On-call exists to improve system reliability. But over time, many teams find the opposite happening: more pages, slower recovery, and engineers who are technically capable but increasingly reactive under pressure.
This is a feedback loop, not just a workload problem.
In this talk, I’ll introduce a pattern I call The On-Call Trap, a system dynamic where repeated incident response gradually shifts teams from proactive to reactive modes of operation. As load increases, attention narrows, decision-making speeds up but degrades in quality, and teams unintentionally reinforce the very conditions that generate more incidents.
We’ll break down how this loop forms, why common fixes (more tooling, more alerts, more process) often make it worse, and what actually interrupts the cycle.
You’ll leave with a mental model for recognizing when your team is entering this pattern, along with practical ways to restore capacity for proactive reliability work without sacrificing responsiveness.
Leila Anderson studies failure in human systems.
As a therapist and Clinical AI Prompt Engineer at Upheal, she works at the intersection of mental health, product design, and operational performance, with a focus on how high-performing individuals and teams break down under sustained pressure. Her work centers on identifying hidden feedback loops that drive reactivity, reduce adaptability, and quietly degrade reliability over time.
