Slightly OT: Weekend Call-outs

Hi all,
Just a quick question for all you plant personnel out there...
How do you handle emergency call-outs at your location?
I'm on call 24/7/365 now....but, the plant manager is wanting to keep someone on "standby" on each weekend. Someone who'll be within an hour of the plant at any given time and waiting on a call basically.
The problem, he's not wanting to pay anything for this, other than providing a cell phone.....big woooopie....I think we all have one.
Anytime I'm able to answer a call, I do. It's just this past weekend I was the only one they could trak down and the whole plant was down. I ended up fixing the problem (working on 13kv isn't my favorite thing to do though) and all is well. But, the plant manager looked as if he had seen a ghost when he came and got me at the golf course....

Been there!

bentleya said:

I'm on call 24/7/365 now....

Click to expand...

I'd start looking for another job...

Are you the only one on call?

Are there other employees that work at your plant that are in the same situation?

Are you salary or hourly?

Is your on call status new?

The plant manager probably has a budget that he has to stay within...therefore, he may not have much flexibility right now.

Do you have various levels of priority?

I disagree with 504bloke, regarding looking for another job...let's have all the facts first, before making such a major decision.

God Bless,

I used to have a fair arrangement that paid me a minimum time for being called in. Then I got a new boss and a laptop with VPN access. Now he thinks that 20 minutes spent on-line at 3 a.m. is worth exactly 20 minutes pay, with no reimbursement for my internet access or cell phone. Unless you are salary and exempt, federal labor law says that a company that puts tight restrictions on your personal time must pay you for it. Also, your time is portal-to-portal, meaning you are paid from the time you walk out your front door until the time you return. Think about what you want from the deal: comp time or overtime, reimbursement for a cell phone or a minimum pay time. No matter what you ask for, the company is still money ahead. Good luck!

I'm in the same boat as you are. Things started to change a couple years ago though and it's getting better. I'm still on call, but not like I was. During the week, we have a chain of command. They try to call the other 3 techs first and if no one is available, they call me. I determine whether it is important enough for me to come down to the plant. If it's something major, everyone will be here anyway. I always have my cell phone on me and I don't mind talking people through something. On the weekend, we rotate weekend on call duty. I'm on call every 4th weekend which basically consists of stopping by each morning to see if anything needs worked on. If it does, we fix it then. If there's nothing going on, then it's off to the golf course.

A person can only take so much before they get burnt out. I know I did. It usually takes some time to get the other techs clued in on how to fix things, but eventually they'll only call you when its something strange or major.

I use to get calls all of the time but I found out that if I ever wired or designed anything it needed to be simple and be built to a standard so everyone would know by looking at the color of the wires or look at the diagram to figure out the problem. I had about 3 call ins a week for a 500,000 sq ft building. now i have about 2 million sq. ft and only get
about 1 call every two months


. http://www.epa.gov/rtp/index.htm