Anticlue

Paging for errors

I wear a pager for my job. I even wear it on hours that I'm not on call due to the likelihood of someone may need some help. Several others in my department do the same thing. It is sorta the logic that if someone needs something, it is better to be available, because one day you will be calling on them for something.

That's a courtesy and should not be treated as a dependency.

The other essential item is that paging one off hours needs to be due to an event of a critical nature. The reason I'm doing a little venting is in talking to my coworkers in the area. I've heard of someone getting pages off hours for errors that have no effect to the daily business process.

Here are the characteristic of the event:
First, the paging is systematic and generated from a report that is used to work errors. These single error reports went to a printer and then were worked in the morning for the past several years. The errors occur several times throughout the night. Now, the error goes to the entire department's pagers, not just the oncall individual.

I'm sorry but that is just abusive behavior. If the errors that need to be worked in a timely manner, then setup a 24 hour shift. Have coverage onsite for 24 hours and a dedicated individual to the job.

If something changed and there is now an emergent need, communicate the need and then have a plan for 24 hour coverage in the works.