DH is a tech-adjacent PM, salaried, who sometimes has to be on call at night. His team takes turns (2 weeks on call, 6 weeks off) and the on-call job is just to sleep with the phone on ring and answer it if called. It would be foolish to actually stay up just in case.

I’d consider doing it for (1) a nice raise or bonus or promotion, and (2) with permission to take the next day off (without using PTO) to balance it out. (Since it’s a 7-hour shift and overnight). Someone else would need to run the 8am standup on that following day while you’re off. And who knows, the list of requests might spur them to find someone in the time zone to do it instead!

This would be a great question for ask a manager please send it in

This is going to absolutely screw up OP’s life a few days a week. There should be another solution or more compensation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here -

I am salary so as far as I know, there is no shift differential I could get.

I’m talking with my manager about this on Monday. My first go at this is March 4 (thankfully I’m off the hook for it this month)

It’s a very large company but for the area I’m in, we only have people in EST (me) and IST.

I wouldn’t mind starting the call at 8pm (but my question is, why do they need ME to start a call lol???) but to hang out on it all night long, when I have nothing to offer (again, I am a PM with no knowledge of the tech duties they are doing) - just…why???!

This just seems so unnecessary.

Because they didn't think before pushing this on you, that's why. They thought they could shove all the previous guy's work on someone else, and missed the fact that part of his job is time-zone-dependent, which worked for him but not for you. So remind them of the list of reasons why this is not a good idea.

Of course it's a large company. You're all just interchangeable minions to them.

Former PM / Tech lead weighing in. Instead of whining about how you won’t add value and are not needed, maybe you could learn some new skills and add value? I would not go running my mouth to my boss as the PM about how my presence was useless unless I was 200% sure I knew my role expectations.

Yup SHOULD know the cutover plan and major milestones. You should know the release protocols for business SMEs doing a shake out or running a checklist before prod is brought back on line.
You should know who the backups are for those testers.You should know what department is impacted and how they are impacted if any of the tests fail or the release is delayed. You should know the back up and recovery plans and how to implement them. You may not be technical, but it sounds like you are not in a technical role. As a business lead, you are on point to understand the implications to the business and mitigate risk associated with the release.

As a former test lead and cutover lead, yes. The responsibility should rotate on a regular basis - quarterly or annually, whatever makes sense for your org.

For 6 months I had to answer the phone at 3am to approve code migration requests when Manila was handing off to Spain - and still run the 8am production call the next day when Spain handed off to Chicago. I have spent many a weekend monitoring cutover for 24-48 hours. I have spent many a Christmas morning or 4th of July or Easter Sunday checking in with my teams in India.

It’s part of the job and someone has to do it.

My company did Tuesday night deployments for a bit. From my experience, we had people not work on Tuesday for their regular hours but skew to a later start closer to when the work was scheduled to start. They were also given off on Wed to recover.
We would stagger the team so that some people were working the next day with the technical knowledge in case they needed to step in.
We were not doing 2 deployments a month - closer to one a month or every other month.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here -

I am salary so as far as I know, there is no shift differential I could get.

I’m talking with my manager about this on Monday. My first go at this is March 4 (thankfully I’m off the hook for it this month)

It’s a very large company but for the area I’m in, we only have people in EST (me) and IST.

I wouldn’t mind starting the call at 8pm (but my question is, why do they need ME to start a call lol???) but to hang out on it all night long, when I have nothing to offer (again, I am a PM with no knowledge of the tech duties they are doing) - just…why???!

This just seems so unnecessary.

Are they telling you you have to be awake and online until 3? And then present in the office at 8 am the next morning? If your manager is human, he will obviously know that’s unreasonable.

OP here - yes that is the plan. I have to be online (we are mostly cameras off, thank goodness!) the entire time (I guess to make sure they don’t mess it up - but there is nothing I can do if that happens - they go through a different chain of command in that case and has nothing to do with me).

I am full time WFH though so no office presence.

it sounds like you will be in charge of an IT product. When a new release is pushed, someone with authority needs to be present incase things go wrong. Releases are generally done when the fewest people are using the system, so nights and weekends and Friday nights of holiday weekends if it is a large release. It is part of the job. Once everything is validated and users start to come online in the morning and everything works, you go home/log off and go to sleep

OP here. Yes that’s exactly why this is done this way. Our users are all USA based and won’t be using the app until roughly 8am ET. I guess I’m just venting/a bit upset that they tagged me, the sole person on the team based in the USA, when we have all the other team members in India who could do this during their regular working hours.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here -

I am salary so as far as I know, there is no shift differential I could get.

I’m talking with my manager about this on Monday. My first go at this is March 4 (thankfully I’m off the hook for it this month)

It’s a very large company but for the area I’m in, we only have people in EST (me) and IST.

I wouldn’t mind starting the call at 8pm (but my question is, why do they need ME to start a call lol???) but to hang out on it all night long, when I have nothing to offer (again, I am a PM with no knowledge of the tech duties they are doing) - just…why???!

This just seems so unnecessary.

Are they telling you you have to be awake and online until 3? And then present in the office at 8 am the next morning? If your manager is human, he will obviously know that’s unreasonable.

OP here - yes that is the plan. I have to be online (we are mostly cameras off, thank goodness!) the entire time (I guess to make sure they don’t mess it up - but there is nothing I can do if that happens - they go through a different chain of command in that case and has nothing to do with me).

I am full time WFH though so no office presence.

it sounds like you will be in charge of an IT product. When a new release is pushed, someone with authority needs to be present incase things go wrong. Releases are generally done when the fewest people are using the system, so nights and weekends and Friday nights of holiday weekends if it is a large release. It is part of the job. Once everything is validated and users start to come online in the morning and everything works, you go home/log off and go to sleep

Then you get paid 8-3 for this. They cant add hours and responsibilities without extra compensation.

You should be allowed to flex and start the next day later.

This is unreasonable to the extend it compromises your ability to perform (from 8pm-3am and again the next morning with no sleep).

If your manager care about the work product they will either delegate this to someone in India, send you on a trip to shift your entire schedule for the week, or figure out something else.

Unreasonable, and puts you in a bad position to be sleep deprived and out of sorts which increases changes you will mess up 

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here -

I am salary so as far as I know, there is no shift differential I could get.

I’m talking with my manager about this on Monday. My first go at this is March 4 (thankfully I’m off the hook for it this month)

It’s a very large company but for the area I’m in, we only have people in EST (me) and IST.

I wouldn’t mind starting the call at 8pm (but my question is, why do they need ME to start a call lol???) but to hang out on it all night long, when I have nothing to offer (again, I am a PM with no knowledge of the tech duties they are doing) - just…why???!

This just seems so unnecessary.

Are they telling you you have to be awake and online until 3? And then present in the office at 8 am the next morning? If your manager is human, he will obviously know that’s unreasonable.

OP here - yes that is the plan. I have to be online (we are mostly cameras off, thank goodness!) the entire time (I guess to make sure they don’t mess it up - but there is nothing I can do if that happens - they go through a different chain of command in that case and has nothing to do with me).

I am full time WFH though so no office presence.

Even if you’re at home, I think your manager will understand why an 8-3am shift followed by an 8am - 4 shift is unreasonable. Shift work is normal for a lot of jobs, but not like that. I’d ask for night differential and reasonable time off to sleep/recover before you’re expected online again.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here -

I am salary so as far as I know, there is no shift differential I could get.

I’m talking with my manager about this on Monday. My first go at this is March 4 (thankfully I’m off the hook for it this month)

It’s a very large company but for the area I’m in, we only have people in EST (me) and IST.

I wouldn’t mind starting the call at 8pm (but my question is, why do they need ME to start a call lol???) but to hang out on it all night long, when I have nothing to offer (again, I am a PM with no knowledge of the tech duties they are doing) - just…why???!

This just seems so unnecessary.

Are they telling you you have to be awake and online until 3? And then present in the office at 8 am the next morning? If your manager is human, he will obviously know that’s unreasonable.

OP here - yes that is the plan. I have to be online (we are mostly cameras off, thank goodness!) the entire time (I guess to make sure they don’t mess it up - but there is nothing I can do if that happens - they go through a different chain of command in that case and has nothing to do with me).

I am full time WFH though so no office presence.

Anonymous wrote:Op here -

I am salary so as far as I know, there is no shift differential I could get.

I’m talking with my manager about this on Monday. My first go at this is March 4 (thankfully I’m off the hook for it this month)

It’s a very large company but for the area I’m in, we only have people in EST (me) and IST.

I wouldn’t mind starting the call at 8pm (but my question is, why do they need ME to start a call lol???) but to hang out on it all night long, when I have nothing to offer (again, I am a PM with no knowledge of the tech duties they are doing) - just…why???!

This just seems so unnecessary.

Because they didn't think before pushing this on you, that's why. They thought they could shove all the previous guy's work on someone else, and missed the fact that part of his job is time-zone-dependent, which worked for him but not for you. So remind them of the list of reasons why this is not a good idea.

Of course it's a large company. You're all just interchangeable minions to them.