I work(ed) in a souvenir shop as an “intern” and i was fired today because i asked if i was going to be paid what was promised to me. so just for context when i interviewed for this position i was told they were going to pay me 16/hour. it wasn’t until i was told by another intern that i was actually getting paid 15/hr that the situation was addressed. this is weeks after the interview and it was on the first couple of days working that i found that out. so not only did they lie to me they also didn’t bring it up with me, i was the one that had to bring it up. we talked and they said that they would pay me 15/hr while i train on running one of the stores by myself. this was approximately 3-4 weeks ago. two weeks ago they said they think i don’t have what it takes to run the store by myself because i don’t talk to customers enough and that i need to be helping more. because of this i will technically still be in training. i’ve started to run and close the store by myself about a week ago and i thought i was finally going to be paid what i was told i was going to be paid today.
on top of all of this myself and two other interns have to be running their social media pages and scheduling posts while being a retail worker. i do have to disclose that i have not been running the social media part of the job because i have some mental health issues that have reduced my motivation to near nonexistent especially since i have to come into work nearly 6 days a week sometimes. i was completely under the impression this was going to be just a pr/marketing internship with some store hours, and not being a retail worker part time and interning part time.
Earlier today i was talked to by both of my bosses after closing and i was basically told that they weren’t happy with my performance and they gave some good reasons and some not good. and after all of that i “said what about my pay?” and they said something along the lines of “if you’re gonna be a stickler about the money then i guess we’ll just have to part ways.”
oh and in the handbook for employees it says “Your rate of pay, bonuses, and other financial information is strictly confidential and any
discussion of these matters with anyone other than boss #1 or boss #2 is grounds for
dismissal.”
i do have to say i was not the best employee i could have done more and i didn’t which i was very apologetic about and i told them i was going to do better about. it wasn’t until i asked if they would pay me the wage i was promised that they defied to fire me.
am i in the wrong?