But while many workers are indeed drawn to flexible work arrangements, their definition of what constitutes “flexibility” is dramatically different from the one favored by service-sector bosses. For instance, while studies have shown that working mothers define flexibility as “having the ability to work less than full-time hours at decent wages and benefits, while still working a regular schedule,”21 the service sector has a different view of part-time work, and a different agenda. A handful of brand-name chains, including Starbucks and Borders, bolster low wages by offering health and dental benefits to their part-timers. For other employers, however, part-time positions are used as a loophole to keep wages down and to avoid benefits and overtime; “flexibility” becomes a code for “no promises,” making the juggling of other commitments—both financial and parental—more challenging, not less. At some retail outlets I’ve researched, the allotment of hours is so random that the ritual of posting next week’s schedule prompts the staff to gather around anxiously, craning their necks and hopping up and down as if they are checking to see who got the lead in the high-school musical.