Seattle City Council - Step Up On Secure Scheduling.

Dear Seattle City Council Members, 

Please adopt rules or regulations, or whatever they're called, for secure scheduling. 

30 years ago in 1986 I was cooking at the Boston Four Seasons Hotel, and I worked weird, non standard non 9 - 5 hours, BUT, they were predictably weird. My coworkers also worked predictable weird hours. They could watch the kids before work or after work, take care of batty Aunty Betty or doddering Grandpa Don, or get a part time job, or take classes. After the Four Seasons, I cooked at the Boston Sheraton for a year and had predictable weird schedules. I then cooked at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston from '88 to '89, and it was the first time I had some weekends off in 9 years. With a predictable weird schedule, a secure schedule, employers were not interfering with MY free time. 

Today's schedules have your days off changing, every week. They have the time you go to work changing within the week. Some days you start at 5:00 a.m. and some days at 3:00 p.m., and those days change from week to week. Time is Money. Unpredictable schedules = stealing MY free time, and stealing my time is theft of opportunity.

Want to sleep poorly, eat irregularly & too much, not have any established exercise patterns, gain weight, gain chronic weight related ailments, ..., sleep poorly? Try a modern screw-the-employee schedule. Want to have little or no time for friends and family or participating in the community because your schedule is constantly changing? Try a modern screw-the-employee schedule. 

Would Boeing allow Microsoft to dump the cost of Microsoft's employees onto Boeing's payroll? Does the hospital industry want to pay the property leases and rents and mortgages of the restaurant industry?  Why are companies allowed to wreck the health of community members, and dump the cost of the resultant health and social problems onto the families of the community, and consequently onto the community?

Before the Four Seasons, I had worked at smaller food services. I had been grill cook for the summer of 1985 at a hotel on Martha's Vineyard. I had cooked at a very upscale Creole place for 1.5 years before that job, and I had worked at 2 very busy ...family?... kind of places from '81 to '83. I had worked graveyard in a bakery for over a year. At ALL these jobs, I worked non standard, "weird" hours, but they were predictable. When it comes to flexibility, in all those years, stuff comes up, and schedules change, unexpectedly - we're adults, we adjust.

Time is Money. Unpredictable schedules = stealing MY free time, and stealing my time is theft of opportunity. Adopt Secure Scheduling. 

Thank you, 
Bob Murphy
North Seattle, District 5.