2d • The Weekly Stack
𝗛𝗼𝘁 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗙𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘆: 𝗜𝗳 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗢𝘂𝘁 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁, 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗗𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗛𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗘𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗛𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.
t's 2 AM. Your phone lights up.
"My site is down!!! Customers are calling!!!"
Every agency group has this fight about once a month, and the comments always split into two camps.
Camp one: "You answer. Every time. That's what separates a real agency from a freelancer."
Camp two: "Never. Boundaries. They can wait till 9."
Both camps are wrong.
They're arguing about what you do after the text lands. That's the wrong fight. By the time your client is texting you at 2 AM, the emergency plan already failed. All that's left is damage control.
𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝟮 𝗔𝗠 𝘁𝗲𝘅𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂
"You found out from the client." That's not bad luck. That's missing monitoring. A site that's down at 2 AM went down at 1:40. Something should have told you first. If your client is your alarm system, you don't have one.
"They had your cell number." That's not a pushy client. That's a missing escalation path. Nobody wrote down what counts as an emergency, who gets contacted, or how fast. So the client picked the fastest channel they had. You. In bed.
"You don't know how long the fix will take." That's not a hard problem. That's an untested backup. Most agency owners find out if their backup actually restores on the night they need it. Worst possible night to find out.
"You're the only one who can fix it." That's not great service. That's a single point of failure. If the whole plan is "wake up Dorn," the plan is a person, and people get sick, go on vacation, and sleep.
An emergency plan isn't how fast you respond. It's how rarely you have to.
Now, some of you are thinking: "So I just let my client's site sit dead until morning?"
No. That's not the point.
If the site's down, it gets fixed. The difference is who knew first and whether the steps were already written down. Here's the same outage, told two ways.
Version one: the client texts you in a panic, you scramble to figure out what broke, and everybody loses sleep.
Version two: the client wakes up to "Your site went down at 1:42 AM. We were alerted and it was back up at 2:15. Here's what caused it and what we changed."
Read that again. Same outage. One makes you look like a firefighter. The other makes you look like an operator.
𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄𝘀 𝘂𝗽 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆
Every after-hours fire you put out for free is unpaid work, done on your worst hours, for a client who has no idea it cost you anything.
Count the late-night fixes you did last year. Multiply the hours by what your time is worth. That's the price of not having a plan.
And here's the thing: the plan itself is a product. Monitoring, tested backups, a written response window, and a monthly report showing uptime. That's a care plan. Clients will pay every month for peace of mind. Nobody pays extra for the guy who panics right along with them.
If "emergency" isn't defined in your contract, your client gets to define it. And to a business owner, a typo on the homepage can feel like an emergency at 2 AM.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁
Some of you like the 2 AM text.
Be honest. Being needed feels like being valuable. Riding in to save the day feels like proof you matter to that client.
But an agency that runs on you being the hero can't grow past you. You can't hire into it, you can't sell it, and you can't take a real vacation from it.
Sit with that one before you answer.
𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗺𝗼𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗸
- Put every client site on an uptime monitor that alerts you, not them. UptimeRobot is a decent one
- Restore one backup to a test environment. Don't just check that it exists. Actually restore it.
- Write one paragraph for your contract: what counts as an emergency, your response window, and what after-hours work costs.
Fix the system before the next text, not during it.
Heroes answer the phone. Operators make sure it never rings.
Drop a comment: Which camp were you in before you read this? And what's the worst late-night client fire you've ever put out? No judgment. We've all fixed a website in our pajamas.
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𝗛𝗼𝘁 𝗧𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗙𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗮𝘆: 𝗜𝗳 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗢𝘂𝘁 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁, 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗗𝗼𝗻'𝘁 𝗛𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗻 𝗘𝗺𝗲𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻. 𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗛𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.
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