I get paid every two weeks and generally during a pay week I get an email saying “your pay stub can be viewed at this link.” Well, Thursday night I was going to bed and realized I never got the email. I texted my boss asking if he ran payroll. I got “I did not. Sorry.” I went to bed with a pain in my stomach but hoped it would work out.
No deposit the next morning.
I don’t see my boss until almost 2pm and he talks about his week. I am the one to bring up the elephant in the room. “Any idea when you think I might get paid?” His response is “I don’t know.”
At this point he asks “this really puts you in a bind, doesn’t it?” Yes. “[Your spouse] really hates me, don’t they?” You’re not their favorite right now.
Saturday and Sunday go by with no contact.
Monday comes around and he doesn’t say anything and it occurs to me “wait, do I even have any rights in this state,” and I look up my states Dept of Labor and I do. Yay! But again it’s mid afternoon when I ask “so… any idea when I might get paid?” Again his response is “I don’t know.” But he says “let me run billing!” I check up after him and realize he’s processed 6 invoices and if only two of them pay, that covers payroll.
I feel optimisticr.
I come in the next morning and take my time settling in. I check billing and realize that not only have none been paid… they weren’t even sent out.*
I ask “You didn’t send out those invoices. Are you even trying to pay me?” He turns to me, offended, and says “I am!” Again I ask when and again he answers “I don’t know.”
I relay this to my spouse and they’re raging at this point. “Tell him if you don’t have a check by Friday, he’ll be hearing from a lawyer about wage theft and we’ll contact the Dept of Labor.” Not one to question my spouse when they’re like this, I tell him.
He just gives me a “noted,” and turns to his computer. A few minutes go by and he leaves. 20 minutes later, he comes back, hand writes me a check, hands it to me and says “take the rest of the day off and come tomorrow morning consider that your termination.”
We have a heated discussion for about 20 or 30 minutes after that. He is full on angry, and I am quasi-defensive. For me, I don’t regret anything I said as nothing was mean or malicious.
He took one crime of Wage Theft and elevated it to Retaliatory Termination. You can’t fire someone for expressing their rights.
I did tell him that all of this could have been avoided if would have just talked to me. I gave him 4 chances to discuss the situation. If at any point he would have said “Finances are bad. I can’t pay you but I should be able to pay you twice at the next pay period,” all of this could have been avoided. It would have been a terrible compromise, but at least it was a compromise.
I hate that he cited how he thought our relationship was strong enough that I’d give him leeway. And I would have…. Had he valued our friendship enough to talk to me.
More than half of all of the friends and family I’ve talked to about this have said that I should sue him, but I don’t think it’s worth it, and I still value him enough to not do that to him. However, if he fights the unemployment claim, or if I find out, he is slandering me in my job search then I won’t hesitate.
*he comments later that “I send out bills at the end of the month, which, at that point, he wouldn’t be sending them out for another 4 days and I wouldn’t be getting paid until the next week at the earliest.
EDIT: AND ANOTHER THING! He had the audacity to ask “oh, do you wanna talk about your performance,” with a smug look on his face. I responded with “if there are some things you would like to say to me than I absolutely want to hear them.” he hesitated with a shit eating grin, and said “you know what never mind.”
The only documentation I have in my employment is an on boarding letter and the opening line of my job description is “be on time and make sure I [my boss] am out of bed and working.” So please… do tell me how I wasn’t living up to your expectations?
The letter would go on to talk about billable hours per week, but it very clearly stated that I would not be penalized for not producing. He didn’t exactly have a foot to stand on.