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Scheduling Technology Leaves Low-Income Parents With Hours of Chaos

nytimes.com

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

#121

Post by ars »

crpatino wrote: post #106
zo1 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enlighten me how that is slavery? Bear in mind, in my example people have the choice to go there, or not.

An example from late 19th century Mexico: Tiendas de Raya. The drill worked like this. You live in a poverty riden rural area, and an "enganchador" (lit. hooker, but its kind or a recruiter) comes town and offers you a job elsewhere. You sign up and leave with this guy. Upon arrival, you learn that you have to pay for the recruiter fee, which is always more than whatever money managed you brought with you for the tri…

I think his proposal for a company town is that all that stuff is free.

Daycare, longings, travel, food, medical care, all free (or more accurately included in your paycheck).

The only things that cost are luxuries.

Seems to me that would solve the problem you outline.

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

#122

Post by ars »

aianus wrote: post #33
_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:…

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.

By the time you have $1 million you will be too old to have a kid (especially if female).

People really need to start getting married earlier. If you marry in your early twenties having a child at that time is not a problem, even if you don't have tons of savings yet.

And aside from the biology of having a child late, simply raising a child is much harder when you are older (late thirties), because your energy level really starts diverging from theirs. (Obviously you can make it work, I'm only saying it gets harder.)

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

#123

Post by ars »

PeterisP wrote: post #94
datasmash wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's obviously as not as simple as that if you didn't choose to have your child.

Having a child definitely is a choice. You "don't choose to have your child" only if the three main things (conceiving, birth and rising up) are forced on against your will; i.e., in cases of rape in a society that doesn't allows neither abortion nor adoption; or in cases of persons that are mentally incapable to decide for themselves (they do sometimes have kids and the ethics of those events are often unpleasant, i…

Sorry for the accidental downmod.

I applaud you for including adoption as an alternative to abortion. Finding someone to adopt and older child is hard, but it's easy to find someone to adopt an infant. (Although you should not discount how hard it is to give one away - it's very emotional.)

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

#124

Post by jacalata »

justizin wrote: post #110
Mithaldu wrote: post #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.

in the US, at least, there's nothing really holding you back from treating your low-income employees illegally. it's not like they can afford a lawyer, or even have time to find and/or meet with one. that's an example of where unions are important.

"it's easy to treat workers illegally in the US" is irrelevant here - because this actually isn't illegal in the US to start with. There is no federal or state minimum time between shifts, although there are minimums within specific industries, like pilots.

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

#125

Post by jacalata »

rsync wrote: post #117
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." Wouldn't this be farily easy to game ? That is, I don't serve anyone at a register for a 10 minute period, so I quickly buy a small coke using my own money ... thus simulating a customer ... which would (I presume) throw off, or reset…

You're also assuming that this would not be easily noticed by the manager on shift (or that they would not try to prevent it, perhaps by firing a worker), and that you could shift the algorithm with an amount small enough that the workers (making ~$7/hr) can afford it without wiping out the income they would receive from the extra hour, and that the workers would band together instead of thinking 'well I won't be the one sent home so I'm not going to spend $2 on keeping Sarah here for another hour'.

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

#126

Post by smtddr »

GFischer wrote: post #119
smtddr wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

It's really complex, and I can see where you're coming from, but I wouldn't call it a right. I also agree that society should be better structured to accomodate and support parenthood. Many European countries are doing it right. What I'm personally ambivalent about is people forcing me to support other peoples' children, when I have delayed having my own children (and I'm in a stable relationship and we both want chi…

>>What I'm personally ambivalent about is people forcing me to support other peoples' children, when I have delayed having my own children(and I'm in a stable relationship and we both want children) because I don't believe I'm financially able to support them.

I actually believe as a society we should be okay supporting them. But there's a caveat. The preventative measures in place we currently have in society are not working because, IMHO, we waste too much money in WarOnDrugs and questionable wars. If we could stop doing that and ramp up the education & availabilty of birthcontrol in lower income areas, I bet there wouldn't be that many of them falling through the cracks(canyons really) in the system and ending up appearing to us as being irresponsible burdens. It would be a nice small number of people that we could handle.

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

#127

Post by mrxd »

datasmash wrote: post #46

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. 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…

> you can choose when you're going to be available and pick up jobs when it makes sense for your schedule

Sharing economy workers are 1099 contractors, so wages can be pushed below minimum wage. You may not be able to make enough to get by just by working when its convenient for you, and have to work during the high demand/wage hours or whenever jobs are being offered.

The market for sharing economy labor will probably be where demand is more unpredictable, because businesses that can predict demand will just hire employees. Workers will have short notification windows and feel more pressure to take higher paying work when it becomes available.

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

#128

Post by Iftheshoefits »

GHFigs wrote: post #99
zo1 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Seems like a fair trade off? If you want ala carte hours, you should pay ala carte prices. " That only works if the supply of workers is limited. And in this case, the low-wage bracket, it isn't. It's absolutely flooded with people, so you can't expect the workers to command any such bargaining power. It's simply supply and demand, and there simply isn't enough demand to satisfy the huge supply of low-wage workers.…

Give the workers daycare, food, accommodation, training/education and pay them peanuts... In practice, many low-wage workers already get these resources, but via the government (i.e. your taxes) rather than the company.

In reality, they don't get these things from the government. I suppose "private-company run debit cards systems, private-company run day care, private-company run medical facilities, private-entity run education programs, etc." paid for with a stipend or debit card issued and funded by the government qualifies as "via the government."

However, as is so often the case when "welfare" or a social safety net comes up, especially in America, what is technically true by a parsimonious and context-free reading of the facts is, in practice, not fundamentally relevant (or even completely true).

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

#129

Post by dragonwriter »

ars wrote: post #121
crpatino wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An example from late 19th century Mexico: Tiendas de Raya. The drill worked like this. You live in a poverty riden rural area, and an "enganchador" (lit. hooker, but its kind or a recruiter) comes town and offers you a job elsewhere. You sign up and leave with this guy. Upon arrival, you learn that you have to pay for the recruiter fee, which is always more than whatever money managed you brought with you for the tri…

I think his proposal for a company town is that all that stuff is free. Daycare, longings, travel, food, medical care, all free (or more accurately included in your paycheck). The only things that cost are luxuries. Seems to me that would solve the problem you outline.

> Daycare, longings, travel, food, medical care, all free (or more accurately included in your paycheck).

Or, more accurately still, the amount of those things that the company decides that you should get without paying extra replaces the bulk of your paycheck. Anything more you want you have to buy with the pittance that remains (or on credit), from suppliers you have access to given the travel, communications, etc., that the company chooses allow you access to through the companies "free" and paid services -- which, usually, means through the company itself. Which, of course, gives the company incentive to ensure that what is provided in the "free" allowance is inadequate.

Company towns are near perfect walled gardens, and exhibit all the problems that walled gardens usually demonstrate.

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

#130

Post by zo1 »

angersock wrote: post #82
zo1 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enlighten me how that is slavery? Bear in mind, in my example people have the choice to go there, or not.

Consult your history--even in the event where going there was a choice, there are many, many ways to rig the game so that it becomes economically infeasible to leave again. You also assume that people have free choice; when you're near flat broke, it's easy to miss your other options.

I see, so you're going to argue against historical company towns instead of my as-yet-undetermined suggestion. Do you honestly think a civilized country or informed internet would allow a company town to exist if it behaved like the historical company towns? They'd be up in arms as soon as they found out.

Though, to be fair. We have "company towns" right now in Dubai and those oil-rich middle-east cities. Guess who's turning a blind eye? The government's where the cities are, and the governments of those immigrants being taken advantage of. They're ignored by both sides.

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