Back in college (2010), a friend started working at a bustling coffee shop, and pretty soon our friend circle included her "coffee crew" of friends from the shop. Every Monday, a paper with shifts for the next two weeks were posted and someone would take a photo so they could "fix it" without management involved.

The owner could never keep track of who had classes or specific commitments, so they would get together (originally in person) to independently swap shifts and make sure the people who needed more hours could get it. A few hours of communication, the schedule would be completely revised.

This was the peak of app-dreaming, and I always figured it was a matter of time before a ubiquitous shift scheduler took over the industry. The crucial piece would be giving workers a level of autonomy that would be challenging for management to accept. As far as I can tell, no app ever took off, but this flexible work option sounds like an evolution of that idea for a much larger operation.