Just because something’s a part-time job doesn’t mean it it’s a part-time commitment. At one point I worked as a projectionist part-time, and let me tell you, I didn’t have time for a second job despite working less than 20hrs a week average (it depended on the time of year, November/December I’d typically average over 20hrs, January was usually bare minimum required to keep things running).
The schedule was chaotic due to special/private events, new movies sometimes opening a day early, advanced screenings, employee meetings (I had to be there even though they typically weren’t relevant to me so someone could work the projector), etc. I wasn’t on-call, I wasn’t working full-time, but the only thing I could count on was that I was typically working Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, not including special/private events that happened on other days (including weekends).
My hours on Wednesday/Thursday/Friday changed depending on what was happening the following week as well. Most of the time it was evening Wednesday and Thursday, then mornings on Friday for weekly maintenance. However, sometimes I’d work Wednesday morning, Thursday afternoon, Friday morning or some other combination of whacky hours. Sometimes I’d work 10hrs in a single shift (those were horrible, imagine having to sit around and pretend to be busy for 10hrs despite only having a minor task every hour or two), sometimes I’d only work 2hrs. The result was that the job was a full-time commitment despite technically being a part-time position.
Edit because I accidentally hit post before I was done: the fact that anon mentions that he’s only being scheduled 25hrs due to ACA requirements (full-time employment under the ACA is 30hrs+) suggests that his employer may be expecting a full-time commitment while exploiting the part-time technicality to avoid having to pay for employee healthcare.
Yes, this. During university, I’d try to work odd jobs during school year. Coordinating that was “fun”, and these were uncomplicated jobs. At one point over the summer, I was trying to juggle three rather menial jobs. Luckily, one was fairly flexible, but the other two just assumed they could set you up with less than 12 hours notice for a schedule, and would threaten firing if you could not make it.
Still later, I had a work-study job that paid very low (for the university) and I still had to juggle something else, since that was only about 4 hours per day.
I have nearly always worked 40+ hours since in IT, but I remember those early days well. It’s no picnic to have more than 1 job and trying to live anything like what would be considered a normal human life. And that’s when I still had the cushion, part of the time, of living with my parents, or having some of their help with campus housing. I cannot imagine trying to do the same while juggling children, their school, their homework, and getting them to school/activities as well as spending any meaningful time with my wife…
Just because something’s a part-time job doesn’t mean it it’s a part-time commitment. At one point I worked as a projectionist part-time, and let me tell you, I didn’t have time for a second job despite working less than 20hrs a week average (it depended on the time of year, November/December I’d typically average over 20hrs, January was usually bare minimum required to keep things running).
The schedule was chaotic due to special/private events, new movies sometimes opening a day early, advanced screenings, employee meetings (I had to be there even though they typically weren’t relevant to me so someone could work the projector), etc. I wasn’t on-call, I wasn’t working full-time, but the only thing I could count on was that I was typically working Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, not including special/private events that happened on other days (including weekends).
My hours on Wednesday/Thursday/Friday changed depending on what was happening the following week as well. Most of the time it was evening Wednesday and Thursday, then mornings on Friday for weekly maintenance. However, sometimes I’d work Wednesday morning, Thursday afternoon, Friday morning or some other combination of whacky hours. Sometimes I’d work 10hrs in a single shift (those were horrible, imagine having to sit around and pretend to be busy for 10hrs despite only having a minor task every hour or two), sometimes I’d only work 2hrs. The result was that the job was a full-time commitment despite technically being a part-time position.
Edit because I accidentally hit post before I was done: the fact that anon mentions that he’s only being scheduled 25hrs due to ACA requirements (full-time employment under the ACA is 30hrs+) suggests that his employer may be expecting a full-time commitment while exploiting the part-time technicality to avoid having to pay for employee healthcare.
Yes, this. During university, I’d try to work odd jobs during school year. Coordinating that was “fun”, and these were uncomplicated jobs. At one point over the summer, I was trying to juggle three rather menial jobs. Luckily, one was fairly flexible, but the other two just assumed they could set you up with less than 12 hours notice for a schedule, and would threaten firing if you could not make it. Still later, I had a work-study job that paid very low (for the university) and I still had to juggle something else, since that was only about 4 hours per day. I have nearly always worked 40+ hours since in IT, but I remember those early days well. It’s no picnic to have more than 1 job and trying to live anything like what would be considered a normal human life. And that’s when I still had the cushion, part of the time, of living with my parents, or having some of their help with campus housing. I cannot imagine trying to do the same while juggling children, their school, their homework, and getting them to school/activities as well as spending any meaningful time with my wife…