If you are on call and you receive a call at say 3:45 am and you resolve the issue by 4:30 am. Is it then worth trying to go back to sleep to wake up for work the next day or should you just stay awake and power through it?

I’m asking because this happened to me and I went back to bed, did not feel tired at all and when I eventually fell asleep I got maybe an hour of extra sleep and I felt like complete garbage when my alarm went off and pretty much like that for the remainder of the day. Whereas I feel like if I just stayed awake for the extra time after 4:30 am I might have not felt as bad?

What are your opinions on this?

Edit: I’m appreciating all the responses and taking the information in. Sounds like this is not a clear cut case that is a simple yes do this or no don’t do that.

  • @reversebananimalsEnglish
    25•10 months ago

    I tell my engineers - if you get paged off hours, however much time you spend resolving the issue, take that time back from the next workday.

    I also practice what I preach - if I get paged at 3am and work on the issue until 5am, I’ll come in 2 hours late or leave 2 hours early.

    • @[email protected]OP
      12•10 months ago

      This is how we do it here as well but I find the lack of sleep even if I went home an hour or two earlier impacts the entirety of the workday.

      • @reversebananimalsEnglish
        6•10 months ago

        It sounds like you’ve got a good manager, so hopefully they won’t hold that against you. This is the reality of oncall - it sucks!

        When you get woken up in the middle of the night, of course you’re going to be more tired the next day. I’m the same as you - I can’t fall back asleep if its early morning so I normally just stay awake and am tired that day. You shouldn’t feel guilty for being at 1/2 capacity after working all night to solve your employer’s problems!

        • @[email protected]OP
          3•10 months ago

          Yeah my manager is sympathetic to it because they also have to do on call on the roster. So they know the pain of getting up at those hours of the morning. I think based on the information in this thread I have a good strategy for this.

        • @[email protected]OP
          2•10 months ago

          1 carpark, carpool with partner at a set starting time or else pay thousands of dollars for parking per year. It’s not really worth it end of the day.

          • Osa-Eris-Xero512
            1•10 months ago

            I would think that an on-call night would make for an automatic work from home day + sleeping in the following day.