My girlfriend just started working at a bakery. She's young, with no experience and needs some money to pay for her studies. She chose to take this job because she only works two days a week and that allows her to follow classes and study in the meantime.
That information was clear from the beginning, she's a student and needs to go to class.
The boss seemed super cool with that and said that they could decide every week which two days were most convenient for both, which seemed amazing (and maybe too good to be true), because then my girlfriend thought she could go to work on the days she had no class.
It also meant, technically, that she could have the weekend off if needed. She just had to work two other days out of the week. Of course that would have been a rare occurrence, but we were planning on seeing each other one weekend a month.
Today, her boss told her on which days she had to come in. That already wasn't great, since the “we can decide together on which days you come in” wasn't respected. But also, when my gf said “sorry, Monday is not good for me because I have an exam”, the boss said “oh but Monday is the day I actually needed you most”.
Fucking tell me, then. If you need me on a specific day, or if you need me every single weekend, tell me. Don't make it sound like we can work it out together and you're super chill, and then decide I have to come in whenever you want. When I have all the information before starting a job, I can decide whether to take it or not. It's good for me and for you, cause you don't have to find someone else to cover my shift because I have class. I'm so mad, also because I probably won't get to see her soon.
The problem is that this is the only job she found. No one wants to hire part-time someone with no experience. I've been trying to find a job for a while now (also a student, so need to balance work and study) and it feels impossible. So, either she stays or she's without a job for who knows how long.
Sorry for the rant.
TL;DR: gf who's a student found a job where she could have control over her shifts, but turns out she can't.