re: Girlfriend is furious that I'm not attending her best friends gender reveal tomorrow.

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Someone tell me what job is on call 24/7, because I don’t believe it exists. If it did you could never have a drink, leave your house, or commit to anything taking more than 30 minutes.

Unless we’re talking about being on call for a couple days straight, like a physician, but op didn’t say that.

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I don't mean to sound arrogant, but what in the world do you people do for a living?
Those that find this 24/7 on call thing so bizarre and foreign.

I have numerous electrical engineers in my family that are on call 24/7, and get called quite a bit.

If you are a Database Manager or Systems Administrator, you are on call 24/7.

You may go days without getting a call when on call, or you may get called at 2 am on a Saturday and work 16 hours straight.

It just goes with the territory.
If the database crashes, you work until it's repaired.
Same if you are a System Admin and systems crash.

You are on call because these issues can't wait until 8am to be addressed, let alone being down for an entire weekend and waiting until 8m Monday.

You need subordinates that you train to do that for you. You don’t have to do it all. I am an executive now and learned this concept a long time ago when I was putting in 70 hours a week on the regular.

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Then you’re a slave, not an employee. I have st times worked on vacation. I work in IT and am on a rotating call, I’m also the team lead and terminal escalation point for some issues (no one else to turn to if I can’t solve it). But I will be damned if I would ever be required to take my laptop on vacation if I didn’t want to. I hope you one day experience freedom.

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I hear you, I have worked for numerous fortune 500 companies.

This is the only area of IT in the company where you are salaried/non exempt..meaning that you are salaried and get overtime pay.

You are also paid a portion of your salary for every hour that you are on call, even if you aren't called.

When you are called you are paid overtime for the hours that you work.

As you can see, the money is insane.
You are being paid at least a percentage of your salary for every minute that you are on call, even when you are not working.

It can be exhausting, and guys with families can't hack it in my department.

But us single guys are raking in some crazy cash, for as long as we can take it before burning out.

I can experience freedom any time I want.
There are other IT departments in the company with much more freedom, and much less money.

Between being paid for being on call, along with time and a half for OT work, I easily make 3 times as much as other engineers and analysts make who work a more normal 40 hour shift.

It's crazy money, and not much time for a life, but I'm single and stacking bills like crazy with no other responsibilities.

Set a precedent baw.

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Don’t worry baw, no one thinks you’re bragging about being eternally on call. To answer your question, most companies have a couple people who rotate through being on call, not one guy who is on call 24/7/365 as you suggest you are. I don’t believe that is your situation but no one would be envious.

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We only have a few System Admins, and yes we are on call 24/7 and are paid to be on call 24/7.

Our clients pay a fortune in support fees for contracts that state they have 24/7 support.

Our company pays us 20 percent of our hourly rate just to be on call, outside of our normal working hours.

We aren't being abused by being on call 24/7, we are being paid for being on call 24/7, even when we aren't being called. Just to adhere to the contracts that state system admins will be available 24/7.

When we get called we get paid time and a half for hours that we work.

So we are basically being paid around the clock, working or not.

Either 20 percent of our hourly rate to be on call, and time and a half when we get a call and are working.

Obviously, the money piles up pretty quickly when you are being paid while not working and time and a half while working, along with your normal 8 to 5 salary.

The downside is when all hell breaks loose, you may work 30 hours in a weekend.

It can be brutal, but you make 3 times what a normal engineer or developer makes.

Trust me, there are other IT departments that think we're nuts to work the hours that we do, no matter how much we make.

I'm doing it while I am single until I get burned out or decide to settle down.

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way more money than I probably should…the taxes I paid last year were six figures (state plus federal)

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Can we get an autograph?

Cool, so you made a bit over half a mil last year. That’s still way below average for this board.

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So they were completely on call 24 hours a day for 345 days a year? No.

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Yes, if they were on what they called the extra board. 8 hours after getting to home town, subject to call. It may be 8 hours, or it may be 4 days. Wait and see. They call, you get your arse to the train. This was not unusual.

One guy took his 4 weeks of vacation all at one chunk each summer so he could live somewhat normally for a time.

With seniority, they could get jobs in the switch yard with more normal hours. But the freight train guys, at least in the 70s to 2000s when I was around them, were subject to call any time after 8 hours, and it happened.