Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos • Hacker News Board

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#31

Post by _delirium » Thu, Aug 14, 2014, 2:51 PM UTC

Kenji wrote: post #18

_delirium wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorting it out requires predicting ~20 years of social and technology changes, which is a pretty high bar. A stable job today might not be stable in 5 years, if employment conditions change (as they seem to be changing in the case discussed here). I suspect in the medium-term future there will be very few stable jobs at all.

"Sorting it out requires predicting ~20 years of social and technology changes, which is a pretty high bar." No. Finishing your degree before you have a child is not a high bar. It's common sense.

Ah but degrees don't guarantee you stable employment. Perhaps child-bearing should be limited to people with at least $100k in the bank to cover emergencies, plus a STEM degree? Maybe a savings account and a STEM degree and N years of experience, to make sure they aren't one of those people with a CS degree who can't code?

Alternately, here is a good way of ensuring a minimum level of economic stability for everyone: a social safety net. Used successfully by countries ranging from Germany to Singapore to Sweden! I think there is some cultural difference in how to perceive kids as a starting point, though. Here (Denmark) such programs are particularly popular when aimed at parents, because parents are seen as performing a service for society, in raising the next generation. That feels to many people like something that is not only the parents' responsibility to support financially, since the kids will become the next generation of the country's citizens, not only the next generation of their specific family.

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#32

Post by TwiztidK » Thu, Aug 14, 2014, 2:59 PM UTC

fixedd wrote: post #9

oneweirdtrick wrote: post #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…

>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.

Or at least compensate employees somehow if their shifts are cut short. Something like a flat-rate $10-20 inconvenience fee for cancelling hours and any additional commute costs (if they have to take the bus instead of getting a ride).

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#33

Post by aianus » Thu, Aug 14, 2014, 3:02 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #31

Kenji wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sorting it out requires predicting ~20 years of social and technology changes, which is a pretty high bar." No. Finishing your degree before you have a child is not a high bar. It's common sense.

Ah but degrees don't guarantee you stable employment. Perhaps child-bearing should be limited to people with at least $100k in the bank to cover emergencies, plus a STEM degree? Maybe a savings account and a STEM degree and N years of experience, to make sure they aren't one of those people with a CS degree who can't code? Alternately, here is a good way of ensuring a minimum level of economic stability for everyone:…

For what it's worth I wouldn't have a kid without $1 million in liquid assets set aside for him. It seems evil to me to have a kid without enough money to feel confident he'll never have to work for money. But then most people think I'm nuts.

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#34

Post by Iftheshoefits » Thu, Aug 14, 2014, 3:04 PM UTC

Kenji wrote: post #22

Iftheshoefits wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not the only one; there are a great many people who have the same opinion. Not that you aren't entitled to your opinions, and this one in particular, but the fact is the particular opinion you've expressed is filled with assumptions and implicit assertions that aren't justified by any empirical data or analytical thought.

"the particular opinion you've expressed is filled with assumptions and implicit assertions that aren't justified by any empirical data or analytical thought." Do you mind explaining what you mean in particular? It sounds rather vague.

Sure. Your opinion includes implicit assertions regarding all the things that go into "sorting out education and jobs". In particular, the core assertion is that it's possible to do so and that it is something that's feasible or a reasonable expectation in all cases (hint: it's neither, in some cases and in particular cases involving poverty and families on the lower end of the income spectrum). You're implicitly asserting, almost to the point of making it tautological, that people who aren't born into privilege ought not have children.

The assumptions are the usual assumptions born of such thinking (e.g. that the poor or the uneducated are incapable of sorting out their own lives, much less of "properly" raising children).

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#35

Post by Kenji » Thu, Aug 14, 2014, 3:05 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #31

Kenji wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sorting it out requires predicting ~20 years of social and technology changes, which is a pretty high bar." No. Finishing your degree before you have a child is not a high bar. It's common sense.

Ah but degrees don't guarantee you stable employment. Perhaps child-bearing should be limited to people with at least $100k in the bank to cover emergencies, plus a STEM degree? Maybe a savings account and a STEM degree and N years of experience, to make sure they aren't one of those people with a CS degree who can't code? Alternately, here is a good way of ensuring a minimum level of economic stability for everyone:…

"Ah but degrees don't guarantee you stable employment." If the degree benefits your employment chance, you should have done it before you have kids. If the degree does not benefit your employment chance, then why do it at all? Either way, finish it before.

Look, what I don't understand is people having kids, knowing fine well that they don't have the time and/or money to support them and then whine for public funding and about a lack thereof. The whole thing is completely self-inflicted. Why should the state support people who lack the most basic amount of foresight and coerce everyone else into paying for their faults?

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#36

Post by ollybee » Thu, Aug 14, 2014, 3:05 PM UTC

makomk wrote: post #7

koblas wrote: post #3

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. 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 ben…

I disagree, the media in the UK is popularist, they gleefully attacked businesses over zero hours contracts.

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#37

Post by smtddr » Thu, Aug 14, 2014, 3:08 PM UTC

swalsh wrote: post #30

Kenji wrote: post #12

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.

Some people will never get the opportunity to have a stable environment... through no fault of their own. Does that mean they should never have the opportunity to be parents?

There are a bunch of people on HN who would say "Yes, people without X amount of money shouldn't be allowed to have children."

And I think that's a sad world to be in where income dictates your ability to have kids. I think having kids is a right that one should be able to exercise regardless of income and it is a problem with our society that we cannot support low-income families, not a problem with the low-income parents. The fact that we have poverty-level income families with 5 or 7 kids is a failing of the education system. Nobody wants their kids to suffer. If proper education & birth-control & social resources were available a little before high-school, I bet this issue would be nearly eliminated in that parents would know themselves not to have an inordinate number of kids.

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#38

Post by _delirium » Thu, Aug 14, 2014, 3:10 PM UTC

Kenji wrote: post #35

_delirium wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah but degrees don't guarantee you stable employment. Perhaps child-bearing should be limited to people with at least $100k in the bank to cover emergencies, plus a STEM degree? Maybe a savings account and a STEM degree and N years of experience, to make sure they aren't one of those people with a CS degree who can't code? Alternately, here is a good way of ensuring a minimum level of economic stability for everyone:…

"Ah but degrees don't guarantee you stable employment." If the degree benefits your employment chance, you should have done it before you have kids. If the degree does not benefit your employment chance, then why do it at all? Either way, finish it before. Look, what I don't understand is people having kids, knowing fine well that they don't have the time and/or money to support them and then whine for public funding…

> The whole thing is completely self-inflicted.

No, it's inflicted by a broken society. In a working society, at least a working first-world society, everyone has at least a basic standard of living. This allows both a flexible economic system (entrepreneurship, job-changing, etc.) and family life to coexist: your company going bankrupt does not mean your kid can't attend school or eat. The American solution seems to be that people should have a corporate job for life with the old IBM or Amoco, which provides both ultra-stable employment and benefits (company-provided childcare, parental leave, health insurance, etc.) and only those people are "deserving" of having kids.

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#39

Post by waps » Thu, Aug 14, 2014, 3:10 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #20

I've written simple scheduling software. The only 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. By those measures, the software does a lot better than humans. However, there's something to be said about the predictability of th…

What really helps is if the employees can 1) go online and see their "proposed" schedule months out, ideally with decent export options 2) can trade shifts, ideally online in some app (and have contact info for their colleagues) 3) have a schedule printer in the office 4) can report in ill on the app 5) and of course, manager needs to be hands-off from the schedule (you can of course, build this into the software by making sure it has a "how many urgent changes" counter for managers, so their bosses can see how finicky they are)

Especially you shouldn't build in the ability to give monetary incentives for work. That'll cause a race to the bottom on part of the employees.

Re: Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

#40

Post by Retric » Thu, Aug 14, 2014, 3:15 PM UTC

kevinh wrote: post #26

Kenji wrote: post #12

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.

Children aren't always intentional, and birth control isn't cheap, especially for someone who works near-minimum wage jobs. Add to that the general lessening of availability of birth control due to conservative influences in the United States, and you get an environment in which birth control is hard to effectively use—especially if you're on an erratic schedule, which this woman is.

Not to mention the US, Japan, and most if Europe is already below the replacement rate. Without immigration we are a dying society suggesting we need even fewer kids is a great way to end up extinct.

Reolistically, in the long term we need to support young parents with policies that promote having more kids or accept that 'the American way of life' is a dead end doomed to failure.