‘You don't want me on call? You won't be able to call me’: IT worker tired of years of unpaid emergency duty while colleagues bank €500 monthly, gets instant promotion after vanishing for a weekend by switching numbers and cutting landlines

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  • Hey there, just wanted to share my compliance with you. Its been a few years but i still am proud of it.
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  • Don't want to pay be for being on call? Ok I won't be

    "Don't want to pay for being on call? Ok I won't be❞
  • Background: I worked in it in a medium sized company. We were a team of about 20 persons, with always 2 specialists for every topic.
  • For example server / database and mine - network and firewalls. Due to laws in our country we had a gentlemen's agreement with our company.
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  • As noone could be forced to be on call pretty much 24/7 every 2 weeks, but the company needing exactly that they paid us about 500€ per month,
  • and we would be on call - but with less harsh rules (you were supposed to call back in a larger timeframe, it wasn't expected
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  • that you could start working within a specific frame etc.). The calls were not frequent so this was okay for us. Every team was called
  • like 2-3 times a year, so it was decent money for a psychic burden, more then for real work.
  • The problem: I was the new one. So I worked there for several years and my boss just left me out of the agreement.
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  • At the beginning it was ok, because I wasn't called and also wasn't able to help. immediately. But after 2 years my higher boss blatantly stated
  • "well if there is a problem, we'll just call him" to other colleagues and my direct boss when it came to my partner going into vacations or illness.
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  • The first problem: As you might expect I was p ed. And low and behold, the time came and they needed help from the whole department,
  • because there was a computer problem with all systems. The higher boss didn't even have the balls to call me himself, he made one of the other colleagues do it.
  • I answered and it was hard to leave them hanging, but I declined, knowing everyone would have more work with less people.
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  • The Solution After being set into such a harsh spot, I chose to solve the problem myself. You don't want me on call? You won't be able to call me.
  • I switched my mobile number, only giving it to my direct partner, who also agreed with it being unfair, like my direct boss.
  • He would simply lie that he didn't have it either if he was asked. Everyone knew I was p ed, so they agreed with my solution.
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  • Then i turned off my home phone, which I didn't use anyway and gave hr the number of my parents, telling them to only contact me,
  • if there was a real problem, nothing just work related. And then I waited. And waited.
  • The Crashout & Aftermath: And then my time came. Colleague was out of country on holiday. I had a nice weekend.
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  • On Monday I came in and everyone was like: everything crashed on the weekend. Turns out the firewall as main gateway had a network interface going up and down.
  • Noone even had a login expect my colleague and me. They had to get a specialist from the support to help them, which cost them the whole weekend to solve this,
  • meaning critical calculations didn't run as planned. I was immediately called into my boss (unfortunately not the higher one again) office.
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  • He instantly promoted me to being on call, no matter the consequences. Everything with HR and the bigger boss would be done afterwards,
  • I just had to make sure I was on call when leaving the building this day. So I went ahead and gave them my number,
  • and after that I was never even questioned about it again.
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  • Bonus for me: Other departments always were p ed about our "free bonus money" and I was the only one who always just went ahead
  • and told everyone I would actually give it up again, if I had my personal freedom and space back.
  • I actually prefer my space over the money. Left some years afterwards for a 8-16 it job without being in the constant awareness
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  • that someone might call. The money might sound great at first. But about 3000€ per year for always having your work in the back of your head
  • just isn't worth it for me.
  • Edit for clarification: 500€ a month, at about 42% tax rate. It's quite usual to make it simple and just half the initial income.
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  • So it would have been around 3400€. Nothing was split, every one on call got the 500.

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