I think about all "on call" jobs are, to varying degrees, the same way. I'm a UNIX system adminstrator. The most excited I've ever been on the job was when one company deleted their production SAP database as part of a change, and then couldn't restore it. It was down from Saturday until Wednesday night. Their executives told my boss that the lawyers were headed to bankrupcy court Thursday morning because they couldn't pay a bill or ship product without their SAP system. OTOH, most of the time, I create userIDs, expand filesystems, and other boring, everyday stuff (the equivalent of restocking the truck and transporting stable patients for you ambulance people :). I do my best to never see a problem one. The problems are still the exciting part... :)