Welcome To The SWE On-Call Rotation 😳

I wish someone would have worn me before I became a soffi engineer that I would have the responsibility of going on call. Like, let's be real, growing up, all you ever really see our doctors and lawyers walking around in movies with pagers. So I don't know why it just didn't cross my mind that soffi engineers could possibly have that responsibility as well. But I found out the hard way about a week or two in when my manager says, "Oh yeah, eventually, hey man, you'll have to go on call." And this is exactly what it entails. And he led it out for me. Granted, I pushed it off at the time. I didn't think it applied to me. That's like being a fresh-man and they're like, "Hey, one day you're going to graduate, right?" Like you think that day's never going to come. So anyway, that day does come for me and I get hooded-winked, bemozed, run a muck because the first three to four shifts that they have, so easy. Barely get paid. I'm like, "Yo, maybe I'm just the best sof-er engineer ever." False confidence, man. Who, don't ever fall into that trap. Cuz I remember, I had a shift and this was my welcome to the on-call rotation moment. A couple friends in the area said, "Hey, let's go get a few drinks." Me, I'm always up for a good time. Let's go. Especially because I had not had an issue with the pager and had not put in a stressful situation yet. About a couple drinks in, right? Phone just starts. Now I'm thinking whatever, everything else has been easy, I look at it. So, first thing I realized, multiple teams on a zoom, heavy debugging session. Something is basically the equivalent of a building being on fire in the. So me being the responsible human I am, road a bird, the electric scooter, back to my apartment, hopped on the zoom of my phone while I'm on the way back. About 15 minutes later, I'm drinking coffee, locking in and helping in the debuging session and trying to help find a solution to what's going on. It is safe to say that I learned my lesson. And I only tell the story for those people studying computer science or searching for a job that that if that is not an experience you want to have being on call, not the going out part while on call. You need to do some research into the company and the teams that you're applying for or interviewing for to avoid any up in any position that you don't want to be in. On call is not the worst thing in the world. I will say I have no issues with it. But at the same time for some people, especially people with families, it could be very stressful. So yeah, just another thing to look out and uh please don't be like me and go for a good time while you're on call.