The on-call rotation of a lifetime
You got the news, and now you are 8 months away from the on-call rotation of a lifetime - a life critical service scheduled to see massive increases in input. You are told it is a game changer for your career, that you will come out of this on-call having learned a lot. That it will be exhausting but you will have moments of joy and triumph. What a fantastic thing to add to your resume. You are extremely thrilled about this new frontier. The only catch? This service will need manual intervention every couple of hours for many months in a row and there are only two people in the rotation.
Wait. what?
Ok, now you are officially freaking out.
If you had an offer like this at hand, how would you proceed? Before you decide to ditch the whole idea, here are a few tips on how to make this work a bit more in your favor.
More People In the Rotation: Yes, the offer did say there were only two people on rotation and that you are one of them. And yes, the more ppl you add to the rotation, the less impact you have on the rotation. This is where you need to pause and consider your mental health and your ability to execute. And keep it real. How would your performance be impacted if you were oncall day after day and barely got a breather? Is there a risk that you might make mistakes during your manual interventions? As a manager, I personally, would see this as a high burnout risk for my team members.
Offload Non-Critical Tasks: If you are unable to get more people into the rotation, the least you can do is lean on friends and family to support you through this incredibly impactful but absolutely ridiculous oncall rotation. Can you outsource all other tasks in your life to friends and family so you can focus on just babysitting this life-critical service? If so, I would highly recommend it.
Meticulous Playbooks and Prep: You have never worked with this service before, so it is likely to surprise and fluster you when it does need a manual intervention. With so many failure modes, you are just going to be overwhelmed. Don’t wing it. Prep as best you can. Are all your playbook entries up to date? Have you read up on the foundations of the system? Have you met and discussed your plans w/experts?
Even after the above three tips, you may find yourself uncomfortable and nervous at the idea of this high-pressure on-call rotation. You are not sure if you will embark on the effort yourself but you will likely very much respect anyone that has attempted it themselves. Great!
If you are ever to be a primary caretaker for a newborn, be sure to put these tips to good use. I hope this article gave you a new found respect for primary caretakers of newborns. :)
