Jobs That Require On-Call Employees

Most people prefer a job that allows them to leave their work at the office at the end of the day. They want to be able to go home, kick off their shoes, and hang out with family members without the threat of additional work looming over their head. For some professions, that’s almost impossible because of the demands of the job. Think of teachers who start grading their assignments at school but usually end up having to take some of those papers home and finish the work at their kitchen table. Other professions are unique because they require employees to occasionally be “on-call.” That means they can go home and try to relax, but they have to keep their cell phone nearby in case something comes up that requires them to come into work.

IT pros

Most of us have had computer issues on the weekend or after 5 p.m. If we can’t get them resolved on our own, we have to wait until the next business day to take the computer to a repair shop. IT workers often don’t have that luxury.

Think of the last time you tried to buy something online, only to be met with a sparse website indicating that the website was currently down. Some people will wait for the website to come back up, then make the purchase anyway. Other people, though, will go somewhere else with a functioning website to buy what they’re looking for. Every minute a website is down can mean lost money for the organization. Without IT people on call, the company would be at a huge disadvantage. It’s as essential to organizations as data center solutions from companies like Aligned Data Centers.

The whole website doesn’t have to be down for the IT guys to get called in. Maybe the Microsoft Azure cloud hosting service is having issues or the company’s application isn’t refreshing properly. Whatever it is, most IT guys know that being on call occasionally is part of the job. A company that requires one IT guy to be on-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, is seriously abusing their power, though, and they’re probably not going to be able to keep good employees there for very long.

Healthcare professionals

Most of us have seen movies or TV shows where doctors get called away from a dinner date or a concert because they’re needed at the hospital. Those doctors usually carry pagers with them. Surprisingly, many doctors still carry pagers now, even in the age of smartphones. Doctors and other medical professionals on call can’t go out and party with friends, either; no one wants to get operated on by a doctor who just showed up drunk.

Some doctors may be called in to fill in for another colleague. Sometimes, there will be a mass casualty event that requires hospitals to take an “all hands on deck” approach and call in pretty much all the doctors and nurses. The mass shooting at the Las Vegas musical festival prompted hospitals to bring in as many employees as possible to treat hundreds of gunshot victims.

Doctors are usually paid handsomely for their services, which helps mitigate the inconvenience of being on-call. It may frustrate their friends and loved ones, but doctors have been through years of training, and they know what their profession requires of them. It’s definitely not for the faint of heart.

Technical Repair Professionals

These are the people and professionals responsible for big issues like an entire manufacturing plant’s operation coming to a halt due to one single machine failure. It’s up to the professionals like those at BCN Technical Services to keep machines working smoothly and provide insight into repairs for their clients. Most people wouldn’t know the first things about press repair or rebuilds, but these professionals are counted on to make the correct diagnosis and repair the issue as quickly as possible to ensure the operation can get back underway as quickly as possible!

Not all these aformentioned on-call professionals are glamorous, but they certainly are an integral part of a moving economy.

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