As (job) Shifts Vary, Family’s Only Constant Is Chaos

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/08/14/us/as-shifts-vary-familys-only-constant-is-chaos.html?referrer=

“You’re waiting on your job to control your life,” she said, with the scheduling software used by her employer dictating everything from “how much sleep Gavin will get to what groceries I’ll be able to buy this month.”SAN DIEGO — In a typical last-minute scramble, Jannette Navarro, a 22-year-old Starbucks barista and single mother, scraped together a plan for surviving the month of July without setting off family or financial disaster.

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In contrast to the joyless work she had done at a Dollar Tree store and a KFC franchise, the $9-an-hour Starbucks job gave Ms. Navarro, the daughter of a drug addict and an absentee father, the hope of forward motion. She had been hired because she showed up so many times, cheerful and persistent, asking for work, and she had a way of flicking away setbacks — such as a missed bus on her three-hour commute — with the phrase, “I’m over it.”

Newly off public assistance, she was just a few credits shy of an associate degree in business and talked of getting a master’s degree as some of her co-workers were. Her take-home pay rarely topped $400 to $500 every two weeks; since starting in November, she had set aside $900 toward a car — her next step toward stability and independence for herself and her 4-year-old son, Gavin.

But Ms. Navarro’s fluctuating hours, combined with her limited resources, had also turned their lives into a chronic crisis over the clock. She rarely learned her schedule more than three days before the start of a workweek, plunging her into urgent logistical puzzles over who would watch the boy.

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[csziggy]

1. My husband does not know on Friday afternoon his schedule for the next week

It makes it hard to plan ahead, especially now that the weekend people quit. For a long time he knew he'd be off on Saturday and Sunday, now he never knows what schedule he will have for the week ahead. Last week he was off Tuesday and Wednesday, this week he's off tomorrow and then will work straight through next Wednesday. He requested Labor Day weekend off a year ago and this is how they are giving him the time off.

It makes setting doctor's appointments hard - more than once I've had to call to change appointments made weeks in advance that management had notification of.

The uncertainty is only one reason my husband wants to retire. Another is that they are short staffed, so it's hard to get everything done. And they don't want to pay overtime, so often he's had to walk away from customers to clock out and has to leave other team members swamped with more customers and work than can be done.

[TwilightGardener]

3. I hear ya. My husband is on a train crew, he's only certain of 10 hours off after

he makes a trip (federally mandated crew rest). Otherwise, he can be called 24/7/365, unless he works 6 days in a row, in which case he gets a mandated two days off, but the railroad will avoid that by just delaying calling him for a train for 24 hours, usually by leaving him stranded in a hotel room somewhere far away. He can't make doctor's appointments either, his only recourse is taking personal leave days or calling in sick when he really needs time off. I don't work right now--if I did I'd never see him on his 10-12 hours at home (and he's usually sleeping during 6-8 hours of that).

[csziggy]

4. Wow - that is bad! My husband is just a retail clerk now

So his pay is low. (He's working for health insurance because until ACA was passed we were both uninsurable. I promised him he could retire this year, now with the court handling of subsidies in states that did not set up their own exchanges (we're in Florida), I am worried about him quitting. Yes, we could now get insurance without getting the subsidies, but the premiums would break our budget completely.) And his work is not as critical as what your husband does.

With so many unemployed you'd think businesses would be fully staffed. But they seem to want to run with skeleton crews, no matter if the lack of service costs them customers. I simply don't understand it.

[TwilightGardener]

5. I hope he can retire soon, it sounds like he's burned out.

My theory is that these businesses have learned they can get away with squeezing and squeezing the staff they have, and keep costs down that way.

[csziggy]

6. I think he will retire this fall

If the courts decide that the federal exchanges can't get subsidies, we'll be very tight financially but we'll survive. We will just have to tighten our belts and do with less.

[renate]

2. I'm just speechless

It's horrible what people have to endure because they have no choice. She sounds like an incredible person... and there are millions of people just like her.