I figured this would be the best place to get advice on this sort of thing. This happened to me less than an hour ago so I'm still passionately angry. I'll make edits as needed to clarify anything that doesn't make sense.
I currently am employed at a small grocery store in Rhode Island. I do not like my boss nor did I like him from the start. He carries a lot of condescending, superiority complex energy. He's the kind of guy who turns his back to you when you're in the middle of speaking to him (my strict immigrant parents would shit a brick if I ever did that to them) and he can't answer any question you ever ask of him without coming at you with a patronizing, snobby ass tone. This is sort of just to set the tone and also identify where the store is so you guys can hopefully point me in the right direction of where to go from here.
In any case, last Friday when I went to pick up my check, my check was all fucked up. The only thing the check got right was the spelling of my first and last name. My house number was wrong, the town I live in was wrong, and most importantly, my hourly rate was incorrect. The payroll company fucked up and gave me an hourly rate of 14 CENTS an hour for a whopping check of around two dollars and forty three cents if I recall correctly. My boss only called the payroll company once and quickly gave up…they didn't answer and he didn't try to get back in touch with them (I was standing in the office for this). He then called one of the owners and asked me if he could pay me out of the safe. The owner said yes. Here is the caveat, though. Since he didn't get in touch with the payroll company, he only estimated my pay. He estimated it to be somewhere around $225. With this being said, he didn't want to overpay me, so he only paid me $200 out of the safe. He wrote up some document basically outlining that the payroll company fucked up, that he's paying me $200 out of the safe, and that when the correct check comes in next week (today), they're going to cash the check at the store and give me the difference. So essentially the correct check ended up being $240 minus $200 (money from the safe they gave me.)
I'll admit this right off the cut, I fucked up by a.) signing the document, b.) not asking for a copy of the document, c.) not getting a copy of the paystub from the incorrect check and d.) accepting this as a solution. But damn, man, I needed the money so I didn't say shit.
Fast forward to today: I told a couple coworkers about the error in passing. Essentially, I was commenting on how humorous the error was. I mean for fuck's sake…14 cents?! It's so absurd that it's comical. Well, toward the end of my shift, I went in the office to take care of the check issue and get the difference that was owed to me. I wanna add this too- I thought my manager was being weirdly nice to me today. Cuz he's always a prick to me. So I was thinking “Okay, cool. Maybe this guy is finally done hating me for no reason and we can move on.” Nope, not a chance. Him being a decent human being toward me today was all disingenuous. He asked one of the other workers to leave the office while he spoke to me. However, he had one of the other managers in the office with us for some reason, which I felt was kind of odd. The other manager was smirking at me the entire time. Here's how the conversation went:
Prick Manager: Don't discuss your wages with other employees
H0llywoodsbleeding: *makes a wicked confused face* I haven't. I don't know what you're talking about.
Prick Manager: Yes, you have. I've heard you do that twice today already.
H0llywoodsbleeding: Are you talking about the paycheck issue? I was only referencing how funny the error was…I never mentioned how much I make.
Prick Manager: Well, now I have two very pissed off cashiers because of you. They think 14 cents was supposed to be 14 dollars! They think you make 14 dollars an hour.
Me: Well, I don't and I never said I did. I think that's an odd jump to make. I was just commenting at how funny the error was.
Prick Manger: Well, it isn't funny to me.
At the time of our exchange, I think my IQ went out the window because I was so fucking pissed. I didn't even think to tell this guy that it's actually illegal to tell me that I can't discuss my wage with other employees. Please help me out, Reddit. What should my next move be? I wanna add this as well- The schedule for this coming week is not out yet. I am intentionally staying quiet and haven't confronted my manager yet because I wanna see if he cuts my hours in retaliation. I also have no problem asking him for my paystub for the fucked up check and for a copy of the document I signed. I want to see if I have any leverage regarding the taxes I paid on the check that was inaccurate….because even though it's a very small amount of money, I think legally that's money they may have to pay me back for. So please, help a gal out and point me in the right direction.
TL;DR- My shitty grocery store job shorted me significantly on my last check. When telling other employees about the error, my boss reprimanded me about discussing wages.