callout, I received a princely sum equivalent to 1/2 an hour at my hourly rate PER DAY, just to hold onto a cellphone. Callout Duty was 48 weeks per year as Backup Callout for the Primary Callout person.

Never become indispensable! Share and Enjoy! Ian

[Victor BERRIDGE]

Well if your working for a government (I do), you must have other reasons than salary to work since you are less paid (Here in Switzerland Id say 20-25% less than average)
I havent given the positive side of my work:

We have 5 weeks holidays (paid)(when you can take them...),I can take days off when kids are ill (max 5 days/year)
Although flexytime here is 7:00-8:30 in the morning, For health purpose I start in the morning after 9:30 (I normally start when I feel fit for work that means between 9:45-10:15 -it helps also keep my overtime at something reasonable).This means that the hierarchy wanting my presence at important meeting have to fix appointment accordingly...
I have long breaks monday and thursday or friday (or both sometimes): 11:30-14:15 So I can practice and take my organ lessons...
You cant have it all...

All the best

Victor

[Steven Sim Kok Leong]

Hi Paula,

I am with the Computer Emergency Response Team of my company and am on 24 by 7 standby. I don't get paid for after-office hour urgent on-site responses. However, I have a great boss who takes the initiative to offer me an off-day if I am ever called back on a Sunday (spends a day on-site).

Hope this helps. Regards.

Steven Sim Kok Leong

[Bill McNAMARA_1]

I can remember working the y2k support, on call for 2 weeks 24hrs solid (never had a call) and got a small bonus.. about 1% however, the company gave me 12 bottles of really good champagne that I tucked into shortly after.. they got me sussed!

Bill

[Tracey]

Salaried Exempt (I agree, exempt for getting paid overtime)

I also get the happy feeling of having done my job. I do occasional get some comp time. Our AC went out in the computer room on Christmas Eve, and wasn't fixed till late Christmas day. My boss did feel bad about that so he gave me a comp day.

[Dave Chamberlin]

Hi Paula,

My situation is THE Unix admin + oracle DBA for an international company with about 1000 emps. We are not quite 24x7x365, in that I can take the system down if for maintenance, etc on a sunday. I work 40 hours a week, sometimes a few more. I am on call 24x7 with a pager. I get ~3% of my salary on weekdays and 6% on weekends and holidays to carry the pager. Since I am salaried I get no extra pay for extra hours. I can get comp time, but not one for one. My production server has crashed twice in two years. In the last year there were maybe 2 or 3 critcal pages that required coming in. Luckily I live 10 minutes from work. So at this point I feel fairly compensated.
My personal philosophy is that I deserve a life. You do too! Those hours in the night or on a weekend are PREMIUM hours and I would not trade them for less than a premium price. For being called after normal hours, If you are hourly, you should expect overtime pay (1.5x) for service calls with a one or two hour minimum. If you are salaried, you should make well above average. If you are called out constantly then you are being abused unless you are compensated royally! There are lots of companies that abuse people because they are too lazy or too cheap to hire more people. I have decided that life is more important than making a few extra dollars as a slave. You might point out to your company that they might save $$ and downtime (ie customer satisfaction) by adding people or more getting reliably equipped. I wish you luck - but dont forget that there are other better jobs out there.

Dav