[rsync]

"Maria Trisler is often dismissed early from her shifts at a McDonald’s in Peoria, Ill., when the computers say sales are slow. The same sometimes happens to Ms. Navarro at Starbucks."

Wouldn't this be farily easy to game ?

That is, I don't serve anyone at a register for a 10 minute period, so I quickly buy a small coke using my own money ... thus simulating a customer ... which would (I presume) throw off, or reset the whole algorithm.

Two assumptions - first, that the software really isn't that smart, and second, that it "fails safe" ... which is to say, if traffic patterns don't match up to existing models, just give up and keep people working and try again later.

So I would think this would be quite simple (and cheap) to game ... maybe four workers get together and chip in to simulate 2-3 meal purchases, thus gaining an hour or more of paid work ?

[jacalata]

You're also assuming that this would not be easily noticed by the manager on shift (or that they would not try to prevent it, perhaps by firing a worker), and that you could shift the algorithm with an amount small enough that the workers (making ~$7/hr) can afford it without wiping out the income they would receive from the extra hour, and that the workers would band together instead of thinking 'well I won't be the one sent home so I'm not going to spend $2 on keeping Sarah here for another hour'.