Why did my parents react so insensitively? Please explain :(

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This post will be different than what the thread title might suggest. I'm 28 years old, living on my own. I have this problem. My current job requires me to be on call 24/7/365. I'm the only person at my workplace who's on call (don't know why my boss specifically chose me), and there are no backups. The calls come in at very random and unpredictable moments: while I'm having dinner, while I'm out shopping, and most often, in the middle of the night. And I have no option of saying I'm unable to come to the office. This has been going on for six months by now, but didn't get truly horrible until late June. What makes it even worse, is that when I don't pick up the phone, the people who call me go straight to my boss and complain, and he, for the lack of a better term, gets really p*ssed off.

To cope with nonstop stress, I took to smoking half a pack a day, drinking multiple shots of vodka before bed every night, and eating fast food almost daily. I stopped working out, because I'm forbidden to be away from my phone. Since calls come in at night, I can't fall asleep properly, because I keep glancing at my phone. (Not answering it is not an option.) I'm lucky if I get 5 continuous hours of sleep the whole night. I'm willing to quit my job on the spot, although the prospect of not getting unemployment benefits makes me a little hesitant (with emphasis on "a little"). Just yesterday at work, I was throwing up in the bathroom.

The day after I got called to come in at 1:30am, I told my parents about how my work keeps calling me, plus about how I was throwing up. I was tried, exhausted, and angry.
My mother said: (in a patronizing voice): "I'm so glad they're calling you asking to come in at night; it means they need your help."
She also said: "Drink some herbal tea; it'll help calm you down and relax you."
My father said: (in an attacking voice): "You're a spoiled brat for complaining; I don't want to hear any of your opinions; they're crap."
He also said: "If I was on call, I would thank people every time they called me."

WTF!!? How can my parents be so heartless!!? I told them about a real problem I was having, but my mother laughed at me and my father put me down. WHY!!? Since this is a parenting forum, I'd like some input. Can someone here explain my parents' horrible, twisted point of view? Because I will not hesitate to cut off all contact with them!

Last edited by Aspie1 on 01 Sep 2011, 12:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

That sounds completely inappropriate. I'm sorry that they were not more supportive!

It sounds like you need to get out of that job ASAP!! It is taking a toll on your health and happiness.

There are laws that govern employers abusing salaried employees. You being the ONLY oncall employee sounds extremely suspicious. Was this on call position the one you were hired for or did they change the conditions of your employment at some point? Is the phone a company phone? For that kind of usage it better be - or fully compensated monthly in an expense report.

It sounds to me like something very fishy is going on here. Your parents are so very wrong. This is NOT normal company behavior except in certain professions and those professions are usually very well compensated for these sorts of requirements. And those requirements are usually veyr upfront and expected. I do not know what you are doing but definitely look into your rights. Go to your states unemployement website and look up the laws concerning overtime/oncall/salaried employees. I wouldn't wave laws in an employers face BUT, if you do have recourse to collect under your states UC provisions, I would confront my employer and ask for some backup and/or relief. If that goes wrong, when you file simply address the specifics in UC law that pertained to your position.

No one should be 'grateful' for being abused this way.

I am not going to defend or vilify your parents on this one. There is more to the story and no one can give a fair opinion without knowing it. It is possible that they ate total jerks. It is possible that they are hearing (or living) the reality of unemployment these days and feel you need to buck up and be grateful for any work. It could be they had a really crappy day and they don't feel well. It could be that they have offered support for the same issue since June and you just keep smoking and drinking to deal with it and they are tired of the conversation. It could be that in the early years of most jobs you have to work really hard, with terrible hours, and they don't want to encourage self pity. Maybe they are worried that you want them to bail you out of the job............

I don't say any of these things because I think they're true, but because there are a million reasons people do and say what they do, and we can't possibly get in their heads and tell you their motivation.

I will say that my 25 year old cousin has a job cleaning up crime scenes - which is horrible. Beyond anything I could ever manage. He was on call 24/7/365 for his first year in the job. It was really hard on him. I am proud to say that because he hasn't been able to really have a life due to the job, he has totally focused on his health and that has been a big stress reliever. He quit smoking and has been a beast at the gym.

Just take care of yourself, don't worry about what your parents think or say, they are your parents and love you (even if it's hard to tell sometimes). Just do what you need to do for yourself.

Whether or not either of these situations is appropriate depends on what job you do in which business.

Can you divulge?

My job is in tech support for end users, and it's an hourly (non-exempt) job. I also monitor network gateways, as an add-on responsibility of sorts. The network gateways are very old, and they still hook into the system with 10Base2 cables. That's where the on-call responsibility is coming from. Whenever a gateway goes down, the offshore NOC (network operating center) people call me to come in and power-cycle the gateway. When I have to come in, I can report the hours I spent at the office, but I am not compensated for just for being on call.

I was not originally hired for on call, and I was put on it without input on my part or even being notified. I found out I was on call when my boss reprimanded me for missing a call at 3:30am. When I tried to explain myself, he kept repeating "you must answer your phone!". At this point, I knew asking my boss for a rotation schedule or even a backup was a lost cause, but I probably have to do it strictly for legal reasons, so I can get benefits.

I use my personal cell phone for this job, which was stated upon hiring, and I'm allowed to expense it. When the calls came in pretty rarely in the past, I didn't care, but now, I feel like throwing up every time I hear my cell phone ring.

I worked at other IT jobs in the past, and none of them had 24/7/365 on-call. Sure, there was ridiculous overtime, but once I left the office, I could shut off until 8:00am next morning. Even when I looked for jobs, I made sure not to apply for the ones that required on-call.

I get paid slightly below market rate for my work, but enough to cover the bills and then some. At this point, I don't even care if I don't get UC benefits, since I have good savings to live on. Plus, I can always go back to a supermarket where I worked in the past and resigned on very good terms.

Kailuamom, I'm going to be blunt here and say "shame on you!" for defending my parents' actions. They NEVER understood just how miserable I am in this job, and that's why I started smoking and drinking like crazy. (My parents don't know my "coping methods"; I'm careful to keep them blissfully ignorant in this regard.) Remember; don't confuse correlation with causation. And I made it clear to them multiple times and I do not want any bailouts; I'm not AIG, you know. And no, they are not unemployed; their jobs are pretty decent, with great pay and no on-call. So if anything, they're being hypocrites.

There is always the option to simply go around them all and apply for new jobs. Any job that is making you physically ill isn't worth fighting for.

And perhaps ignorance is the best way to deal with the 'rents. If this is their reaction to you looking for some support perhaps they are not the outlet you need. Instead of banging your head against a brick wall, save your sanity and don't share the details with them. I know you have no time, but another

Kailuamom - just because someone is a parent is also no guarantee of their love or support either. I know when something is bothering my child, I go momma bear and, sometimes irrationally, side with my offspring. That is sort of a 'normal' parental reaction. To be condescending, dismissive and patronizing is not. No matter the circumstances, there is something dysfunctional in this sort of reaction from a parent.

Thanks for the input, Aspie1.

I think this quote is the crux of your situation.

You record & report your call-in hours. Pull up your record of call-ins so that you can concretely demonstrate the change in the frequency. As an adult it's your responcibility to negotiate for yourself in the workplace. Don't get angry, get negotiating.

If you're already angry, use any non-alcoholic technique to calm yourself for your negotiation with your boss. Figure out for yourself how much on-call time is reasonable. Tell you boss that you're pleased to be a team player and help out when needed as long as the company's needs don't exceed reasonable expectations (and since you already figured out what's within reason, you have a concrete amount of time to reference).

If he responds with verbal abuse, you have done your job as an adult in setting a reasonable boundry; which as you mentioned, is practical for receiving the unemployment benefits. Negotiationg a reasonable boundery for yourself in your job is also practical for self respect and confidence building.

The workplace is often a hard place for everyone. Negotiation is the only healthy middle ground between being killed in the workplace by unreasonable demands and quitting in anger.

Don't worry whether others sympathise with you. Figure out what's reasonable and present it in an unemotional professional manner. Take responsibility for letting your work demands get so far out of proportion that you're vomiting before negotiating for yourself. Then forgive youself as a novice in career life. Take this as an invaluable lesson in adult life.

Confront your problems, but don't confront your bosses. Negotiate with bosses.

Your boss is exploiting you. He may have put others on this job without notification, just as he did with you, but they would have refused. He is exploiting you and you are not being able to understand it. Ask him politely to place you in the position you originally hired for else leave this job which is making you unhealthy both mentally and physically.

I don't know your parents so I can't really offer you a well informed explanation as to their behavior.

However I think this workload is unreasonable and you need to speak to your boss about it. I would tell him that you need another person on call because you can't be on call all of the time, or at least make a point for a raise.

I already tried talking to my boss about it, but he brushed me off. When I missed that 3:30am phone call for the first time back in May, he called me into the office to reprimand me. This is roughly what happened.
Boss: Blah blah blah, it's your job to answer when people call you, and you didn't!
Aspie1: But isn't it possible to have an on-call schedule of some sort, where it's me during some of the time, and another worker during the other part?
Boss: There is no schedule! That's why it's on call! It's because it can happen anytime! And we need you answer your phone!
Aspie1: But what if my phone goes bad? It's a personal phone.
Boss: Then you need to get it replaced and expense it.
(I stopped talking at this point, because I knew it was a lost cause.)

Come to think of it, after I missed that call, he might have told the NOC to call me for every little issue, as opposed to just sending me an e-mail and letting things wait until morning. Or maybe I'm being a conspiracy theorist.

In June is when I first brought this up to my parents. Back then, they brushed it off with a bunch of jokes and accused me of not having a work ethic, even though I was doing 50-hour work weeks (not counting personal time being on call). Anyway, that's when I first started smoking and drinking heavily, due to the sheer frustration from my own parents taking the management's side. And may I ask how exactly I don't have work ethic?

Now, once I resign from the job, I'm planning to study for a Security+ certificate and look for a job without 24/7/365 on call. Rotating on-call schedule is OK, because then I don't have to be on the alert all the time. So much for not having a work ethic.

I agree with your decision. Resign and concentrate on study.

What I said was I am NOT defending or vilifying your patents, because I don't have the full story. There could be a million reasons some good some bad that they were not able to be there for you.

On to you actua struggle. Miss some calls and get fired, you will be eligible for benefits. Quitting will be much harder from that perspective, but just saying you slept through the phone after so many nights of not sleeping, that should be ok. Or call in sick.

Is your job unionized? If so, you should talk to your union representative about this.

Sounds like a plan! Be kind to yourself and put it into action sooner rather than later. This kind of stress can and does kill people.

Best of luck in it all.

Aspie, contact OSHA and make sure this arrangement is legal (sadly, it may well be so.) http://www.osha.gov/as/opa/worker/complain.html You do, at the very least, need to be compensated for every minute that you are working, and you can't be made to work more than 80 hours a week even when on-call. If you are billing more than 80 hours, your boss is breaking the law, and if you've filed a complaint with OSHA, you can't be fired for doing so.