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Scheduling Funnies

November 03, 2015 06:44AM
Recently I did a shop and the requirements for when to do the shop made me shake my head and wonder what they were doing. It was posted on 10/09 and said the shop had to be performed between 10/09 and 10/18, but it could not be performed on 10/09 through 10/12 and could not be performed during the week. So I looked at a calendar, and discovered the following:
-The "Do Not Shop" Dates (10/09-10/12) was a Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday
-10/12-10/16 were during the week

Thus, leaving only 10/17 & 10/18 as available shop dates!

So WHY did they just not post the shop had to be performed 10/17-10/18 smiling smiley

Was it a test to see if I was paying attention? I must have been as I was awarded the shop.
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More About Schedulers
November 03, 2015 06:13PM
Agree, and many times I wonder if the schedulers are not paying attention or they are system quirks.

There is this particular MSC in Sassie that does a casual wings restaurant, and most of the shops are snatched right away. But this past weekend I was going to travel down to San Diego to visit my kids, and realized they had available a shop in San Diego, and my kids like the place. The dates shown match the weekend, so I go in and try to sign up for it, just to see all the dates blocked. WTH? It said clearly "Shop not earlier than 10/30, no later than 11/2". All those days are blocked. And I know it was not a matter of rotation or any other restrictions since I have good standing with the MSC. I e-mailed the scheduler but never heard back. As of today they had had shifted the dates in the system. Maybe they're reserving those for a specific shopper?
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November 03, 2015 07:27PM
I honestly do think that the schedulers commonly are just busy and miss these things. That's not to say that sometimes the schedulers either aren't paying attention or have not had ample time and opportunity to get the problem resolved, however. I have seen situations like the OP described go on for months without anything being changed.

New dates will sometimes be added if the shop goes unscheduled for too long, leaving shoppers a new opportunity to take it, and/or if the MSC does just schedule x number of shops at that location per week rather than per month. In general, they try to fill the shops with the closer deadlines first. Also, they may block out some dates if other shoppers have contracted for certain days, but they still need a shopper for the others. It's common practice to send multiple shoppers in the same week, at least in some locations.

Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2015 07:38PM by OceanGirl.
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November 03, 2015 07:38PM
I understand when there is only a very small block of dates available, even just one - But the calendar was completely blocked out, no dates available at all.
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November 03, 2015 07:42PM
Did you try logging out of the website, then logging back on a minute or two later? I tried that a couple of times, on a hunch, and it either solved the problem or was a huge coincidence.
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November 03, 2015 07:45PM
Yep, tried again later the same day in case the scheduler had figured there was a mistake.
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