Living & Working in Great Places

Beware of Split Shifts

This is something I've run into in the past with both Xanterra and DNC. It's such a critical issue, it should be considered as a deal-breaker when you are considering working for one of these companies.

In an environment such as a national park, split shifts are, to put it simply, abusive. If you work, for example, 4-on, 4-off, 4-on, for a 12-hour split shift, where do you go and what can you do for those intervening four hours? The answer: nothing, and nowhere. You can eat a loooong lunch, or maybe read a book, but you don't have enough time to hike, or go fishing, or take a ride to town. Especially since you're still wearing your uniform.

The worst part is that after your twelve-hour work day (for that's what it is; it's just that four of those hours are unpaid), you will have no energy left to do anything but stagger back to your shack and collapse. If you are lucky enough to have two days off, that will be your only free time, some of which you will have to devote to doing laundry or shopping for groceries, since your split-shift workweek didn't allow you any time to do that before or after work.

Split shifts provide a small bit of added scheduling convenience for the employer at a HUGE expense of time and inconvenience to the employee. It is my--and many others'--position that split scheduling, aside from being reprehensible and abusive, is actually illegal, as it lengthens the actual workday beyond legal limits.

I STRONGLY urge EVERYONE to demand from their prospective employers a guarantee that they will NOT be assigned split shifts, except in case of emergency, and then only temporarily. If the park concessioners cannot find anyone who will tolerate this abusive practice, then they will eventually have to stop doing it.

Replies are closed for this discussion.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Rick Peterson on October 23, 2009 at 5:12pm: The first sentence of your last post,

"And I'm sure that if you had complained, you would have been told that "it's normal" or "you were told you might have to work split shifts"

Read your own posts.

Xanterra's turnover rates are a Xanterra issue, not a split shift issue. Your original post was about the evils of split shifts and how it was abuse. What I have said is that they are necessary in some environments. A sentiment echoed by most of the poeple on this thread.

But it is good to know that you are a psychologist now and single handedly know why everyone quits their jobs. It is also good to know that you are the arbitor of who gets to write things and who doesn't. I'll make sure to ask permission next time I want to weigh in on something. Again, I love your assumptions about people you never met.

Permalink Reply by Kevin Lewis on October 23, 2009 at 7:01pm: People don't quit their jobs because they LIKE them, for the most part. Excluding those who are forced to quit for personal /emergency reasons, most people who leave are dissatisfied with their jobs in some major way. It is a major step to quit a seasonal job if you've traveled thousands of miles for that job, and are likely idling yourself for the rest of the season. But of course, as a manager, and given your unmistakable attitude, you think that everyone who quits is just a lazy idiot who doesn't know the meaning of hard work, and who doesn't understand that a seasonal park job is SUPPOSED to be strenuous, stressful, and badly paid. In your mental world, no one ever quits because of legitimate grievances. In your mental world, NO practice of an employer, no matter how hard on the employee, is EVER unjustified.

I have so repeatedly and tiresomely run across your attitude in the working world, from middle-level managers and functionaries of every stripe. The employee should be GRATEFUL for his job. The employee should NEVER complain. Working for our company is a PRIVILEGE. Blah blah blah.

And for what it's worth, my opinion about whether you even belong in this discussion has much more to do with your attitude than your function: you have absolutely nothing useful to say, or at least, so far, you haven't said it. All you've done is assert over and over how wonderful, useful and necessary split shifts are, without showing WHY they are wonderful, useful, and necessary. Actually, I take that back---it IS useful to see, in your attitude, what a prospective employee can expect when he or she starts work at one of these places: "You will be working split shifts six days a week." "But you said that I MIGHT be expected to work SOME split shifts, and..." "We're your employer. We can do what we want." "But I don't want to work that many days." "Fine. We'll find someone else to do your job." "Why are you doing this???" "Because we can. Now shut up and get your butt out of here. You're fired."

Permalink Reply by Drew on October 23, 2009 at 6:46pm: What is this you can't make someone believe your ill-logical and contrived pile of pooh, you try to baffle them with a bunch of bull. This is just another example of what kind of junk employers have to put up with. The people smart and persuasive enough to sway there co-workers in some misguided direction so they can use those workers against there employer for there own agenda.

Permalink Reply by Kevin Lewis on October 23, 2009 at 7:20pm: Look up "their" (and "there") in the dictionary. Also, "illogical". For that matter, "pooh". Then get back to me. These grammatical and spelling corrections may help you in the future.

And yes, you've hit the nail on the head. I am trying to stir up a palace revolt: servers waving order pads and sharpened pencils descending on the office of the manager, demanding JUSTICE. I indeed have an agenda, and like a James Bond villain, am hoping to organize an army of disgruntled workers to aid me in my plan of WORLD DOMINATION, starting with the destruction of DNC and Xanterra! ARRRRRRR!!!!

Permalink Reply by Drew on October 23, 2009 at 7:47pm: Ahhhh, you got me. But you still got the jist. That a start!

Permalink Reply by Drew on October 23, 2009 at 8:43pm: SERVERS!!! You stated "there might be a defensible argument for REQUESTING servers to work split shifts". What did you come up with?

Permalink Reply by Kevin Lewis on October 23, 2009 at 9:34pm: While you're at that dictionary, look up the definitions of "requesting", then "compelling" and "forcing". You might get the distinction.

And the nature of a "request" means that it can be refused. I have absolutely no problem with a manager ASKING an employee to work a split shift, as long as that employee is entitled to refuse without fear of retaliation. Obviously, many situations can arise---TEMPORARY situations---where an employer may legitimately make such a request. The difference between that and what we're talking about here is that our subject is compulsory, involuntary, CONSTANT split shifts. What most people are saying here--incredibly--is that there's nothing wrong with an employer forcing an employee to work split shifts. But that most people here are agreeing with that notion doesn't make it correct--or even sane, for that matter. People believe LOTS of nonsense.

Permalink Reply by Drew on October 23, 2009 at 11:01pm: Look I'am not defining, redefining, and confusing terms here I'am simply stating that there is a legitamite and valid reason for the scheduling of split-shifts for service workers. If your getting paid for products served at lunch and dinner, lunch(10am-2pm) dinner(5pm-9pm) and at lunch you need 6 servers and dinner you need 6 servers. What do you do with those extra 4 servers between 2pm and 5pm when there is only enough work for 2 servers? Your answer is to keep them on the clock, twirling towels, chasing dust bunnies, or rotating the stock for the 14th time this week to keep them busy. Right, you would have every one of those servers climbing your frame because they aren't making any money. So you trim your staff so the ones you have to keep on can make some money. I know that is a restaurant example but any business that employs customer service workers has to schedule the majority of its workers to be there when the customer are there. That is what makes split-shifts required so employees wanting to work full-time in that capacity can do so productively. Yah, you might not like it but that the nature of the customer service business.

Permalink Reply by Chris on October 24, 2009 at 10:43am: I love how you're always pushing your views on people. Basketball = Education

Permalink Reply by jackie morris on October 24, 2009 at 11:46am: we can only pray that all the concessionairs out there are reading this and have the name kevin lewis in there "no hire" book because i for 1 would hate to work with this guy!!!!

Permalink Reply by Kevin Lewis on October 24, 2009 at 12:48pm: You should be glad there are people like me "out there", because otherwise, your working conditions and pay would be even worse than they are. SOMEONE has to have the guts to stand up to the Xanterras and DNCs of this world.

I don't see why my advocating decent pay and decent working conditions would make me someone you would "hate to work with". Maybe you imagine that I would always be complaining about something, and certainly, that's how bosses view ANYONE who resists unfair work practices, i.e., a "troublemaker."

Not so long ago, federal troops descended on workplace "troublemakers" and shot many of them, and arrested the rest. This happened hundreds of times, all over the country. You should be grateful for the existence of people who put up a fight, then and now. Without them, your pay would be much less, there would be no workplace safety rules, and you would have no rights as a worker whatsoever.