In the 1980s I worked for an arcade company as in the guy who collected the coins not manufacturer or developers of them. We also had some grey poker (not legal not illegal). I was on call one week each month at the time the pager was huge. Literally paged as in the person called a number and then that service called the page with the number saying it in a voice call over a radio.

Then early 2000s I worked for government lottery and was on call one week out of three. It was a cellphone I think we got voice or text but then later email.

Then a tech at a casino where I had a cellphone with email and it was constantly going off. So life was good up until about 2005.

For government lottery I got paid three hours for any time up to three hours. Then after that it was regular pay. So if I got the job done in 30 min I made money if not it was just a regular pay.