Being on-call

Being on-call is an interesting feeling, but I think it is an important one to be aware of and master.

Being on-callBeing on-call is an interesting feeling, but I think it is an important one to be aware of and master.


Being on-call is an interesting feeling, but I think it is an important one to be aware of and master.

What I mean by “on-call” is that when you are running a business or doing your job, you are always on — even when you are not at work. Whether this is for a project and you are managing customer relationships or an internal message chain, being on-call can be extremely anxiety provoking.

In high school, when I started my first business (and had employees, customers, etc.), I was always on the line in case of emergency. This was true during all hours of the day. From 4 am to 2 pm, I would regularly get worriesome texts, calls, emails, etc. from other members of our organization.

I had to be ready.

This was stressful.

The same thing is true when I was at RealtyShares doing some customer support work with our partner clients.

I had to be ready to respond no matter the time, etc.

This can have damaging effects on the rest of my day…Without the ability to think clearly and focus on one thing at a time, being “always-on” means you have to be able to put out fires quickly. I realize now that a lot of business and scaling startups is not just about building new things…but rather being able to patch broken things the right way.


Originally published at gonen.blog.

By jordangonen on January 25, 2018.

Canonical link

Exported from Medium on February 17, 2018.