This is not really a technology issue, it's a non-union employee issue. As a society we're asking the government to step in and legislate to protect workers rather than fostering unions to negotiate on a case by case basis.<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/jul/23/elizabeth-warren-senate-bill-part-time-schedules" rel="nofollow">http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/jul/23/e...</a>
I've written simple scheduling software. The <i>only</i> consideration taken by this scheduling software were worker preferences: management doesn't care who covers the shifts, just that they're covered. So it took into account "fairness", day of week preferences, scheduled holidays, et cetera.<p>By those measures, the software does a lot better than humans. However, there's something to be said about the predictability of the old human schedules. The humans generally just figured out a 2 week schedule and repeated it; filling in holes created by scheduling conflicts with those workers they knew were usually eager to pick up more work.<p>IOW, you may previously have worked every 2nd Tuesday. If you couldn't work on a particular Tuesday, you just didn't work. Now you're much more likely to get a solid 2 shifts a month (presuming that's what you asked for), most will be on days you marked as preferred, some days may be on some you marked as available and none on days you marked as not available.<p>Now obviously I could have added a metric to guide the system towards more 'regular' schedules. But it would still compensate for those other considerations, and would still look somewhat random. It's usually pretty easy to tell the difference between a computer-generated and a human-generated schedule, and many people still prefer the human generated ones, even if it is less 'fair' by almost any measure.<p>Given how crazy a schedule generated solely by worker preferences is, I shudder to consider schedules driven solely by management preference...
> she was scheduled to work until 11 p.m. on Friday; report again just hours later, at 4 a.m. on Saturday;<p>I have family working for the german train company, which has highly fluctuating shifts too, but something like that would be straight-up illegal here.
If there is a higher demand for workers during certain hours, shouldn't the workers be paid higher for those hours?<p>Seems like a fair trade off? If you want ala carte hours, you should pay ala carte prices.<p>Only way I can think to do it though is by regulating time software... something like "if you use flexible hours, you must comply to these regulations" where in they specify custom pricing.
>Maria Trisler is often dismissed early from her shifts at a McDonald’s in Peoria, Ill., when the computers say sales are slow. The same sometimes happens to Ms. Navarro at Starbucks.<p>Reminds me of the beginning of Marshall Brain's novella 'Manna':<p>>Manna was connected to the cash registers, so it knew how many people were flowing through the restaurant. The software could therefore predict with uncanny accuracy when the trash cans would fill up, the toilets would get dirty and the tables needed wiping down.<p><a href="http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm" rel="nofollow">http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm</a>
<i>He could be kicked out of day care for having no home address. </i><p>What the FUCK is that about? How can anyone justify that? "Oh, I see you're spiralling downward. Here's a fucking boot on your kid's head to make sure he gets right down to the bottom with you." That's a fucking disgrace.
This is definitely a scheduling technology issue in that these types of scenarios wouldnt exist without the technology to up to the minute track store activity and optimize schedules based on rapidly fluctuating store activity.<p>However the underlying issue beyond that is one of simple business 'greed'. Workers shifts are another resource to be optimized, and this is the end result. As long as this kind of optimization yields tangible bottomline benefits, and there are enough people who need the job so they are willing to deal with the fluctuating schedules, this is going to continue.
Additional "worker compassionate" scheduling constraints could be easily added to the optimizAtion to fix this problem.<p>Corporations have to care about their employees. You don't hear Costco employees complaining.
This article and the one on "House Elf Bias" (<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8177292" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8177292</a>) reinforce each other. What magic had to happen to create that 40 hour schedule? What does the world look like to Gavin, the 4 year old son in the scheduling story?
I was thinking it would be interesting to create a 'low-income life simulator' where people could be presented with all the problems of an American with low income. With limited resources, and branching scenarios, you would attempt to 'solve' your way out of it. It would be interesting to see the reaction of people who blame low-income people for their own troubles, when actually playing this game.
The macro trend of more and more companies shifting jobs from full time to part time is disconcerting. Working one of these service jobs where you're slave to your hours like this is hell.<p>The "Share Economy" (Uber, TaskRabbit, etc.) has the potential to make this both better and worse. At least if you're an independent uber driver, you can choose when you're going to be available and pick up jobs when it makes sense for your schedule. There are time periods that are higher/lower demand, but you're wage is reflected in that and its your choice to make.
Starbucks is announcing that they're changing their scheduling policies as a result of this story: <a href="https://twitter.com/jodikantor/status/499929471957610496" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/jodikantor/status/499929471957610496</a>
This is part of the creeping one-sided "professionalization" of low-wage work. Employees are expected to arrive pre-trained, stick within specific constraining roles, and be available at all hours. Employers are demanding all the responsibilities of white collar salaried jobs while offering none of the benefits. For many people it's not even possible to juggle two of these jobs thanks to "improved" scheduling technology.
Minimum wages also contribute to this: when you remove flexibility from one parameter of a gigantic system in dynamic tension, it can be partially clawed back elsewhere.<p>So if the mix "lower wages but consistent (and often overstaffed) schedules" is prohibited by the wage law, you may instead get the mix "slightly higher wages but hours aggressively trimmed and rearranged".
> If she dared ask for more stable hours, she feared, she would get fewer work hours over all.<p>While being in this position sucks, I kind of think that this is a compromise she chose for herself. "I want to work as many hours possible" is obviously going to conflict with "I want to work a stable shift".
Scheduling software is a tool. Management still makes the decisions. At the end of the article, management helped this woman out and gave her a more bearable situation.<p>Software may magnify the problem but this is fundamentally about how management views employees.
Am I the only one who thinks you shouldn't have a child if you haven't yet set up a stable environment for them? That includes sorting out your education and jobs.