“Oh, okay, is there anything I should know about it?”

“Yeah, i didn’t charge it last night so you’re gonna want to plug it in.” With those kinds of instructions, I knew I was in for trouble.

I managed to avoid “on-call” duty at work for my first 2 months of my new job. I knew I couldn’t avoid it much longer. My day had come.

My co-worker had handed me a Blackberry with no instructions on how to use it or how I go about answering support issues. I took the phone with little regard, nervous about what could happen with it in my possession. I checked to make sure I knew how to turn it on, check the contact list, and check out the Bricks game everyone was raving about. I put it on the charger as suggested and waited.

I took my new found nemesis home with me. I checked the call logs on the phone to glean any type of information I could about call frequency, duration, and especially time. Nothing looked out of the ordinary. In fact, over the course of the previous shift my co-worker had only one issue during work hours. I could handle that. I put the phone on my dresser and we went to bed.

Buzz, buzz, BEEP BEEP BEEP!

11pm, the cell rings. I literally fall out of bed running to answer the thing. “Oh great, just must luck,” I think. I grab the phone and run out of the bedroom so I don’t disturb Courtney. There’s a message on the phone. “I didn’t even hear it ring!” I mutter. I fall into the kitchen and turn on some lights to help me concentrate.

Scroll, scroll, push button, scroll, push…”What the hell?” From what I can tell the Blackberry had received an email, not a phone call. I read through the email and it’s a server check telling me that a server fell offline and came back online a minute later (for the uninitiated, that’s quite common). Whew, no major issue, no action required. I head back to bed.

Buzz, buzz, BEEP BEEP BEEP!

“JESUS!” 5 minutes later the phone starts humming again. I repeat the same process: grab phone, run out to kitchen, check messages. Again, it’s just more server checks. “Godammit…” I go back to bed.

Buzz, buzz, BEEP BEEP BEEP!

“For F’s SAKE!” I shout in my quiet voice. The phone marches across the dresser again at 2am. By this point I have already lost about an hours worth of sleep. I was just getting back into the swing of things when it started ringing. I quickly check. More server checks. I’m going to throw this thing across the room at any moment.

Buzz, buzz, BEEP BEEP BEEP!

“Oh, this is just plain ridiculous, ” I tell Court, who is also awake. “They’re just emails! Not even messages!”

“Can’t you turn off the message notifications?” She asks.

“NO!” I say and go back to bed. The real answer to her question is “Yes, just not at 2:30am when I’m drowsy and pissed off.”

I think it buzzed one last time at 4:30am. By that time I had been awake more than asleep that it didn’t really phase me. I compared my late night experience with the previous week on call. Sure enough it was my shift that received the most over night notifications.

When I got into work I asked my co-worker about the server checks. He said, “Well, if it’s REALLY important, someone will end up calling you anyway.” That’s what I thought.

Night 1 down, 6 more to go.

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