Zero Chance

The only reason I got the job was that I agreed to be on call. You'd think people would be lining up to accept any indignity, just to land a job. And that is almost true. Low pay? No problem. No respect? No problem. Hazardous working conditions? No problem. Carry a pager? No way.

So there is the one exception, and it did work out for me. My willingness to tote the pager allowed me to prevail over ... what you might call "more qualified" candidates. By default, yes, but nevertheless. And those big, black birds? They still hung around the yard, but at least they stepped back off the front porch.

"You'll be on call twice a quarter, half a month at a time," Joe Bob, my boss-to-be, told me at the interview. "Plus back-up. But you never get called when you're back-up on-call. Almost never. Rarely. Pretty rarely."

I nodded cooperatively.

"The batch window is 8 p.m. through 8 a.m.," continued Joe Bob. "If any critical batch job breaks, we get paged and have to fix it. But you do get a full night's sleep. Almost always. Usually. Frequently. Sometimes you get a full night's sleep."

"But all of the on-call activity takes place during the batch window," I contributed to show willing, paying attention, and comprehending.

"Yes," replied Joe Bob. "That is correct. For the most part."

I wasn't sure I quite heard that last bit. "So there is zero chance that I will get paged at 8 a.m.?"

The delay was a fraction of a second too long. "Basically," said Joe Bob. "Almost never ... Practically ... But I wouldn't say zero chance. I would never say zero chance."

Ok, fair enough. I soon got accustomed to the drill.

When I was on call, off went the pager. Sometimes, I did get a full night's sleep.

When I was back-up, off it would go. But pretty rarely.

At 8 a.m., or other odd times, off it would go. Almost never, but always sometimes.

But I was intrigued - some might say "obsessed" - with the possibility of a zero chance of getting paged.

"Look," I said to Joe Bob one day. "What about on holidays? The agency is closed. No one is doing work. There is zero chance of getting paged on, say Christmas. Right?"

He shrugged enigmatically. "I would never say zero," he said.

I was on call the next Christmas morning, and off it went.

"Ok, how about this?" I suggested. "The economy is in the crapper. Activity slows, we get furloughed. That would be a zero chance of getting paged, wouldn't it?"

"The batch schedule must run," said Joe Bob.

The furloughs came, and I was on call, and off it went.

"Listen to this," I proposed. "I think I have it. The agency is abolished. Our functions are 'out-sourced.' Now, there's a zero chance, don't you think?"

Joe Bob just smirked.

And the agency was abolished, and the functions were out-sourced. Except for on call, which nobody wanted. And off it went.

"Ok, this is it," I said to Joe Bob. "The planet blows up. Now, that's a zero chance!"

"Could be," he shrugged. "You would think so."

I went on call at 8 this morning, just as the planet exploded. I am on a trajectory for just wide-left of the moon. The debris is shooting off in all directions.

And there it goes.