Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos
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Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos
#2[deleted]
Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos
#3This 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.
http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/jul/23/e...
Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos
#4Additional "worker compassionate" scheduling constraints could be easily added to the optimizAtion to fix this problem.
Corporations have to care about their employees. You don't hear Costco employees complaining.
Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos
#5This 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. http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/jul/23/e...
I agree that the software connection is weak, but it can be a reminder to people that decisions made by software can have a real positive or negative effect on human beings, in ways that the software (and software makers) can't easily predict. How do we build more humanism into our apps?
Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos
#6> she was scheduled to work until 11 p.m. on Friday; report again just hours later, at 4 a.m. on Saturday;
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.
Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos
#7This 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. http://www.theguardian.com/money/us-money-blog/2014/jul/23/e...
At least here in the UK, it's not (just) a non-union employee issue. Part of the problem is that business interests have a hugely disproportionate influence over the media, and as soon as any media outlet lets any union spokesperson speak it's portrayed as an example of left-wing bias. So instead we get people like the head of the Confederation of British Industry, a business lobbying group, claiming that workers benefit from this because it offers the workers "flexibility". I hear the US is even worse in this regard.
Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos
#8>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.
Reminds me of the beginning of Marshall Brain's novella 'Manna':
>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.
Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos
#9>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. Reminds me of the beginning of Marshall Brain's novella 'Manna': >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…
>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.
I haven't been effected by this sort of thing in years, but I've always felt that they should have to pay you for hours they schedule you, whether they use you or not.
Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos
#10This 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.
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.