How the System Works
Glossary
The terms this site uses in a specific way that context will not give you.
This page is a placeholder. Its structure is fixed; the writing lands in a later phase.
These sixteen terms carry a precise meaning you cannot guess from the sentence around them. Every other term on this site is defined where it is used.
Where work happens
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| House | One of Penn’s 13 college houses. You are hired into one. See Core concepts. |
| Desk | The post a house staffs. Yours differs from your house while you are floated. |
| Block | 30 minutes, on the hour or the half hour. Nothing moves in less. |
| Recurring slot | A house, weekday, and time band you own every week of the period. |
Giving up and trading shifts
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Drop | Giving up one occurrence. It goes to the open feed, and you claim it back like anyone else. See Dropping a shift. |
| Permanent drop | Giving up every remaining occurrence of a recurring slot. Never breaks, which have no recurrence. See Dropping every week. |
| Swap | Two workers exchanging spans. Nothing moves until the other accepts. See How a swap resolves. |
| Handoff | A one-way give or take-over. Hours move one way, and no cap is checked. |
When a desk is short
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Coverage floor | One worker present. Coverage is chased only for a desk that would otherwise be empty. See How a shift gets covered. |
| Coverage lock | Two hours out, an empty desk’s seats stop being claimable. The lock never lifts. |
| Allied | Paid outside cover. A manager places the call, because the system cannot buy it. |
| Float | Part of your shift moves to another desk, then you return. It relocates hours, never adds them. See Floating. |
| Source house | The house lending the floater. Lending never leaves it below one worker. |
| Destination house | The house receiving them. Harnwell lends but never receives, because its desk needs its own training. |
Hours
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Soft cap | A weekly hours ceiling that warns you and lets you proceed. See Hours and caps. |
| Hard cap | A weekly hours ceiling that refuses. Nobody overrides it. |