I know a lot of workplaces/bosses don't like it, but I'm of the opinion that your time off is your time off. It doesn't matter if you're in town or out of town, have the ability to get to work or not, if you have scheduled time off, you shouldn't have to make any excuses as to why you're not at work.
Going from retail to trade work 20 years ago was a world of difference. If someone has a day off, it's a DAY OFF and you better not even call the motherfucker. Workers will even get yelled at by the boss for disturbing fellow employees personal time if they don't absolutely have to.
Retail is just all hell. If anyone is doing that, get out. Get out any way you can. There is no future, you will NOT be rewarded for going above and beyond, and you are just a corporate asset.
There's also another major difference. In the trades, comraderie grows organically as you work with others on a job. In retail, it's all forced, with dumbass morning meetings and songs and shit.
I work in IT and if you need to call someone when they are off, that's a huge embarrassment.
Nothing should fall apart because one person on the team isn't there. Nothing should ever be so critical that their absence is life and death. Never should there be a problem where only one person has the answers.
If you have to call someone when they're off then you didn't manage your team and their work properly, and you fucked up, big.
Work in IT too, can 100% agree. If someone needs to come in at weekends/vacations/days off, it's a genuine skill issue of whoever is managing the project