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I work for an auto-repair chain in the midwest, and my bosses have repeatedly insisted or suggested on hiring "seasonal associates" to help around the shop. Th

I work for an auto-repair chain in the midwest, and my bosses have repeatedly insisted or suggested on hiring "seasonal associates" to help around the shop. The most cringe-worthy and condescending reference to them came from a general manager who once called them "santas helpers" in a presentation. Everyone puts off auto work until they need to go somewhere over the holidays and either relents to the shop time (and the shop rate) or is towed off the highways after an accident or breakdown during holiday travel. holidays and post-holiday are our most stressful and busy time in the shop. You need to tune out the Michael Bublé in the front office, pay extra close attention to detail, and try to stay sane. What people forget about places like Amazon is they are a shop floor. You might not have tire mounting machines and drill presses, but you have fork trucks and conveyors. You are in an industrial setting, and if you'd like to keep your fingers and toes, you should never rush the work. In my professional opinion there should never be room for a seasonal worker in a shipping warehouse. You either have enough capacity to perform safely or you do not.

freehunter 8y ago
>You either have enough capacity to perform safely or you do not. Honest question, in this situation if you need 1000 workers during the holiday season but only 200 during the rest of the year, what do you do with those 800 extra workers for 11 months? Retail is inherently seasonal, that's why Black Friday exists and why during Christmas my packages are delivered from a U-Haul truck instead of a UPS truck. So if you're not using seasonal workers, do you over-book your warehouse for 11 months, or under-book your warehouse during your most profitable season?
- haskellandchill 8y ago
  We could get rid of the holiday season.
  - shubb 8y ago
    If they had to, I'm sure retailers would use pricing to force a flatter purchasing pattern. If prices doubled by November, you'd shop in August right? As well as holidays there are sales. Do sales increase total yearly spend for the industry as a whole? Otherise, couldn't retailers just agree to stop doing them?
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Honest answer: You reallocate non-fulfillment staff to fulfillment during crunch periods. > In Final Holiday Push, UPS Grabs Its Accountants to Deliver Packages > Parcel giant works to clear problems caused by surge of e-commerce orders coupled with tight market for seasonal workers https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-final-holiday-push-ups-grabs-its-accountants-to-deliver-packages-1514040922 https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-final-holiday-push-ups-grabs... Not much choice in the matter when unemployment is at historic lows. If you can avoid the AMZN fulfillment sweatshop as a seasonal contract worker, you're going to.
  - leetcrew 8y ago
    unless "seasonal" is understood to imply extremely little skill/experience, why would you expect repurposing accountants to be a better solution than hiring seasonal fulfillment people? if you hire them a couple weeks before you need them, you should be able to train them to be at least as useful as an accountant in the warehouse.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    Then who is doing the accounting work? If accountants are so expendable (especially if they're expendable at the peak of tax season), why do we have extra accountants floating around?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - notahacker 8y ago
    That's an emergency solution to not having any available seasonal workers, not a better way of running your logistics than hiring extra people that actually want money for working in your warehouse over the holiday season (who probably have more relevant industrial work experience than your accountants anyway)
temp-dude-87844 8y ago
Car mechanics also experience a surge in volume during longer holidays because even at normal volumes, customers frequently have to leave the car there for a day or several. Being out a car is disruptive on a workday, so losing the car for a longer time on days they weren't scheduled to work anyway may be a worthwhile trade-off. These systems are interdependent. Because there many are people who worry about how they'll get to work, the demand for these services during extended holidays goes up, which the industry is happy to accommodate by hiring temporary labor into a setting that's hardly fit for it.

freehunter 8y ago

>You either have enough capacity to perform safely or you do not. Honest question, in this situation if you need 1000 workers during the holiday season but only 200 during the rest of the year, what do you do with those 800 extra workers for 11 months? Retail is inherently seasonal, that's why Black Friday exists and why during Christmas my packages are delivered from a U-Haul truck instead of a UPS truck. So if you're not using seasonal workers, do you over-book your warehouse for 11 months, or under-book your warehouse during your most profitable season?

haskellandchill 8y ago
We could get rid of the holiday season.
- shubb 8y ago
  If they had to, I'm sure retailers would use pricing to force a flatter purchasing pattern. If prices doubled by November, you'd shop in August right? As well as holidays there are sales. Do sales increase total yearly spend for the industry as a whole? Otherise, couldn't retailers just agree to stop doing them?
toomuchtodo 8y ago
Honest answer: You reallocate non-fulfillment staff to fulfillment during crunch periods. > In Final Holiday Push, UPS Grabs Its Accountants to Deliver Packages > Parcel giant works to clear problems caused by surge of e-commerce orders coupled with tight market for seasonal workers https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-final-holiday-push-ups-grabs-its-accountants-to-deliver-packages-1514040922 https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-final-holiday-push-ups-grabs... Not much choice in the matter when unemployment is at historic lows. If you can avoid the AMZN fulfillment sweatshop as a seasonal contract worker, you're going to.
- leetcrew 8y ago
  unless "seasonal" is understood to imply extremely little skill/experience, why would you expect repurposing accountants to be a better solution than hiring seasonal fulfillment people? if you hire them a couple weeks before you need them, you should be able to train them to be at least as useful as an accountant in the warehouse.
- freehunter 8y ago
  Then who is doing the accounting work? If accountants are so expendable (especially if they're expendable at the peak of tax season), why do we have extra accountants floating around?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- notahacker 8y ago
  That's an emergency solution to not having any available seasonal workers, not a better way of running your logistics than hiring extra people that actually want money for working in your warehouse over the holiday season (who probably have more relevant industrial work experience than your accountants anyway)

temp-dude-87844 8y ago

Car mechanics also experience a surge in volume during longer holidays because even at normal volumes, customers frequently have to leave the car there for a day or several. Being out a car is disruptive on a workday, so losing the car for a longer time on days they weren't scheduled to work anyway may be a worthwhile trade-off. These systems are interdependent. Because there many are people who worry about how they'll get to work, the demand for these services during extended holidays goes up, which the industry is happy to accommodate by hiring temporary labor into a setting that's hardly fit for it.