[themcgruff]

(I run our Ops team.) The time burden goes down with the more people we have. It's still a burden though -- and our compensation (in theory) reflects that.

FWIW We're doing everything we can to make this "work hours only" M-F, which we could solve by hiring tons of people immediately, but we also have other ideals like keeping the company as small as possible that we want to realize too.

There's an open and ongoing discussion about making improvements in this area and I'm thankful that David and Jason have been receptive to many of the suggestions I, or anyone else on our team has had.

My personal stance is that we should do everything we can to give Ops a 40 hour work week that's during regular working hours and no more, even if that means people get cut a lot of extra slack to recover after a late night page, etc. (Hopefully our team would back me up in saying I encourage people to take reasonable time to make up "lost" hours.)

(Also fwiw, I participate equally in the on call rotations.)

[dsr_]

So you've got 6 people and want to have 8.

There's a big problem with being on call for one week out of 6 or 8: you lose touch with the procedures. Sure, your four year veterans know everything by heart - but the first few shifts of a newbie are going to be perilous. I recommend making the shifts shorter and more frequent.

Presumably one person is on-call and everyone else can be called in / woken up as necessary. So - split each day into two halves, and ask people to be on-call for a 12 hour period.

Rotate the roster around so that Jane doesn't always have the same Friday-afternoon shift, nobody has 2 shifts in a row, and put it in a shared calendar so you can always see who has the watch.

With 6 people, you'll take 2 and a seventh shifts per week. At 7, it's an even 2 shifts per week.

Benefits:

- much less of a burden that a whole week of readiness

- brains work better when they haven't been pummeled for a week at a time (at least, mine does)

- easily scales fairly when you have more people, or when someone leaves, but keeps everyone in the loop. When you have 14 people in Ops, you only have one shift a week, but you get one every week.

- much more family-friendly

OK, why 2 12 hour periods instead of splitting the day into 8, 6 or 4? Because people lose track too easily. Trying to schedule around your kid's concert or music lessons with smaller chunks is hard to keep in your head - and trying to work that in with a one week shift is nigh-impossible.

Why not a 24 hour shift? Because it's really hard to recover from that. Humans are generally awake for about 15-17 hours a day. Shifting a few hours is generally doable.

I would recommend that for anyone who took an alert call during non-core hours, you automatically expect them to take the next normal day to recover. I know that when I get woken up at 4AM, I'll run out of steam by 2 or 3PM.

[VLM]

How do you even, like, commute to work on a 5 minute online time? Even stuff like essential food shopping, I can sometimes be more than a 5 minute walk away from the car and laptop. Or going to the bathroom.

[amyjess]

> FWIW We're doing everything we can to make this "work hours only" M-F, which we could solve by hiring tons of people immediately, but we also have other ideals like keeping the company as small as possible that we want to realize too.

And this is what I can't stand about small businesses. Nothing makes me run from a company faster than a company saying they're committed to their ideals over what's best for everyone. Small businesses, for whatever reason, are the ones who are most likely to shout "Honor before reason!" and shoot themselves, their employees, and their customers in the foot. You don't see megacorps doing this.

What's best for everyone is to hire "tons of people immediately". If your ideals conflict with that, then you need to jettison your ideals.

[mediocrejoker]

I think 5 minutes is an ideal target, and not a hard and fast rule, right? Otherwise how could you even go to the bathroom?

[emperorcezar]

We rotate daily, except weekends, which has a single person. Works well for us.