When Lexii Evans, a retail worker in Hartford, Connecticut, was faced with the choice between finishing community college or working, she reluctantly chose the latter—and delayed graduation. The decision wasn’t an easy one, but it was getting harder to juggle work and school. Some days, she’d get asked to take an unexpected shift, missing classes or keeping her from finishing homework. It wasn’t that her hours were long—it’s that they were never consistent.
Evans’ story is unique, but she is one of thousands of retail and food service workers in Connecticut and across the country who are subject to “on-call scheduling”—their shifts can vary wildly by length each week, or be changed at the last minute. It’s an employment situation that can play hell with workers’ home lives and career aspirations: To accommodate the unpredictable whims of their employers, they might avoid signing up for college classes, or other job shifts; parents must scramble to hire babysitters or rely on family and friends to fill childcare gaps that suddenly crop up.
“It shouldn’t take me three years to graduate from a two-year college,” Evans said. “I want to be great, but I can’t be great and work part-time and be on call.”
[For more on this story by SARAH HOLDER, go to https://www.citylab.com/equity...hour-to-hour/560393/]
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