On-call for work brothers and sisters

[go_deep]

For all my Roksliders that have to be on-call for work what's the coolest, most awesome things you've ever been about to pull off whole on-call, but still within company policy?

A long time ago when I lived in Wisconsin I was able to kill a 11 point whitetail on Thanksgiving morning while on call, I got off a call about 30 minutes prior with the call out service before shooting him from my stand. Our company policy was you got paid an hour of overtime when you got called, regardless of how long you were on the phone or of you even had to truck roll, so technically I got paid to kill that buck!

 

[Nickofthewoods]

Once upon a time I had what I still consider the best job I'll ever have in my life.

During 2nd rifle season one year I called county dispatch and ended my shift early to kill a buck on some forest service land I was driving by. I kept my hunting gear in the truck during the season for this exact scenario. My bosses were hunters and were cool with it as long as nothing major was going on at the moment.

Same job different day I got an offer I couldn't refuse from a high ranking employee of another agency. It went something like this;

"Nick you bring your fly rod today?"

To which I responded "Yes, and everyday."

"We are going to fish the closed section of this river if you want to join us."

"Why yes I do"

I did not call out of service this time but still monitored the radio and pager as I proceeded to land several 5-10 lb cutbows in what I can definitively say is the best 2 hours of trout fishing I'll ever experience. Would I do those things now? Maybe. Maybe not. I was young in my twenties then, don't judge me too harshly... Fond memories though.

 

[Jaker_cc]

It seems like the only time I ever get called out is when I try to pull something like this off. It never fails as soon as I pull in the gate or put the boat in the water my phone starts ringing.

 

[go_deep]

It seems like the only time I ever get called out is when I try to pull something like this off. It never fails as soon as I pull in the gate or put the boat in the water my phone starts ringing.

That's a lot more along the lines of how it goes for me too

 

[Steve300xcw]

"We are going to fish the closed section of this river if you want to join us."

"Why yes I do"

I did not call out of service this time but still monitored the radio and pager as I proceeded to land several 5-10 lb cutbows in what I can definitively say is the best 2 hours of trout fishing I'll ever experience. Would I do those things now? Maybe. Maybe not. I was young in my twenties then, don't judge me too harshly... Fond memories though.

Always nice to see who those that are more equal than others are

 

[Nickofthewoods]

Always nice to see who those that are more equal than others are

This was a long long time ago and things are certainly not as laid back as they once were. I was in my early twenties and my bosses who allowed me to check out early to hunt as well as the agency officials who let me assist with the fish study are all retired now. You can move on.

 

[Steve300xcw]

How would it have gone if you had found a mere civilian fishing those waters?

Rules for thee.........

 

[Tick]

I've killed alot of deer on call but definitely not as enjoyable. No beer and checking the the phone every 5 minutes.

 

[Nickofthewoods]

How would it have gone if you had found a mere civilian fishing those waters?

Well if they weren't invited by the fisheries biologist to assist in the survey taking place like I was, probably not good. What else you got?

 

[Gseith]

Well if they weren't invited by the fisheries biologist to assist in the survey taking place like I was, probably not good. What else you got?

 

[go_deep]

Every job has it's perks, my company owns utility easements all over Wyoming, which gives us the right to drive across the private land this said easements are on, ironically some of those said easements just so happen to touch land locked public land that a few of us get to access.
The spoils of war.

 

[knale87]

Every third weekend I’m on call and it never seems to fail that I get at least one call in. My luck is it’s usually aroun 2-3am. So I need to make sure I have service when I’m on call so I typically stay home and get stuff done around the house.

 

[bigeyedfish]

My experience has been the opposite. Worst one... I had taken a day of vacation to deer hunt. I was sitting in the stand for the evening hunt and got a text from my boss asking me to call her if I could. I have a ton of respect for her, so if she needed help with something, I was going to try to help. I called her from the stand, and she tells me a forklift operator smashed into a crane column. He hit it so hard it sheared all four anchor bolts and shifted the column about a foot. She wanted to know if they could use the crane over the other spans and just stay out of that bay. I told her no. She must have already known that and just wanted me to make the call since it was my workcenter. Kind of spoiled the hunt.

 

[MT_Fin]

Sometimes, if I’m lucky, when it’s my turn on the on-call rotation I’ll get to do the coolest thing….sleep…. Last night was not one of those nights.

As long as I have phone coverage and answer calls I can do whatever I want. We get a stipend plus comp time for every on-call week so it’s the same regardless of call volume. I’ll go to the range sometimes but I am in W MT so Verizon service isn’t reliable enough for me to go hunting while on-call unfortunately.

 

[hunterjmj]

Thus only happened once but was on call the week of the opener so I thought I'd hit a close piece of public where I still had service. I get parked, start getting my gear ready and my phone rings. It was a walk-in cooler down. So, I run the call, it was something easy, head back to the chunk of public, grab my rifle and worked my way through some thick timber brush stuff. It wasn't 5 minutes from the time I left the pickup until I killed a whitetail doe. That's the only time I hunted while on call and it worked out. I was on call every third week for 13 years and while it was good money it also sucked.

 

[TaperPin]

Back before cell phones, when on call we carried a trusty old heavy as hell Motorola two way radio.

I had a friend who had never been up the tram at Jackson during the summer so we went up to look around. Apparently they confused us with a VIP that was scheduled to be on the mountain that day. Our money was no good - free tram tickets, free food, free snacks - they called us mam and sir a lot. We should have asked for a stack of free ski passes. lol

 

[JBrew]

I'm on call every other Saturday, but as long as I have service, I'm good to go. One of my favorite ridges during the rut needs a NE wind and that was the forecast for the weekend that i'm on call. There is a section of the ridge that gets no service, but has plenty of service 80 yards back up hill. I'm wanting to hunt down the ridge with no service, but know I'll never hear the end of it if I do. So up a tree(with service) I go. It never fails... Muy Grande pushed a doe right past where I'd have been set up, had I not been on call. Never saw him again.

 

[Squirrel Master]

I've been on call in some form or fashion for the last 22 years. I wasn't on call this day, but technically at lunch. I was testifying in a jury trial, and the judge gave us 3 hours for lunch because she needed to talk to the attorneys privately. My deer lease is 15 minutes from town, so I went down there, changed clothes, got in a stand close to camp, and shot a buck about 20 minutes later. Skinned and quartered it, iced it down, showered in my camper, changed back into a suit and was still back at the courthouse in time to testify that afternoon.

 

[grizz19]

We are about to find out this year! Due to certain circumstances I’m the only operator at work right now and I’ll be on “vacation” for a few days to go hunting. If an emergency pops up I may get a call on the mountainside to get back to work. But they are cool with me being on a longer lead time to get back since I’m the only operator, So hopefully I can whack one this year without having to get my butt back and in the backhoe

 

[DuckDogDr]

Ehh on-call for me was never fun.. my phone never quit ringing . Hate to use the term abusive boss but not much else describes him..

I would take off to be actually off and then I would get phone calls… “a real worker would forgoe their off time to actually work . When I was your age I wanted to amount to something.. you might need to consider that”

One night I was supposed to be off.. he was on call … his literal next door neighbor had an injured cow that needed looking at and he was too busy “on call” with his mistress to deal with it..
Drove 45 min across town when in theory he had to drive 2 minutes.

Straw that broke the camel’s back that I finally said I’m looking for a different job… 2 days after back surgery.. he came to my house .. out of the hospital huh? Well you can at least come sit at the clinic and diagnose

I hated that job