|
I'd say there's two types of "variation" here that should be discussed separately. One is not working an average of 40 hours a week, and the other is being able to vary the times one works while still working full-time. The latter doesn't violate the concerns you list. There are people who want or need the full pay but need flexibility. An example is parents, like wonder_er mentioned. At my work, there is a flexible work schedule option where you have to hit 80 hours biweekly and need to work the core hours of 10-2 at least eight days during that period, but other than that you are free to work whenever. This option is super popular with parents because random things come up with kids all the time where you need time in the morning or afternoon but can easily make it up on the other side or another day. It's also popular with younger folks because they can work a bunch at one side of the two-week period and take a three or four day weekend (or even longer if you plan back to back biweekly periods right) without burning any vacation time. They like lots of time off but want full-time pay and are fine with longer hours some days to make up for it. That's variation in schedule even though it's still 40 hours a week on average. All these examples are people still aligned with their connections. In fact, the variation produces more opportunity to shuttle kids to school, participate socially, etc. To your point, the type of variation where you work less and aren't aligned with the schedules of others in your life is definitely not desirable for anyone with others in your life. I was in the military and worked these schedules for about five years on a 24/7-staffed watch floor. The schedule format changed every time someone new came in and took over, so we probably changed structures every year or so during that time. I can say with surety it wasn't a particular shift schedule but just the off-normal-schedule part of them that made it hard. One that stands out as particularly bad was 12 hours on, 12 hours off (midnight-noon or noon-midnight), three days on, three days off. That was brutal for everyone. Your first day off was a recovery day where you tried to back on normal schedule, and your first day back to work was about trying to not fall asleep as you adjusted back. It switched later to 12 on/12 off, three on four off, but having more time off a week still didn't help. Everyone spent their first day trying to recover so they could do stuff with people in their lives. Later we went to three shifts a day, and workers on the midnight to 8am shift kept that up, but the number of days off til the next shift were fewer, making it worse. The best I figure out to do working that for a few years was stay up when the shift was done and try to sleep at like 4-6pm, but that only was successful because she wasn't working. |