I have an on-call job. We have two teams, one in Switzerland (where I am), and the other on the west coast of the US; shifts are daytime only, from 0600 to 1800, with the other team handling the night shift. Each team's about five people.
I'm usually on call for three or four days in a row once or twice a month. Schedules are flexible. We just enter dates when we're not available into our calendar and this insane piece of inhouse software looks at our oncall history and determines a fair schedule, so everyone gets the same amount of oncall time. It even takes into account weekends (which are typically very quiet, but you still need to be within mobile-signal-or-coffee-shop range).
Pager load is typically one or two a day, and are usually fairly trivial; far more annoying are the non-paging alerts and paperwork. Sometimes there's a pager storm as something catches fire and burns down, but there's always someone around to help when that happens.
Being on-call here is... never something I look forward to, but the systems are in place to give support if I need it, and I'm never on for very long. The culture here emphasises that when my shift is over, particularly when there's a crisis, I hand over to the next person (in the other team) and then GO HOME, because otherwise I'll burn out.
I'm usually on call for three or four days in a row once or twice a month. Schedules are flexible. We just enter dates when we're not available into our calendar and this insane piece of inhouse software looks at our oncall history and determines a fair schedule, so everyone gets the same amount of oncall time. It even takes into account weekends (which are typically very quiet, but you still need to be within mobile-signal-or-coffee-shop range).
Pager load is typically one or two a day, and are usually fairly trivial; far more annoying are the non-paging alerts and paperwork. Sometimes there's a pager storm as something catches fire and burns down, but there's always someone around to help when that happens.
Being on-call here is... never something I look forward to, but the systems are in place to give support if I need it, and I'm never on for very long. The culture here emphasises that when my shift is over, particularly when there's a crisis, I hand over to the next person (in the other team) and then GO HOME, because otherwise I'll burn out.