(no subject)
My summer is going pretty well, though I am so excited to get back to school in August and meet people in the Spanish house and room with Cabelle and play with friends and such.
I need to do some bitching here because no one in my family is very bothered by this, and I need affirmation of the fact that there is indeed a wrong being done. Backstory is that I have to take the bus in to the metro on days when my sister works because there's no mass transit to her job and our van died. This is not the end of the world, but it is certainly inconvienent to my parents; they must pick me up from the metro station several miles away if I get back after the buses stop running, which is often.
Well, my sister works at a movie theater this summer, and it doesn't pay too well, as movie theaters don't. The thing that pisses me off is that she is very often put on-call. This means that she has to call in an hour before the shift is scheduled to start and the manager tells her whether she has to work or not. Usually when she's on call, she doesn't end up having to work. When she's on-call, she needs to have the car all day in case she is asked to go in, even though she probably won't need it.
This is annoying because our car issue, but aside from that, isn't this a horrible business practice? I've looked around a bit online and aparently it's legal and they don't have to pay you anything if you don't get called in. But what a shitty way to treat people. You can't make plans for the day even though you probably won't be called in to make any money. It's lovely for the movie theater because they don't have to risk paying employees anymore than they need to. It's just managers being super lazy and unconfident because they don't have to worry about scheduling the right number of people. I can see them wanting to do this on weird days- like when there is a major movie opening. But this is their normal practice. She's going to call in midday on a weekday to see if it's "busy." That's crap.
Is this a normal thing? Have employers done this to you in your jobs?
I think they take their cue from other industries where there are skilled labor and specialized customers involved- say you are on call if there is some kind of technical screw-up. But this makes no sense.
Okay done, thanks.
I need to do some bitching here because no one in my family is very bothered by this, and I need affirmation of the fact that there is indeed a wrong being done. Backstory is that I have to take the bus in to the metro on days when my sister works because there's no mass transit to her job and our van died. This is not the end of the world, but it is certainly inconvienent to my parents; they must pick me up from the metro station several miles away if I get back after the buses stop running, which is often.
Well, my sister works at a movie theater this summer, and it doesn't pay too well, as movie theaters don't. The thing that pisses me off is that she is very often put on-call. This means that she has to call in an hour before the shift is scheduled to start and the manager tells her whether she has to work or not. Usually when she's on call, she doesn't end up having to work. When she's on-call, she needs to have the car all day in case she is asked to go in, even though she probably won't need it.
This is annoying because our car issue, but aside from that, isn't this a horrible business practice? I've looked around a bit online and aparently it's legal and they don't have to pay you anything if you don't get called in. But what a shitty way to treat people. You can't make plans for the day even though you probably won't be called in to make any money. It's lovely for the movie theater because they don't have to risk paying employees anymore than they need to. It's just managers being super lazy and unconfident because they don't have to worry about scheduling the right number of people. I can see them wanting to do this on weird days- like when there is a major movie opening. But this is their normal practice. She's going to call in midday on a weekday to see if it's "busy." That's crap.
Is this a normal thing? Have employers done this to you in your jobs?
I think they take their cue from other industries where there are skilled labor and specialized customers involved- say you are on call if there is some kind of technical screw-up. But this makes no sense.
Okay done, thanks.