This happened last year but I just need to get this off my chest.
I used to work as a chef for a very popular bar in Barcelona, I was on €1400 per month and was paid half of my salary as a bank deposit and half in cash each month. This is very standard practice amongst the hospitality industry in the city, particularly at the smaller independent places, and yes it is as dodgy as it sounds. Employers will tell you that it's a win win situation, they pay less tax and in turn you get a higher salary, but let's face it, we know who's winning.
So, after 6 months of working there, I go to collect the cash part of my salary at the start of the month, a task that was often harder than it needed to be as the accountant who was in charge of paying everyone would never tell us when we could collect and I felt as I was always chasing him up much to his annoyance, and this particular month my pay was €100 less than usual. I didn't think anything at first as I assumed I would get it as part of the bank deposit instead, a couple days pass, the transaction clears and I realise that I only received €1300 total.
My first thought was this must just be a simple error and I contact the accountant yet he is adamant my salary is only €1300 and always has been, perhaps it was his confidence on the matter or my lack of desire to be confrontational but I accepted what he said and I went away to think about it more and properly confirm how much I should be being paid. The tricky part is that the contract I signed only showed the bank deposit amount and didn't include the cash, so at this point it was just my word against his.
This continued the following two months, three in total, before I eventually quit and in this time I was convinced I was right and repeatedly spoke to people above me about it, my head chef, the business owner and the man who ran the business with him who all agreed with me that my salary was €1400, despite this the accountant continued to rebuff my attempts to get what I was properly owed, leading me to believe that maybe it was a mistake in the first place. Each month he would pay me €1300 and I would keep complaining whilst he got more and more frustrated until finally I had enough and quit. Even when I collected my final paycheck he tried to deny me the money owed however luckily one of the bosses was around and I told him, once again, that I was owed this money and was finally paid what I was owed.
This was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life and never experienced anything like it with any other job. The accountant genuinely had me believing him and I felt like I was crazy, especially with the bosses telling me they would sort it out yet nothing was happening. The most frustrating part is I know if the shoe was on the other foot and I was being over paid €100 the reaction would be very different.
The silver lining is it was the straw that broke the camel's back and I am finally done with hospitality and moving in to a new career as we speak. The industry is beyond fucked and this final place I worked is a shining example, the group I worked for own 3 bars, two opened recently and their business is booming, they even have their original bar very high up on the list of top 50 bars in the world, yet they have so many issues surrounding paying staff, whether its not paying on time, or not being able to pay everyone on the same day, hiring people who don't have the correct papers, or just plain ol' gaslighting people in to believing they're on a lower salary.