<p>My daughter had a job like this 4 years ago. She lasted a month, then quit. At the beginning, she had about 20 hours scheduled. Then it was a schedule, but call first and the shift was usually cancelled. Then they’d start calling an hour before she was supposed to go in (at 7am!) and tell her to stay home. The thing was that she was supposed to be “available for scheduling” for all hours all days - which precluded any kind of additional part time work. If they called and she couldn’t come in, that was pretty much the end of the work - at least that’s what co-workers told her. </p>
<p>It has nothing to do with currently-mandated benefits or reliability, as this has been going on for the past 10 years or so. Any going retail concern knows traffic, sales/hour, probably sales/minute and could create reliable schedules for a limited number of employees. Instead, they want to treat people as interchangeable parts. They show no loyalty to the employee, so why should the employee to the company? </p>
<p>I remember reading about this trend in micro-adjusting the schedules of part-time workers. I believe there is actually sophisticated scheduling software out there that can fine-tune work schedules down to 15 minutes and that can be modified to accommodate weather and/or traffic patterns.</p>
<p>Step 1: Set up abusive working conditions where you require employees to be available 24/7, but only pay them when you happen to decide you need them. Make it impossible for workers to schedule child care, a second job, family obligations, or anything else.</p>
<p>Step 2: Be surprised that desirable workers with good work ethics don’t want to work for you.</p>
<p>My daughter’s first job was a 20 hours part-time job at a prestigious law firm, but some days when work is slow she was also told to go home and work another day. She needed this job to pay bills for her first apartment, post college, but she soon quitted and started her own company. Nowadays, anybody with a computer can start a business. She has done amazingly well being an entrepreneur, but she is very busy and she had her first bonus check. Not only that she creates jobs and employs people from her alma mater.</p>
<p>Really, I doubt there are part-time customer-dependent jobs that don’t send people home when it’s slow. This is not new, unusual, or evil. Seriously, they are not going to have a full staff around in an empty restaurant or retail shop. That would be silly. </p>
<p>My D2 had a job like this last summer. She had to purchase the “uniform” and spend an eight hour “shift” in training. Every shift was cancelled 30 or 40 minutes before the scheduled work time for the first three weeks. Once the “cancel” text was sent while she was driving to work and she was berated when she arrived (it’s against the law to be reading texts while driving so she did not see the cancel text). She finally figured out she could check on the employee facebook page and pick up shifts from other workers. She had maybe 2 shifts (of less than 3 hours each) before they decided new “uniforms” had to be purchased since new merchandise had arrived. After never getting paid for the training and spending more on “uniforms” than she earned and getting in trouble for not knowing that a schedule had been changed (after it had been posted) she finally quit. </p>
<p>Personally I think it’s criminal. She has worked fast food and other menial jobs but had never been so cheated. Training has to be paid and the “uniform” baloney is just a money maker. The establishment would “hire” dozens of new workers every week and require purchase of uniforms and many would never work an actual shift.</p>
<p>We have seasonal uniforms that change er…seasonally. They’re not the weather seasons. They’re the seasons the company establishes. This means about six weeks to two months you’re buying $60+ for a new uniform. </p>
<p>They hire buttloads of people each week, too. The majority never see a shift. The work environment is heavily based on how your favored (customers and managers) and how fast you can catch without screwing things up. The turnover is crazy, but there’s always a strong core that picks up the slack. It’s stressful being in that core because you have to deal with crap from management. </p>
<p>Man, the company I work for is a trip. Love the clothes, thought and the environment. :)</p>
<p>So they hire everyone and wait to see who makes it? Interesting. I think my son had a job like this and made it apparently because he did it for a couple of years in high school. I remember he was surprised by the lack of interview. Basically, just, “Okay you start Friday.” </p>
<p>They don’t hire to “see who makes it”. They hire to keep the hype up about their brand. </p>
<p>I’m unsure if we’re talking about the same company. But we might, depending on how old your son was at the time. Things have changed as of late. </p>
<p>My friend who is a respiratory therapist at a hospital says that when the hospital is “slow” and not all the beds are full, the head of the department ‘persuades’ employees to go home so they don’t have to be paid for their full shift, which makes it tough for them to pay their personal bills and have reliable paychecks. These are “full time” hourly employees with benefits, but they still need to work their hours to get paid for all of them. They are also discouraged from working overtime, as that adds to the costs for the hospital.</p>
<p>I had never known that they are “encouraged” to go home and end their shifts early if the hospital isn’t busy. That’s why she prefers to work in several different places at the medical center, so she can get enough hours to pay her bills and pay off her loans and expenses.</p>
<p>I remember the day I quit a minimum wage job when I was in college. My folks had to drive me to a little gift shop in Waikiki. The owner who hired me PROMISED I’d never work alone. He started picking on the other employees and made them compensate him if they accepted a check that bounced or if their cash drawer was short. I quit the day that I ended up working alone and a creepy married guy who was in my class at the university showed up at the gift shop. I told the employer he broke his promise and I was not returning to work. I believe he paid me all he owed; my folks were so glad not to have to drive me to that job any more – we wasted more on gas money than I was making anyway. He never changed my hours on me or told me not to come in, so I guess I ought to count my blessings.</p>