[sheepmullet]

> If on call is optional what's with the social penalty for people not wanting to do it.

Because many optional activities have an impact on your peers and they are unlikely to judge you strictly based upon your job duties?

[hardwaresofton]

I think we don't have the same definition of optional -- like someone else has noted, maybe the better word was "flexible". The way you're using it is the super manipulative "yeah it's optional, but why would you want the rest of your team to suffer?". Does that not sound manipulative to you?

As far as your impact-on-peers argument -- you could "optionally" also stay 5 hours after when you normally go home to help reduce workload for your peers and help them, do you do that? No? What about 4 hours? what about 3? 2? Where is it fair to stop? The rest of the adult world calls this professionalism, and you stop at what's required of you as your job duty, put forth in your employment contract. In the course of fulfilling that duty you're expected to be reasonably courteous, not to subscribe to some weird hostage situation where the rest of your team suffers if you don't do something that was marked as optional.

[sheepmullet]

> Does that not sound manipulative to you?

You seem to be assuming there is a lot of peer pressure placed on you if you don’t want to do it.

Why?

I’m simply saying there are always social costs. For example you probably won’t be listened to as much when there are conversations around improving system stability.

It’s like our after work Friday drinks are entirely optional - but lots of people build friendships and trust there and this can often lead to higher productivity.

If you can build these friendships another way or have a different path to an equivalently high productivity then not going doesn’t have an impact on you.