The true cost of being on-call

Nowadays, it’s common that companies buy a sort of insurance from their employees to ensure that their IT infrastructure stays up, so that the business continues.

That insurance usually is typically called “24/7 responder” or “incident responder”, which can either be part of the job (worst case) or compensated as an extra part of the salary.

It’s typically communicated by employers as something novel/positive engineers do for the company they work for.

This type of practice used to be more common in fields where lives depend on, but now the scope has broadened in many places due to the motivation of economic success.

In this post, I want to cover the price we pay in terms health and relationships.

Circadian Rhythm

Our body’s biological clock aka. circadian rhythm can get negatively affected by having irregular sleep patterns if we get paged during sleep hours.

Regular sleep/wake patterns and good sleep is essential for longevity. Therefore, if you get paged a lot during nights, you lower the chances of a long and healthy life.
Also, the next day may be negatively affected, since you may not be well rested. This might affect the general performance,

Social life impact

While companies usually communicate that it 24/7 shouldn’t affect your private life, it usually does.
It’s unlikely that you’ll never 100% forget during your on-call shift that you are.
Being on-call requires to always be reachable and there are environments that are not properly covered by mobile data or cell networks.

Communicating to friends that you’re on-call right now and may not be able to attend an event due to that is another thing that can reduce the quality of a social bond.

Physical impact

When you’re tired and have to do fire fighting, it’s easy to forget about physical exercise. However, exercising and movement is important for a long term mental well being and prevent aging related diseases.

Mental stress

Sleep deprevation and a lack of social interaction will most likely lead for many people to mental/well being problems. When we’re not in a good mental state, often we forget to do the things we should do in order to make us feel good.

What can you do if it’s part of your reality?

  • Make sure to get enough sleep
  • Communicate fatigue with peers
  • Still get through daily routine (exercise and eat well)
  • Treat yourself
  • Prioritize relationships afterwards
  • Take some time off after a hard shift