Me: I wasn't working.

#3 | POSTED BY

Easy to say if someones life and or property were not at risk if you don't respond.

"Exempt employees are where this impacts things much more"

Yup. Exempt and "essential " employees were impacted the most.

"That's a different scenario. In such a situation, the callee is likely to be "on call," i.e., expecting such calls."

Nope. I was "exempt". And classified as essential. Which had benefits in a government shutdown but was mostly used to not pay us overtime. Being "on call" also required extra pay. Which is why many exempt or essential civil servants are not paid to be "on call". As a "essential" salaried manager I was expected to respond even while off duty. My job was to call an employee (who was also not "on call" and try and convince them to come into work. But if I could not "convince" them (or they wisely did not answer the phone) then I had to respond to the problem myself. If I responded I would get paid for my time. Sometimes. There were rules for that too. Like a 2 hour minimum after 15 minutes etc.