[geeks] What do you get paid for wearing a pager?

[Tom Borton]

Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have a client that wants to pay me a retainer fee for wearing a pager 
> from 7AM to 7PM, Monday thru Friday.
> 
> Then they want to pay an hourly rate for any work I do for them (usual 
> sysadmin stuff, plus of course fixing whatever the problem was that 
> they actually page me for).
> 
> Kicker:  I need to respond within 15 minutes of a page.
> 
> I have done lots of sysadmin work, but really do not quite understand 
> how to price the "wear pager and respond in 15 minutes" work.
> 
> What are *your* experiences or ideas?
> 
> --Patrick
> _______________________________________________
> GEEKS:  http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/geeks
> 
The first rule is to find someone to rotate with, if at all possible. 
Otherwise you'll hate it even if you take no calls.  We currently have 
~16 people on a list.  Then again, in the current incarnation, we don't 
get paid for carrying, either, but we have a fairly low call volume.

At $WORK-2, we had only three people to rotate the pager, but we set it 
up so that:
-	We were paid for half of any carry time that fell outside the normal 
workday.
-	Any calls taken worked off the paid time first.  And we never came 
close to burning through the paid time; a lot of times, we took a 
problem description and provided the solution the next business day.
-	We insisted that the problem description and solution were separate; 
because of the nature of the beast, there will be some calls you can't 
answer on the spot, or that will catch you in the middle of responding 
to another call.
-	Callers had to wait a minimum time before escalating to the department 
head.  I don't remember what it was because he never got called.  Most 
callers weren't watching the clock; they just wanted help.  If it took 
an extra 10 minutes [0], they didn't care, as long as it wasn't a habit.
	Get any times as average times; if you know you'll respond within 5 
min. 90% of the time, drop their minimum a few minutes to an average 
time (10-12 min), especially if there are any penalties built in.
-	We also insisted that, because one customer site was manned 24x7, that 
they log calls and forward them to the pager.  This left the burden of 
assigning priorities in the customers' hands - staying out of any 
p*ssing contests was very important to our collective sanity!

Tom


[0] One time, the guy with the pager was at a ball game and had to get 
out to the parking lot to return the call.