Alright, I have heard from several people that this situation is kind of screwed up and I have every right to be mad, and hell, even after I read everything I was typing to people I was like, “What the hell?”, but I need some more input.
Over the summer, my parents paid me to help them renovate a house from absolute scratch. Carpet was scraped (carpet was in the ENTIRE HOUSE), popcorn ceiling was scraped (ENTIRE HOUSE) and replaced with textured ceiling, primed and painted. Wallpaper was scraped. Tile is being laid; you get the idea.
Their pay was incredibly inconsistent. 1K at the end of the month, which, when divided by the hour, was less than minimum wage. Less than people would get by going to a store and stocking shelves (No disrespect, of course, it's simply for example). Motivation isn't exactly great with this information, and to top it all off, they say they do not have the funds to pay me on time every time. Granted their track record of not paying me so far ($100 owed to me for helping with cleaning a house top to bottom in 2 days), I can't even be sure they'll pay me at ALL.
They then dropped me after two months, with the first month the only month where I actually got paid. They say this is due to me working too slow, which I will personally admit, but I wasn't a fan of busting my ass for a “Maybe you will get paid”, or a “We don't have the funds to pay you right now”. They have yet to pay me for the second month. Even if I wasn't too speedy, the work I did do isn't worth absolutely NOTHING.
They had me convinced that it was just me being lazy. If I had said any of this to them, I'd get something along the lines of, “Be grateful”, or “If you want to get paid so bad, go get a job somewhere else”. This is kind of bullshit because;
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I am basically their 24/7 fucking babysitter, along with my aunt, for THEIR kids. I don't receive a dime for this, by the way. I don't know about my aunt though. This is especially infuriating because THEY PAID A BABYSITTER IN ADVANCE, a babysitter that HASN'T SHOWED UP IN A WEEK despite that fact.
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School. They told me themselves that they would support me financially while I focus on getting good grades. Guess that was a lie.
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I am scared as shit of minimum wage jobs such as retail.
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They also had me help them with ANOTHER house.
Granted we didn't have to do half the shit we had to do in the other house, we had to clean the entire house, then put together all sorts of furniture (including heavy lifting), then furnish the house. Some days I was there completely alone without help. Then once the house was fully turned into an Airbnb, they had me go over there to babysit children while they cleaned, OR HAVE ME CLEAN ON MY OWN. I stayed a single fucking night there doing nothing but laundry while unaware I was doing it slow the entire time. They get mad at me for said slowness even though the house was spotless afterward.
On the drive home from cleaning this house, I got a long fucking talk about how I am being let go due to working slow. I have yet to be paid a single dime from this by the way.
Thoughts? Do I have a right to be angry? Am I just being lazy/ungrateful?
One bit of information I have yet to put is that my parents are taking me and a friend to Vegas. Would this be considered pay?