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I am on call 12 days a month. Of those 12 days, I am on one solid week of 7 days and the other 5 days are scattered through out the month. Only one weekend every month falling on my 7 day stretch. Double Time. Port to Port.

Commercial refrigeration (supermarkets) can be very predictable as in being very unpredictable. Anything will happen and it will happen at every unimaginable hour under any kinds of weather and it's always about panic since money is on the line in product loss. Rack mechanics understand this crazy life and trying to describe it to others, they think were being dramatic for the most part. I will just say, being on call for grocery stores is extremely demanding.

About 3 months ago I was on for over 17-20 days a month on average, did that for the last 3 years, and finally just threw a temper tantrum about it and got the office to change things around. I live out in the sticks so, our service area out this way is much more broad and expansive geographically than in the metro area so it kinda comes with living out this way. But 17-20 days was just too much. It's been 3 months with the new schedule and my god what a difference. It's like having a different job.

I WILL NEVER GO ON CALL AGAIN!!!

This is why I will never work for another hvac company again...I will leave the trade first.

I will not work for a company that won't compensate me well for my time away from my family and most won't compensate me what I think its worth.

This is a large reason why I went into business for myself, if I am doing the work I get all the money works out for me!


Rant over.......


CW.

Originally Posted by Bubbleheadski

yeah he does! I think we need to hook him up with ON CALL!

i worked past 200 pm today, that is worse than on call

MOMA ALWAYS SAID: CHEAP IS WHAT CHEAP DOES

Originally Posted by mike dixon

What a whining bunch of crybabies, im the owner, i give all my guys weekends off, i do all the calls myself. did 4 after hours last night. jus sayin guys

Well when you pay your techs 7 bucks an hour, I would imagine that you have a pretty high turnover rate and therefore you probably have no techs that are capable of running a call on their own.

Another possibility is that you are not paying any premium pay (on top of that whole 7 bucks an hour) and the techs are saying FU, do it yourself.

Either way you are saving money. That is what it is always about when it comes to cheap asses. I'm sure that you are not giving them the weekends off out of the kindness of your heart.

Oh by the way... How's the professional training class that you are teaching?

Originally Posted by crackertech

Ya keep rubbing it in.

yeah he does! I think we need to hook him up with ON CALL!

Originally Posted by shaun66

im a market guy - do NO on call

Ya keep rubbing it in.

im a market guy - do NO on call

i hate on call

We have 10 techs as of now in the on-call rotation. Two techs on call as a team. At least one tech has his oil ticket. We Start Sunday morning at 8:00am untill Monday at 8:00am. Monday we come to work for 12:00 noon and work till 8:30pm on-call kicks in then till 8:00am. Same for the rest of the week. Saturday we start at 8:00am till Sunday at 8:00am. Then no on call for 4 weeks. $25 per week night on call standby and $30 on Sunday and Saturday standby. 1 1/2 till midnight durning the week and 2x after midnight till 8:00am. 1 1/2 all day Saturday till midnight and 2x from Midnight Saturday till 8:00am Monday. 2x on holidays. We have 2 more techs being trained and then they jump into the loop and on call every 5 weeks. 1 hour pay minimum for any call out. Office is manned for dispatch from 8:00am to 4:30 pm on Sunday and Saturday. Durning the week from 8:00am to 10:00pm, answering service takes over after hours and dispatchs the calls evenly to the 2 techs on call. 1 for 1. Same goes for the office dispatch calls are given out 1 for 1.

There's 4 of us right now, so I'm on every 4 days. During the summer months, I'm on every 4 weeks, for 1 week at a time. Goes from Friday to Thursday.

We get paid $20 each night we are on call, then whatever time we are out.

When I lived in Kansas, none of the companies I worked for had an on call schedule. One company, it was just me and the boss, and the boss did any of the night or weekend calls. (I was brand new to the trade, and he didn't feel comfortable sending me out, but that all would have changed had I stayed there.)

the other companies had no on call. If any calls did come in at night, I'm not sure how they handled it. Every now & then I'd go out on a saturday, but that was only when we were very busy or it was very cold or hot.

The cool thing about where I am now, is that all of the calls come into the boss's house. the boss will try to walk them through stuff to try to get them going for the night before he calls us.

Most companies, the answering service calls the tech directly. so the tech gets every little BS call that comes in, so he gets the calls asking stuff like "how much is oil", or "what is your hourly rate", and crap like that.

on call sucks. my company (we r commercial) will rotate on call between the 4 supervisors and when a call comes in they can either take it or call someone in the reigon or any other region to see if they wanna take it, we can refuse and not have to worry about getn yelled at other companys i worked for usually rotated each weekend, i rmeber when i worked for a place that had lik 50 techs they would draw up a schedule and ud be on call 1-2 days a month and it would be Sun-Sat if ur day fell on like a tuesday ud be responsible for any call that came in after about 7

Originally Posted by mike dixon

What a whining bunch of crybabies, im the owner, i give all my guys weekends off, i do all the calls myself. did 4 after hours last night. jus sayin guys

Then you're not as smart as some of us other bosses...........

I didn't see any whining either just us posting our on call rotation.

Originally Posted by mike dixon

What a whining bunch of crybabies, im the owner, i give all my guys weekends off, i do all the calls myself. did 4 after hours last night. jus sayin guys

i don't think anyone was whining..i think we where just stating when we are on call.
In my mind owners dont count because u have the ultimate responsibility for the company, even with employees to be officially on call. U must be available 24/7..its something u voluntarily have done.
(that is very kind of u to take the calls, i know of several companies where the boss disappears at 5)

What a whining bunch of crybabies, im the owner, i give all my guys weekends off, i do all the calls myself. did 4 after hours last night. jus sayin guys

Originally Posted by frank26601

interesting thread. how many units or prop splingertys are you responseable for

If you are asking how many accounts I am responsible for, I handle all refrigeration and HVAC for around 45 different accounts. All grocery stores and associated C-stores.

sorry for that last post

interesting thread. how many units or prop splingertys are you responseable for

We have 3 techs for the area I work so I'm on 2 out of 3 weeks, 1 backup and 1 on call. Haven't been getting any after hours most of the year in my immediate area, I have to go to the other techs immediate areas if I go out at all, I'm doing my job too good.
We don't get anything extra for being on call or backup, door to door only after hours, during the regular day we have to take off 1/2 hour each way each day morning and evening.
Week runs Wed. to Tues with OT only after 40.

My new job on call seven times a year Fri to Fri. My last I did job on call winter months only 2 to 3 times. Last year I work there I did none. It was a great place to work!