I always hear about retail/service workers waiting for their schedule, not knowing their schedule until the week before, etc. And from my own experience years ago working in restaurants, it was the same. I've just never understood why. All of these businesses for the most part operate at fixed hours, so how the hell do they not know the schedule? Why wouldn't they just schedule people for the same hours every week, and then have people take time off or swap shifts as needed? Maybe I'm missing something, but it just seems crazy to me and I've never understood why it works this way. Can someone explain why the system is like this?