"There are limits to how standby can be used - you can only be put on standby for twenty minutes at a time, and you can only be put on standby between the hours of 8am and 8pm, so while it is unpleasant to be put on standby, it isn't the complete torture that it could be. " I wish we had that rule. The other night I spent from 1am to 3am trying to sleep in the cab of an ambulance on standby. My partner hit me on the shoulder at 3am and said we can go "home" so we told dispatch who confirmed. When we got back to the station we got a call from a supervisor who wanted to know why we took ourselves off standby and that dispatch was peeved. we explained and all was well, but it sucks to have to standby in the middle of the night when you work a 24.