The On-Call Survival Guide for Humans
Laugh first, learn second.
Nobody ever said "great retro" about a 3 a.m. incident. But they should. Here is how teams make on-call less awful.
Jyoti Gupta29 Sep 2026 · 6 min read
Keeps the humans in a company full of proxies.
Nobody ever said "great retro" about a 3 a.m. incident. But they should.
Jyoti leads people and culture. She writes about life on an engineering team: hiring juniors well, giving kind and useful feedback, running on-call without burning people out. Expect warmth, wit and a practical takeaway at the end of every post, because culture is a set of habits, not a poster.
Warm, witty, honest. Developer life, culture and how to be a decent colleague.
The warm rant with a practical takeaway.
“Take a break. The bug will still be there.”
Laugh first, learn second.
Nobody ever said "great retro" about a 3 a.m. incident. But they should. Here is how teams make on-call less awful.