Last summer I worked at a popular grocery chain in my region. I worked there about four months before leaving for a retail job that paid me four dollars more. (For college reasons, I need to save every penny). It was my first job in over a year and the first since the pandemic started, and with school returning to in-person I thought it’d be more easier to make shifts, and I had trust in the company to keep track of all of said shifts—so I didn’t track my hours at all, just wrote down the direct deposit I got every two weeks. In hindsight it would’ve been way more easier for me to address this issue had I known how many hours it was off, but nothing to do about it now.
Anyways, about a month ago I received a letter from this previous employer that basically boils down to, “Hi, that W2 form we gave you last summer is incorrect. We’ll send a new one soon.”
Surprise, they never did. As tax day was approaching I started getting nervous. I only just turned 18 so I wanted to “properly adult” by handling the issue myself, so I would stop by after school when I wasn’t working to see the “HR” manager.
For context, as far as I know this associate relations manager is the only one who could help me with getting the proper W2 form, as the other managers are strictly department-overseers and not paperwork people (it’s a weird system, believe me I know). But she’s always out whenever I call or stop by. I’ve tried calling more persistently the last few days (as spending money is too tight for me right now to cover the drive over) but always just manage to miss her, or get told that the employee I spoke to yesterday was wrong about her being scheduled for today. I was told she’ll be in at 9 tomorrow, but given my luck so far I’m reluctant to hold out hope.
Is there anything I can do besides keep trying to contact her? Tax day is a week away and this issue is affecting my ability to be a “good citizen” by submitting my taxes, for lack of a better word. (I don’t particularly care for the negligence from, and predatory habits of, the system in general, but I’d rather not get into legal trouble when I only have months left to finish building up savings for my first semester of college in the fall.)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely frustrated and upset, but I’m hoping to tackle this to the best of my ability and in a mature way.
Thank you in advance for any help! This is my first post on Reddit; I’ve just been lurking as I’m a little shy. But this subreddit seems to have good advice, and if anyone would share my work-related frustrations, it’s y’all! 🙂
(Also, before it’s asked: my father tackles the taxes in our household, but he’s a boot-strapper kind of guy so he’s adamant about me solving my own issues no matter what now that I’m 18, which means asking him for advice would be futile. And I would try to find advice online (besides just the Reddit app), but my parents are strict and “internet-bad” people, so there’s very few sites I have permissions for/access to. It frustrates me endlessly since I’m a legal adult now and they should give me control over my own time, but that’s a complaint for another day.)
Edit: paragraph spacing attempt