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Comment by Waterluvian | Hacker News Reader

I don't want to be fired. I absolutely love my job and the people I work with. But I can just smell that we are about to hit a sticking point with how I don't do on call (it was never mentioned in the interviews or part of my contract) and I don't respond to work after 5pm.

If it does come to that sticking point I'm trying to figure out how to be the most assertive and diplomatic. I.e. How do I convey that I badly want to keep this job but those new terms are a non start?

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In professional settings, when it comes to these kinds of awkward topics, I have found a method that has served me very well:

A. Meet with the person who is applying the unwanted pressure (it works best one-on-one, so if more than one person is pressuring, you may need to figure out who is best to speak to).

B. Frame your concern as asking for advice. For example, "I'm struggling with how to handle this on-call thing. Work-life balance is EXTREMELY important to me, but I love my job, and I don't know how to set that boundary without upsetting management. What would you do?"

In my experience, this approach makes the listener very sympathetic and pragmatic, and they advise you to do what you already want to do (and subsequently stop pressuring you to change). I think this is because people like being asked for this sort of help, and when they enter "advice mode" they take a step back and look at the situation from an impartial distance.

YMMV, IANAL, etc., but it's served this awkward introvert quite well.

Thanks for sharing it, this is a very interesting approach.

This approach really depends on the manager. A manager who has a habit of bullying people will have no issues laying on more pressure/guilt/whatever... in this situation.

Personally, if I feel as though a manager has expected me to do something outside my contract, I just don’t even give it any thought. That’s their problem. If they bring it up I just tell them no in a rather blunt way.

I’ve worked with plenty of bully managers, but have myself never really been bullied by any of them. I’ve watched all of them bully my less assertive colleagues though.

As an introvert, what I like about this approach is that it does not close any doors, it just opens a discussion. Ofttimes that discussion is rapidly helpful. When it is not—when the manager is a bully, or oblivious—I still have the option to be more blunt. It's a diplomatic first foray into tricky topics.

Whatever works for you is great. I’d just suggest you be careful that you don’t first establish yourself as somebody who will tolerate bullying. Once you’ve laid the groundwork for that, undoing it can be much harder than just avoiding it in the first place.

This approach was coined as "forced empathy"[0] by Chris Voss, author of the book on negotiating Never Split the Difference[1]. I would highly recommend reading it. Blackswan LTD is the consulting group he made based on his experiences, also mentioned in the book.

[0] https://blog.blackswanltd.com/the-edge/the-1-tactic-for-nego...

[1] https://info.blackswanltd.com/never-split-the-difference

This requires the other person to see the need for the work-life balance. Some people genuinely don't. For some work is always the priority.

I see you've met my CTO.

Thanks. It is really good advice. Seems like dropping little bit of ego, gives lot back.

> How do I convey that I badly want to keep this job but those new terms are a non start?

You don't convey that you badly want to keep the job. You keep that under wraps. The terms are a non start. End of story.

As the other poster said, I think an honest framing of just what you said is fine ("I really enjoy working here, but those other things are non starters"). If it truly was not outlined beforehand, then just point out that you feel strongly enough about the extra requirements that you would not have taken the job in the first place had it been mentioned.

Maybe they accept it, maybe it becomes a learning moment for them in the future. Either way, its unfortunate but non-starters are non-starters.

> I'm trying to figure out how to be the most assertive and diplomatic.

Having a job offer in hand does wonders for one's communication skills.

I perpetually have a few competitive alternatives. But I don't want to have a conversation that way. I shouldn't have to.

You could perhaps try framing it as a negotiation, i.e. "there was nothing in my original contract that indicated this would be one of my regular responsibilities, I'm happy to open negotiations with you in order to add that stipulation." Think of a salary at which you might actually consider being on-call (don't be charitable; make it double or triple or quadruple your current salary if you want). Then, increase that number by 50% and call it your starting offer. If they balk and try to talk you down, offer to go lower, but don't go below that number from the first step. Negotiations will almost certainly stall and your supervisor (who I presume is the one putting pressure on you) will then have political cover to tell their own supervisor (who I presume is putting pressure on them) "hey, I tried", and hopefully this will continue far enough up the chain until it reaches a person that is so detached that they don't really give a damn and drop it. If they do eventually end up firing you over this, then this indicates they would likely have fired you anyway and therefore you've not lost from this exchange. And on the slim chance that they accept your terms of quadrupling your salary, I guess you can retire substantially earlier. :P

Then don't.

First: Have a very direct conversation where you state that after-hours work, and being on-call, are not the job you took. Also state that you really like the job you have, and that you'd like to continue to work where you're working.

Next: Make sure your value to the company is clearly established. What important things have you done that were vital to the company? (If the decision makers think they can replace you, then you're better off switching jobs now.)

Finally: Figure out how to telegraph that you're considering other offers without actually telling anyone that you're considering other offers. In the late 1990s - early 2000s, showing up very late one day in a suit did it. In my case, I just started leaving at random times to meet people for coffee, or taking phone calls behind the office. Later, I didn't pick up the phone for an "important" call with my boss, and his boss, because I was at an interview. They figured it out and the problem was solved very quickly.

> I don't want to have a conversation that way. I shouldn't have to.

I've been though this after a comp review. Despite good review, my raise wasn't impressive. Once I had a competing offer in-hand, suddenly a lot more money was available. Had I wanted to keep the job more, I would have pressed the issue during the comp review, but to your comment, I shouldn't have to.

Or money in the bank.

Start with, "Fuck you, pay me." If you try to be diplomatic with people who are trying to take advantage of you, they will eat you alive.

sadly I feel this is the best advice. Modern management are a bunch of feeding piranha when it comes to people who can do stuff.

It's the culture. We working stiffs aren't people. We're "human resources". Resources exist for but one purpose: to be exploited until they are exhausted. Once exhausted, they are abandoned in favor of fresh, untapped resources.

Not saying socialism is the answer, but is capitalism as currently implemented really that great a deal for people who work for a living?

Indeed, I feel this entire approach causes employees to adopt maximum disengagement, its the only response that preserves your sanity.

It always causes me to chuckle since its the exact opposite of what management say they want, and they seem to work very hard to produce this result.

"Nobody rose in Packingtown by doing good work. You could lay that down for a rule—if you met a man who was rising in Packingtown, you met a knave. That man who had been sent to Jurgis' father by the boss, he would rise; the man who told tales and spied upon his fellows would rise; but the man who minded his own business and did his work—why, they would "speed him up" till they had worn him out, and then they would throw him into the gutter."

where's that from?

edit: googled it - the Jungle, I've been meaning to read that

It will put you in an odd land of "special guy" if you refuse to do on call.

I've never seen or heard of on call mentioned as part of a hiring contract, but maybe others have. It's expected, if you built or helped build something, that you will be on call at some point. It's absurd to me you would avoid it, but maybe you're special.

absolutely and violently disagree. the hiring process should convey expectations, and the negotiation process is being done in bad faith if expectations are hidden. being on-call should be reflected in compensation. if on-call expectations are brought up after compensation is negotiated, that is a problem.

I agree it should be part of the compensation package, but not every place is that progressive (yet?). OP might bring that up, or negotiate some form of compensation (ex: day off after on call, whatever). But I tend to agree with parent -- having an on-call schedule that developers participate in is a normal part of professional software engineering (assuming services of course).

this is so alien to me. are you and GP talking about putting in long days during crunch time, or actual on-call rotations where you're expected to be available in the middle of the night? i agree the former is universally expected, but the latter? not at all, not without discussing it beforehand. that would be obscene. i am so boggled to hear people accepting and defending the practice.

I kind of locked in on my recent experiences when answering that. So I want to clarify -- its not expected in all orgs and is dependent on roles (e.g. if you aren't working on live services, it wouldn't even make sense). I would expect larger shops to have dedicated ops people or site reliability engineers who handle most of the duties. But I think small to medium sized corps that either don't have or cannot afford these would expect developers to handle crashing services, whenever they occur. Having an on-call schedule is a natural next step to prevent everyone from always being on call, or (worse, imo) prevent people from siloing and only fixing "their" stuff. I agree it should ideally be part of the job description, but don't find it unusual to be left out if the job otherwise fits the mold.

I think the best way to convey something you don't know how to say is to put it this way

"I don't know the right words to use - so I'll say it directly. I BADLY want to keep this job but I even more so can't be 'on call'" .. you can explain to them that for you personally you need separation between work and personal life."

Start interviewing for other jobs just in case. Also, if you want to stay, try to find a way to compensate for not being on call. Provide an extra value to them beyond what everyone else is doing and beyond what is in your job description. That worked for people at my previous employer who didn't want to be on call.

On call is shitty and I wish it wasn't accepted they way it is.

Either hire people to work around the globe, or people that want to hire in shifts or accept that your product isn't going to be on 24 hours a day.

Even Facebook does on-call. So money can’t solve it. If you wrote the code and it breaks you’re kinda the only one that can fix it (in a hurry)

Any time you're called in for an emergency off-work hours, you should get time and a half, minimum of four hours paid.

Blue collar industrial jobs treat their people better than software usually does.

> called in for an emergency off-work hours

Yes this should be the only time your ever called in off hours, there better be a threat of people dieing. hah

The reality of oncall is the server is filled up because no one can bother to rotate a log file, so you get paged at 4am to delete a file.

I suspect we work at the same company :D

Yeah I'm being idealistic, but money can solve it, smaller companies do have teams around the world to do 24/7 on call.

Partially, i think its this way because it is accepted, no one seems to question it or push back on it. No one values their free time out side of work?

Also, Every time Ive been oncall I have been oncall for code I didn't write, I haven't even always have a job coding (ops/devops/sre roles) and have been on call for services. Or there's that thing that been neglected and unowned but someone needs to be oncall for it.

If you are worrying about keeping your job you are not in a position to set terms at all. You must be willing and somewhat eager to lose it.

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