

In Service Sector, No Rest for the Working - samsolomon
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/22/business/late-to-bed-early-to-rise-and-working-tired.html?_r=0

======
raincom
Long time ago, I used to work in retail. I had this schedule: 2 openings
(start at 7am, 8am); 2 closings(start at 3 pm); start at 9am on Saturday. I
was not getting 2 successive days off either.

When I asked my manager about this, he mentioned it is all computer scheduling
and he can't help it. Who devised this shitty scheduling? This started like 25
years ago?

What explains this odd way of scheduling? Maybe, companies don't want you to
go to school or don't want you to take a second job. Or they want you to
depend on the company for paycheck forever.

~~~
klenwell
_What explains this odd way of scheduling?_

You can find an answer in another New York Times article I cited here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7089531](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7089531)

(I find that thread interesting, in part, for the spirited defence some
offered for the practice. Frankly, I find it indefensible.)

The underlying issue is, as @njloof suggests, the systematic degradation of
low-skilled labor's bargaining power.

There was a big deal made this week about Wal-Mart's wage increase for its
hourly employees. As this NY Times article notes, more predictable scheduling
was also part of Wal-Mart's announcement.

It's nice to see the issue being acknowledged and finally addressed. But I
expect this was done less out of corporate altruism and more in response to
the growing effort to unionize Wal-Mart and other service sector employees.

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ChainsawSurgery
This is strange to me. Granted I haven't worked in the minimum-wage service
sector for awhile (high school), but this still seems strange to me.

We used to have this problem too:

> any fast-food restaurants and other service businesses have high employee
> turnover, and as a result they are often left with only a few trusted
> workers who have the authority and experience to close at night and open in
> the morning

but we just had "openers" and "closers". During the summer I used to open most
mornings because I liked to have the afternoon and evening free to hang out
with friends. Another employee liked closing for the exact same reason
(because then they could be out late and not have to wake up until 2-3 PM).

Even during the school year, there were still regular "openers" and "closers",
even if they were people who didn't necessarily enjoy opening or closing.

Is the turnover just that much worse now, that the few long-standing employees
now have to open and close? Or what happened?

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joezydeco
If one of those workers ever got hurt, they could rest easy knowing the
resident medical student helping them in the ER has been on shift for the last
24 hours.

~~~
_broody
There's a number of professions where the crunch time is insane. There's a lot
of differences between that and service work, though.

\- Those people such as doctors, lawyers, programmers, etc. are paid an order
of magnitude more for their time. Without counting the benefits which service
workers don't get.

\- They're not just working to earn a living wage. Their work propels career
advancement.

\- Their work is usually much more pleasant/interesting and they like it,
which helps bear with crunch time.

Usually in a highly demanding, high-paying career you'll be able to advance
relatively quickly and find yourself in a managing position which gives you a
lot more slack. You'll also be able to retire rather soon. In light of all of
this, the effort is more than worth it. But low-wage jobs... The only place
service work leads you is to waste away.

------
rayiner
I think we should have laws to fix these problems, but then in a few years
Amazon will just have eliminated all these jobs anyway, so what's the point?

~~~
eli_gottlieb
To push Amazon along quicker. The longer firms can exploit cheap labor, the
longer it will take them to automate.

------
ddw
Oh the irony: with so much turnover they work their dependable employees to
death.

