Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!neat.cs.toronto.edu!moraes
Newsgroups: ont.general
From: moraes@cs.toronto.edu (Mark Moraes)
Subject: Re: Sunday shopping
Message-ID: <89Dec23.195501est.2231@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
References: On demand
Distribution: ont
Date: 24 Dec 89 00:56:01 GMT
Lines: 63

I think we might benefit from the "do unto others" approach in this
discussion -- yes, it's convenient if the stores were open on Sunday.
But it isn't convenient to a lot of people who work in those stores.
It's probably bad enough that they have to work evenings/Saturdays.

I'm puzzled that most postings on this subject don't seem to consider
the fact that schools are closed on weekends, or casually mention it
under the "time with family" argument. 

Won't this complicate schedules for families with children? Especially
single parent families? (Daycare already seems to be a major issue,
even without weekends factored in) How about families where both
parents work in the retail sector?

In <89Dec22.171153est.2186@neat.cs.toronto.edu> Marc Green comments
(in what I think is a sarcastic tone, based on context):
>  If Joe is willing to work at the store on Sunday and Fred
> wants to stay home with the kiddies, it wouldn't be fair because Joe
> would get the promotions.

Exactly the problem. Joe (or Jane) may not *have* kiddies. Or, Joe's
spouse may not be in the retail sector, so Joe can work Sundays and
still have someone be at home with the kiddies. Or Joe may be lucky
enough to have daycare that is willing to work weekends. Or Joe's
kiddies may be old enough that Joe has the time to work Sundays.

The arguments for spreading the load are good ones, however. So how
about spreading out the working hours of the population that doesn't
work in retail as well?

Ensure that everyone has a weekend, but it need not necessarily be
Saturday and Sunday? (Perhaps guarantee everyone one of those days
off, but not both)

Note that this helps the shopping problem as well by distributing the
shopping hours of the population. It does it more fairly than by
forcing shops to remain closed on Sunday.

What, do I hear yowls of anguished rage about giving up precious
"family time" now? :-)

Not to mention the complications this causes for long-weekends :-):-)

Yes, more businesses would have to start going through the
time-scheduling headaches that the hospitals, police stations,
factories have to go through at present. (Anyone who has ever had to
plan a set of schedules where evening, night and weekend shifts will
understand how much of a headache this can be. I had to write some code
to help someone do this once. Ouch!)

I make the side observation that distributing the population's working
hours is a natural prelude to even finer-grain load balancing by
distributing the working hours of the entire population more widely
over 6am to 10pm. (since the hours for what the experts consider
quality sleep lie somewhere between 10pm to 6am. I can't seem to find
experts agreeing on the time, though:-) The TTC would love this!

Yes, I'm aware that I'm talking about the "population" in very
cold-blooded calculating terms. That's exactly what a lot of people
seem to have been doing when discussing the "retail worker".

	Mark, who hopes he'll remember these arguments the next time
	he suddenly needs an XXX widget on a Sunday...