This was about 5 years ago and I don’t know if this guy fixed the issue like I had told him, or if he let it go back to the way it was after I left…
My husband and I moved to Tennessee to help family. We planned to live there long term and it didn’t work out. Of those 7 months, I worked at a staffing agency for about 3 and a half months. I worked as an accountant. I should have known after my first day that this would end up being a shit show.
Prior to this, I worked at a murder museum and it was so bad. 8+ hours on hard concrete as a “tour guide.” I hated it. I literally cried asking my husband if I could just quit. I finally just stopped going because I couldn’t do it but a week later, I went to interview for an accountant position.
I remember going into the back of the office for my interview and as I was answering the “tell me about yourself,” I had said I was from Pennsylvania and the owner’s ears perked up. He immediately came over and introduced himself and took over. I later found out why, I’ll get back into that later.
So, I got hired as a lead accountant for $8 an hour. I just was happy to not work at that museum or fast food anymore. The guy asked me to try and find out why his turnover is so bad. He also said I was going to help the other accountant. He and I spoke in his office and then he said to take a look around. He pulled the other accountant into the office and within minutes, this guy was storming out (very angrily).
The guy’s office became mine and I was basically told to figure out the piles of papers on the desks and figure out the quick book files, etc. i will say, I was completely honest in my interview about what I knew and what I didn’t know. But once I really got into the thick of it, I realized how bad things were.
I had access to all of the company bank accounts. They were all red. —$160,000 was in one, another was -$75,000 and the last was -$2,500. The biggest client they had was behind a few months of invoices and they would only pay if it was specifically done through excel. Once they hired an amazingly competent woman to do it, they were in the green, but she knew $8 an hour for her talents was bullshit.
As I went through everything, my first day ended and he asked me how it went and what not. I told him that no one cares to stay because he pays them too little. “You have people handling social security numbers, peoples paychecks, drug tests, etc. and you can go to fast food joint for a dollar more.” By the next morning, I was getting $2 more and everyone else was getting $1 more. Come the next day after the weekend, we all get $1 more.
Days go by and my task was to figure out the books before tax day. It was so bad, I didn’t get it done but it was only about a week or two late. His lawyer told him it wouldn’t have been done if it wasn’t for me. Someone went through in June and made a new file and it fucked everything up. It was so bad.
During the time of getting tax papers out to our employees, not only were they late, but some were fucked up. Whenever was entering peoples tax preferences, someone was putting an 8 instead of a 0. We had a lot of non English speaking people and I just felt like they were being taken advantage of so badly.
After I got the tax stuff under control and bills done, the owner wanted to hire someone to help me. He lied… I found out by sitting in my office and him telling the new person, “this is your office, you can change it up however you want. Let’s go in my office and talk. HR person, help Yue4prex take her stuff to the back.”
I was so upset. He ended up telling me I’d go back and forth from the two offices doing IT stuff because I knew how to change speakers and set up emails… and I was 1/3 cheaper than the IT guy he hired. The next day my husband and I moved back up north and we’ve been back since.
Tldr: company owner pays $8 an hour for people to handle tax information, payment information, bank account information and drug tests. Moral of the story? You get what you pay for.