Part time work means never having to say I'm available

Before I start, heh, I love the Moody's comment about a period agricultural event. If only ...

And doubly before I start again, I apologize for the repost. This was meant to be posted here and ended up on INK due to some weirdness of Blogger. Eh, I'll live with it, because I'm essentially lazy.

I've been griping about my work schedule for a couple of days now. Apparently part time has been translated into Kami working six days in a row, getting one day off (Wednesday) and then working some more followed by getting Saturday off. Okay, yes, I'm looking forward to the ensuing fat paycheck. But dang! I have stuff to do, people! Once again I'm facing an unhappy chat with the manager which may not become necessary if, on the upcoming Thursday, I look at the schedule and see a heap of days off in a row. Problem solved. Normally I make excuses for management along the lines of so-and-so is on vacation or what's-her-name is sick so we have to fill in, yay checking account. In this case, though, a managerial type is on vacation and there is no such thing as filling in from the ranks for that position. Other supers fill in, not us grunts. They even pulled a super from another store to help. So what gives??!!

What gives is someone who doesn't like to do scheduling, or any paperwork for that matter. Rather than deal with the issue by making everything as automatic as possible (by making the schedule almost identical each week, shuffling people around only as needed to cover vacations, etc.) the manager has chosen to just fill shifts with qualified personnel in pencil apparently at random until all shifts are covered and then tack the schedule on the wall. Which is followed by us recipients of said schedule looking at it and scratching our heads wondering WTF. This negates such niceties like being able to say with fair certainty if you can make the picnic in two weeks or the Friday meeting down at the local burger joint that happens every other week. There isn't even a pattern as to shift or post. Nor is there much advance notice--it's posted week by week, one week at a time Sunday-Saturday on Thursdays, period. How in the world can people plan weekend stuff with their families if they only know if they'll get the Sunday after the Saturday off two days in advance? I've never seen a schedule done this way, dartboard style. I hope to never again. It's terribly inconvenient for everyone, including the schedule maker, although he probably doesn't see it that way. For him, short term, it appears to be the least stressful way to fill positions.

He'll be retiring soon. I like the man, and yet, yay!!

He needs to retire. In the meantime, apparently working part time means never having to say I'm available on a given day. Boo, drat.