Not Letting Go, Not Getting Away

It’s Spring Break in Utah. (And conveniently, it’s also Spring weather!) My family will be piling into the big van, hooking up the travel trailer and driving down to the St George Utah. Well, I will be driving down to St George. My lovely wife is recovering from a health issue and won’t be joining us.

We have five kids still at home, aged 16 to 19. (Yeah, weird dates. Not going to explain it.) You would think that travelling with teenagers is easier than travelling with younger kids, say babies or toddlers.

No.

But, it is what it is. With a 15 passenger van, at least I can say, “Go to your room-ish part of the van!”

But, at least I’ll get away from work for a week, right?

Not so much. My job is one of those that follows me. I don’t leave it at work. In fact, last Saturday, I was down in Fillmore, Utah with a group of boy scouts visiting lava tubes and hot pots. About 8:30AM, my phone rang.

Rodney, several of our agents are getting an error when they go into their ICDEC application.

Okay, send me impact counts. Get a ticket open and lets get on a bridge. I’ll inform the client.

It’s what I do. About 90 minutes later the issue was cleared up and the boys were nearly done packing up their gear.

Headed to St George, I’ll be taking my phone and I’ll be on call.

Does it suck? Yeah, sometimes. As a salaried employee, I don’t even get paid “extra” for the time. And there have been times that it’s been super inconvenient to get a call during a family event.

But, I’m not complaining. It’s what they pay me for. I get paid pretty well. And part of the job requirement is being on call. If I hate it, I can go get another job. Jobs are plentiful right now.

There are some benefits to my current set up. We left for the Friday night campout at about 4:00pm. That’s typically before the workday normally ends. I didn’t worry about it too much. I’m salaried and I put in a lot of hours on Friday before the campout. And then on Saturday I put in another hour and a half.

I’ve actually requested the next four days off. But, if I end up getting a call, by Utah state labor laws, that was a work day. If I spend hours on a call, I’m pretty sure it will balance out the next time I get ready for a campout.

Rodney M Bliss is an author, columnist and IT Consultant. His blog updates every weekday. He lives in Pleasant Grove, UT with his lovely wife, thirteen children and grandchildren.

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