Subject to Change Without Notice: Mock Schedules and Flexible Employment in the United States Brian W. Halpin University of California, Davis ABSTRACT This article draws on a case study of a high-end food-service firm, where most workers are undocumented Mexican immigrants. This firm has institutionalized employment rela- tions characterized by flexibility, precariousness, and contingency. I specify its unique mar- ket context, showing how vulnerable and precarious employees are essential to the firm’s ability to control business uncertainties. Pulling from Alvin Gouldner (1954) I develop the concept of the mock calendar as a micro-level strategy of management that obscures the conditions of precarious employment at this firm. The mock calendar communicates time and scheduling. It is “mock” because it is illusory: it changes and shifts according to man- agers’ daily manipulations. However, given the high-end and uncertain market niche this company operates in, managers are forced to provide workers with symbolic and meager material concessions. I conclude by suggesting that scheduling manipulation is an under- theorized arena of workplace control. Given recent literature that documents the wide- spread problems of wage theft, overtime violations, and lack of paid breaks for many service workers, understanding the micro processes that maintain and reproduce forms of twenty- first-century precarity is extremely relevant. KEYWORDS : precariousness; flexibility; undocumented workers; control; contingent work. It’s 7:00 a.m. Cesar, Renee, Pablo, and I stumble in through the backdoor of the kitchen punching the time clock as we cross the threshold. Our day starts off with its usual rapid speed: as the first shift of kitchen prep workers, we are responsible for enabling the restaurant to open on time at 11 a.m. Around 9:15, Michael, the kitchen manager, arrives. As Michael glances at the mess of time cards on the wall, he takes stock of our progress. I see him reach over and grab Pablo’s timecard—he clocks him out. Busy grilling chicken for the upcoming lunch rush, Pablo doesn’t notice. Fifteen minutes later, after Pablo has finished the grillwork, I see he and Michael talking in the corner of the kitchen—the conversation looks heated. A few minutes later Pablo is taking off his chef coat, packing up his knives, and heading for the door. When I inquire about what happened Pablo tells me, “I guess he took me off the schedule last night, that mother fucker should have called me.” When I glance at The author would like to thank Vicki Smith, Fred Block, Luis Guarnizo, Kim Voss, and Libby Halpin for their criticisms and sugges- tions. Additionally, the author thanks the reviewers at Social Problems for excellent feedback that strengthen the argument in this arti- cle. The author also thanks the workers at California Catering for sharing their working lives. Direct correspondence to: Brian W. Halpin, Department of Sociology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616. E-mail: bwhalpin@ucdavis.edu. V C The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com  419 Social Problems, 2015, 62, 419–438 doi: 10.1093/socpro/spv008 Article by guest on February 15, 2016 http://socpro.oxfordjournals.org/ Downloaded from