Can I get some advice?
I started what I thought was a fun weekend gig working cashier at a food truck. What I found was a dumpster fire of a “business”, an owner with questionable food safety practices who keeps firing his cooks, no semblance of a schedule, actual pay-roll, or work procedures, and that's not even mentioning the mild insurance fraud. We're constantly late to events because he's still smoking the BBQ the morning of, the electrcity in his trailer is constantly shorting out on site, and once he even set his smoker entirely on fire at a fire department event, no less, because he decided to drive it there while meat was still cooking in it.
And cherry on top is that he's been saying his account is totally drained and paying us on the first would be difficult. Indeed, the first came and went and even yesterday, he still had no answer about when we'd be paid. Meanwhile, he keeps excitedly showing us brand new equipment that he's continuing to purchase. So my other co-worker and I, the only two workers who even really show up anymore, are past ready to walk. My main concern is that on my second day, I was injured with a knife pretty good- had surgery and therapy, and generally the insurance company has been a complete breeze to work with. A couple weeks ago, however, my boss told me he couldn't pay his insurance premium. It hasn't seemed to affect anything yet, but between that and the payroll, I am worried that walking away now will insure I lose coverage for the rest of my recovery and FOR SURE, I'll never see the money I'm owed.
Any advice? For the record, I'm not really planning to show up next week if we don't see the money by Monday. I can't really afford to keep working for free. But is that a decent course of action, or will I just be digging myself a deeper hole?