Trading shifts………..

If you work a nine to five job, chances are, everyone you work with has the same schedule. So let’s say that your best friend comes up with tickets to a Thursday afternoon baseball game, and you’d really like to go……can you trade shifts with someone? No! You’re all working the same shift, and no one takes a Thursday off, whatever you want to do can wait until the weekend.

However, if you’re a server in a restaurant, it may go something like this: You’re scheduled to work Thursday lunch, now you want if off….. the first thing you do is put a note on the server dry erase board…..if there are no takers, then you start talking to people….there are 45 servers, and only 8 are scheduled for the lunch shift, your odds are pretty good that you can get someone to pick up this shift.

“Hey Dave! Can you work my Thursday lunch for me?”

“I can, but only if you switch lunch for dinner that day, I don’t want to work a double.”

“No, I can’t work dinner, I won’t be back from the ball game in time, and besides that, I’ll be way too drunk to work.”

Hey Brian! Can you work my Thursday lunch for me?”

“I can, but I’m on call for that shift, the best I can do is trade ya.”

“I’ll get back to you on that.”

“Hey Stephanie! Can you pick up my Thursday lunch shift?”

“I can pick up your Thursday if you pick up my Friday lunch. If I work both, it’ll put me too close to overtime, and I don’t want to mess up working Saturday night.”

“Done deal. I‘ll go put it in the shift exchange book. Thanks.”

See……simple……everybody’s happy, and as long as it’s covered, nobody care…..