> I mean, yeah, I'm not impressed by the pager. I've been on pager more often than not from 17 onward. [...] Out of being on pager more often than not more than 20 years [...] that was the only job where the pager bothered me much at all.
So how does pager duty work with your employers? Most places I've worked have asked for a 15 minute response time (which effectively means being within ~12 minutes of home) and being sober. That means no going for a bicycle ride or a run; not going on dates, to restaurants, the theatre or cinema; not visiting friends or relatives; and not going to the gym or going swimming or going out dancing.
Doesn't pager duty basically mean you have to sit at home on the internet for all your free time?
My pager agreement is response in under 30 minutes (whether it's log-on or escalation calls), within 1 hour physically of work, and sober. There's no cellular modem, and you have to use the corp laptop to access the VPN to access your machine.
I asked my co-workers on rotation if they were interested in trying to get a cellular modem that we pass around in addition to the pager, but they would rather try to use iPass to get on the wifi somewhere.
Fifteen minutes is... kinda a long time for logging in and checking things out. The thing you miss, though, is that there are all sorts of devices with which I can log in.
I have ssh on my cellphone which is on my person at all times, and while doing anything involved is difficult, I can usually verify that there is a problem and it's nature, and if it's easy, I can deal with it then. But that satisfies the 'respond in five minutes' or whatever. I responded, I can tell people involved what's up and how long it's going to take me to get more info.
The next step up is my laptop, which usually stays in the car. I jog to the laptop, boot it up, use the cellular modem dongle thing, and it's about as good as being at home, most places. I have a cheap inverter in the car if my batteries are low.
If I'm willing to take a social hit, I can also call someone else and say "Hey, I'm drunk to the point where I can't handle root, or I'm 20 minutes out and my laptop took a shit. X paged me. can you deal with it?" and repeat until someone says yes. I look like a fool in front of my co-workers, but eh, the problem gets solved, and everyone does this every now and again.
(This is the big problem with being a sole founder. You can't just call up a random consultant; you need to know the system to be able to fix it. It's really nice to be able to call two or three people that know the system well enough to help you out in these times. In this case, I think even someone that doesn't have a lot of experience but is willing to be trained, and that you can afford to pay often enough that your system is fresh in their mind, is better than just calling someone really good that doesn't know the system when the system is hoarked.)
So yeah, I can go to movies. I might need to walk out of the movie, but I can go. Restaurants are easy; I don't even have to leave; I just whip out my laptop and fix what needs to be fixed. dancing? same deal. Yeah, I look like a dork or an asshole if I get paged and I whip out the laptop in the middle of a social engagement, but honestly? I'm not sure that really changes anything.
Really, anywhere I can take my laptop that has cell reception and power, I can go. I mean, I know I might get interrupted, but I probably won't be.
The hard part is really the mental state. You really want to make sure you go to bed before you are exhausted, because problems that take five minutes when you are fresh can take, well, much longer when you are not. Alcohol too; I find that the DMV limits are reasonable, and if I stay under those I can handle myself (on a computer; I'm a little more conservative when it comes to driving, as I'm a pretty shitty driver to begin with.) Sleep, really, is the problem I struggle with, but I have a hard time keeping a schedule anyhow.
(Oh, also, the 20 years is clearly a lie. I'm what, 31? something like that. and I think I got my first pager at 17, so considerably less than 20 years. For some reason, this week my sleep schedule has been pretty messed up, and I haven't been mentally 100%. I've been writing a lot, and writing poorly about stupid bullshit that doesn't matter. Odd.)
The life of a hosting company owner in a few brief paragraphs. "Me too" would be fairly easy to state, albeit slightly different: I had my operation when I met my significant other and as a result have a fairly varied and flexible schedule.
Overall I think she enjoys that, adding a child to the mix has been fun & surprisingly hasn't changed much at all -- in the first few months it gave me an even better excuse to be up at 4 in the morning.
I've been at this for about ~6 years as a solo guy (albeit, with hires -- so that changes things entirely) and a few years prior at other companies in slightly lesser capacities as an admin.
Which reminds me, I need to get back to you one of these days.
So how does pager duty work with your employers? Most places I've worked have asked for a 15 minute response time (which effectively means being within ~12 minutes of home) and being sober. That means no going for a bicycle ride or a run; not going on dates, to restaurants, the theatre or cinema; not visiting friends or relatives; and not going to the gym or going swimming or going out dancing.
Doesn't pager duty basically mean you have to sit at home on the internet for all your free time?