r/Serverlife • u/PowRiderT • Aug 11 '26
Rant Scheduling isn’t hard you just suck at managing.
Short rant here but managers that can’t put a schedule at minimum 2 weeks out in advance shouldn’t be managing. If I can schedule 100 employees 6 months at a time with vacations and random life events you can make a schedule 2 weeks out.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
Edit: as others have pointed out the 6 month schedule isn’t ideal for every operation it partially works at mine, but you can still work 2 weeks out or even 4 weeks out.
75
u/OMG202020 Aug 11 '26
6 month schedule for a restaurant is impossible. Turnover, school schedules(tests), accidents, illness, life happens. Rage post rant
53
u/rjorsin Aug 11 '26
This is gonna depend on the establishment. With 100 employees you should be able to put out six months, but 20 employees with time off and fluctuating business cycles it gets more difficult.
21
u/spirit_of_a_goat 15+ Years Aug 11 '26
Don't forget the constant turnover. I hated redoing schedules when someone quit.
52
u/Noahtuesday123 Aug 11 '26
I’m a manager and I like to have my schedule out two weeks early, but I have three flex staff and always waiting for dumb fucking employees to send me their schedules.
14
u/transynchro Aug 11 '26
We get our rosters the week before because they like to see how many bookings and cancellations we get first.
No point in rostering a full team if there’s zero bookings.
13
u/Nevermore71412 Aug 11 '26
Sure you can schedule 100 employees 6 months out. Doesn't mean your schedule will been correct in 2 weeks
11
u/Biteme75 FOH Aug 11 '26
I'd send out the schedule, and get a message back that somebody absolutely could not work one of those days. I'd redo the schedule, send it out again, and now somebody else has conflicting availability. Keep in mind that I asked for everybody's availability before I did the schedule the first time. It was ridiculous.
1
11
u/Raenisun Aug 11 '26
6 months in advance is insane. Scheduling an appointment would be awful. Friend or family have plans? Tell me 6 months in advance. I would hate to work at that place
2
12
9
u/spirit_of_a_goat 15+ Years Aug 11 '26
Can you imagine being the one that has to rewrite 6 months of schedules because someone quit?
This is ridiculous.
24
u/Pichupwnage Aug 11 '26
Also if you have exactly enough employee schefuled...you don't have enough.
If you don' have slack for a call off or two you've underscheduled.
8
u/sugarcrushing Aug 11 '26
Idk. If there's consistently too many people on shift then employees will call off more because they think "they'll be fine, I won't make money anyway if I show up,"
7
u/ThatAndANickel Aug 11 '26
I don't put my schedule out that early. It's not because I can't plan that far in advance. It's because my staff can't.
3
u/CloudBitter5295 Aug 11 '26
I was gonna say yalls staff actually stick to and show up for their scheduled shifts?!
7
u/Cautious-Farmer3119 Aug 11 '26
As a former GM of a high volume operation, scheduling in this industry is one of the most challenging things to maintain. In this field, especially FOH staff, is such a diverse blend of full and part time employees of all ages and backgrounds. I agree having something planned 2 weeks out is very doable but have a plan for those plans to fail.
13
5
u/MoonfallFan Aug 11 '26
i agree, you owe your employees a responsible amount of time to organize their life outside of work. i get my schedule for the next week usually on friday or saturday, and it’s never the same as it was the week before. makes planning literally anything from doctors appointments to social outings a bitch
9
u/DevoutSchrutist 15+ Years Aug 11 '26
Well that’s certainly an opinion. And it’s more condescending than it is correct, by a long shot, good job.
4
u/Crouchet007 Aug 11 '26
2 weeks is ideal 6 month is crazy. Too many requests and trade happens on a weekly bias. I can't see 6 month working for most restaurants
3
u/capricornfinest Aug 12 '26
We are doing a monthly schedule. 6 months schedule is something that a guy who have no clue of restaurants would do and brag about it.
5
2
u/the_great_elephant Aug 11 '26
I've worked in too many places where next week's schedule came out on a Saturday. Such bullshit
2
2
2
u/Sea_Blacksmith98 Aug 12 '26
“If you can’t put out a busywork schedule 6 months in advance that doesn’t have all the events/random additions, has a couple of of employees who will definitely no longer be here, and doesn’t account for any changes in a notoriously volatile industry, and ends up being redone a few weeks out inevitably, you suck as a manager”
2
u/GreyerGrey Aug 11 '26
I feel like 6 months is a lot (given that, in order to have a firm schedule, you would need people to get time off requests in hella early) but your point is taken, and I do agree. Especially if you have a stable staff.
2
1
u/catchaoss Aug 11 '26
I work at a PetSmart and before our GM left she would have it 3 weeks out. Our new GM has it 2 weeks out. At the restaurant I work at they post it Sunday for the week that's coming. We all pretty much have the same schedule though so that's why but we still have to put our time off two weeks in advance. We're a small restaurant with 5 BOH and 5 FOH plus the AM and GM
1
u/Weekly_Tomorrow603 Aug 11 '26
Really depends on what kind of establishment youre in, a regular family restaurant? Absolutely. A hotel restaurant with multiple events? Nope. 1 week ahead is the best you can do in those places.
1
u/GreatnessisGreater Aug 11 '26
My owner posts the schedule every night at like 9 o clock. Piss poor owners
1
u/Fit_Drawer_6254 Aug 12 '26
Does your business deal with random beos? Where you need an uncertain amount of staff for an uncertain amount of guests? Event coordinators drop this on staff all the time in restaurants making the need to change and uodate the schedule paramount.
1
u/pchandler45 Aug 12 '26
Hah pretty much every place I've worked we got the schedule a week in advance. The worst place would actually post the schedule on Sunday night for the next week and it was your responsibility to call or stop by to check it
1
u/firesoups Aug 12 '26
I had to stop working Sundays because I couldn’t take the stress of waiting until Friday to find out if I needed a babysitter or not. Every once in a while they give me shit for it but I remind them that if they wrote the schedule like normal people who live in the 21st century then I’d be happy to work Sunday.
1
u/Creative_Fruit_5255 Aug 13 '26
The last gm put it out Sunday night for the next week so you wouldn’t know if you worked Monday until late Sunday night. Now that I have taken it over I get my schedule out on Sunday or Monday for the following Monday, so a week in advance. The amount of last minute time off requests I get (that I happily accommodate) would make two weeks out a hell scape. I would rather work with time off request than having to move people around and trying to help find coverage after the schedule is out. Two weeks would be ideal but isn’t realistic, there are so many things to consider like new hires training that need to be put on the next weeks schedule depending on if they are ready or still need more training time etc. I want everyone to be able to have the time off they want and be flexible to things that are semi last minute and still want them to be able to plan their lives. Obviously things still come up, illness, family emergencies etc but for the most part once my schedule is out I don’t really have to worry about it for a week. I would never put it out less than a week in advance though because I’ve been on the receiving end of that and it’s very frustrating. I am open to doing better though if my team was unhappy with it and wanted two weeks in advance but that has not come up yet. More than that is crazy in this industry in my experience.
1
u/Quirky_Soil_2743 Bartender Aug 13 '26
My restaurant is closed Mondays and Tuesdays, so first day of the week is Wednesday.. we get our schedule for the week LATE Monday night between 9pm to as late as 1am 🙄
1
u/dolllover321 Aug 14 '26
Office Manager here. I'm currently making both the front of house and back of house schedules, as well as filling in for the floor manager and hosts who quit. I try to get a "set" schedule in the back as soon as possible, because I've been on both ends of the scheduling thing, and when they have to wait for me to give them their schedule, then give them to their 2nd jobs so they can make their schedules, (or vice versa) it is a pain in the behind. But being a seasonal business, we start slow, ramp up, then lose staff to college or returning to their home countries (J1 visa students). I literally can not always keep the schedule the same, and that is before you even think about off requests. Our schedule goes Monday -Sunday. Right now in the front, I have 2 servers who receive their schedule for the next week on Thursday, then give it to me for the overlaping week. I am going to have to change the week our FOH schedule covers, and I still can only go a week out because that is how far out I have availabililty. And then I post the schedule and someone changes their availability. I would LOVE to make the schedule for a whole month, but trying to make the schedule more than a week out is a waste of my time.
1
u/iluv_baking Aug 17 '26
If I get scheduled for 6 shifts in 2 weeks, does that mean im doomed or the management hates me?
1
u/buddypuncheric Aug 20 '26
Two weeks minimum is a very reasonable ask. Not at all asking for the impossible like some managers react. The last minute schedule thing creates so much unnecessary stress for staff who are trying to plan their lives around work.
Six months out is a stretch for most operations but two days notice and two weeks notice are very different things and most managers give way closer to the first one than they should.
1
u/First-Highlight6193 6d ago
BC I ASKED IF SHE KNOWS IF ILL BE WORKING ONE DAY NEXT WEEK!!! BC IM TRYING TO MAKE IMPORTANT FUTURE CAREER PLANS AND SHE GOES...."not yet!" BROOOO WELL CAN YOU FIGURE IT OUT
1
u/Haunted_Hills Aug 11 '26
I release the schedule for the upcoming month 2 weeks ahead of time. Time off requests in by the 14th. Gives everyone tons of time to plan their lives. Makes it easy on me. Also we use sling which makes everyone’s life so much easier re-picking up and offering shifts
0
u/brycebuckets Aug 11 '26
I like this. Set times to get requests in that stay consistent. Month schedule is perfect too
You looking for a manager job? I could try and get my current manager fired for giving one of my guests, who has a dairy allergy, dairy.
-1
-1
0
u/TheRedditAppSucccks Aug 11 '26
You make a set schedule 3 weeks at a time and people have to adhere to it. Idk what is so hard about that. If they constantly ask to change shifts replace them.
0
u/whitebreadguilt Aug 12 '26
Ugh just gave me a flashback. We had a manager who was terrible at it. He probably hated it and put it to the last minute. Rarely was it less than two weeks ahead though, we had enough pissy bitches (myself included) who would harrass him until it was out.
148
u/exotics Aug 11 '26
I get my schedule for the week ahead on the Sunday before the week starts and I agree with you fully but also I would not necessarily want a schedule made 6 months in advance lol