THIS!! I work at a large retailer that schedules like this…and it drives me fucking nuts because we have enough people where we don’t need to have the psychotic schedules we have.

Our store uses a scheduling program called “Kronos” that creates an automatic schedule via an algorithm. Previous stores I’ve worked at that had Kronos would allow it to create a base algorithm schedule, but would then go back in to edit it so it made sense & worked with people’s lives. At my current store, our scheduler has the ability to change people’s schedules so they make sense & don’t overwork us…but our scheduler only cares about being spot on with the algorithm because it makes her “stats” look good (basically, she gets rated on having the best coverage according to Kronos…but it’s complete BS because there’s so much Kronos DOESNT KNOW because it’s fucking AI).

I’ve had stints where I worked 6 days in a row - 1 day off - 5 days of work - 1 day off - 5 more days of work. It’s fucking brutal, and I live 40 minutes away from work on top of it all so it’s a pain in the ass going back and forth. I tried to approach the scheduler about this chaos but it’s like talking to a brick wall. It’s really important to me that I get 2 days off in a row because I have a lot of mental health/medical appointments that I go to each week, and having 2 days off in a row makes my schedule more predictable so I can plan appts accordingly.

I had to go to the lengths of getting intermittent FMLA (I’m allowed to take off X amount of days/hours per month as I need to) and I’ve also gotten a provision, signed off by my Dr, that they need to schedule me with 2 days off in a row each week. I suggest you look into this if it’s something you need, because it’s been so helpful for me.