By J.C. Stoner
I recently found myself responsible for scheduling student staff shifts for our central office front desk. It had been a while since I had personally tackled something like this, and just thinking about class schedules, availability, and personal preferences gave me a headache. I’m sure there are platforms these days that automate this process, but if they exist, I don’t know them. So I went old school and returned to a method from my RA on-call selection days: the scheduling snake.
The concept is simple. Put everyone in an order: seniority, random draw, alphabetical, whatever. Starting at the top of the list and working the way down, each person selects an available shift. Once you reach the bottom, the order reverses, and the last person picks twice before the selection continues back up the list. Rinse and repeat until all shifts are filled.
Unsurprisingly, the tried-and-true process worked. We ended up scheduling 100 shifts in less than 45 minutes. Everyone had direct ownership of their schedule. The staff engaged in negotiating, compromising, and problem-solving when we got to the end. And perhaps most importantly, nobody cried.
Over the years, I’ve put a lot of thought into the game theory of the scheduling snake. Most people instinctively want to be at the top of the list. Going first guarantees you the single best available shift or on-call assignment. But personally, if given the choice, I would rather be at the bottom.
When I think about my preferences across all available shifts, they usually resemble a bell curve of some sort. There are a handful of highly desirable shifts, a handful of absolute hard passes, and then the meaty middle category of shifts that are just fine.
By picking near the bottom, I still have a strong chance of landing at least one shift from that “highly desirable” category (or close to it), but I also gain the advantage of consecutive selections when the order reverses. If I pick first, I secure my top choice immediately, but then I wait while everyone else picks twice before my next turn. That second selection likely falls much lower in my preference rankings. Meanwhile, the person at the bottom sacrifices the absolute top pick but gains substantially more control over the overall shape of their schedule with rapid selections.
That back-to-back selection also creates strategic flexibility. It allows someone to stack desk shifts, frontload on-calls, or build more intentional spacing throughout the semester.
As an overly simplified example, say you have eight Hall Directors picking on-call for a 16-week semester. The math tells us that each person will get two on-call shifts. Say the distribution curve consists of three “ideal” weeks, three “terrible” weeks, and ten “just fine” weeks. If I were first to pick, I’d also be the last to pick. I would get the best week and the worst week (moveout weekend?). But if I’m last, I get two weeks guaranteed to be “just fine”.
Of course, everyone’s preferences are different and the snake frequently wraps multiple times. But on the most basic level, there is something to be said about sacrificing the number one pick for more overall control of a reasonable and “just fine” schedule.
J.C. Stoner, Ph.D.
Director of Housing Systems and Services at University of North Texas
