TLDR: former company is 2 months late on final severance payment. I live in California
Hi! This is my first time posting on Reddit. It’s long so I really appreciate you taking the time to read.
First, important to note that I have lived in Santa Monica, CA since 2019. The company was based in California since inception 2015/2016, but moved to Texas in 2021, and still has a CA mailbox.
I was laid off from my job of 5 years in June. The company hadn’t been doing well financially, and eliminated my position (amongst others). A few people quit around this time, and I know one that stayed got a salary decrease.
On a call with the CEO and Director of Finance, they verbally agreed to a 2 month severance: one month to be paid in full by June 30 and one month to be paid in full by July 31.
I told them to send something to e-sign, but they didn’t. So, I put this in writing myself via email and had them both reply to agree to the arrangement.
(I have been laid off before, and my previous severance agreements basically said by signing and accepting the payment, I would not sue or file anything with the government.)
They didn’t offer anyone else severance, and asked that I didn’t tell others about it. I complied, and when one employee thought I was laid off after 5 years without one, he was so put off that he immediately got a job with a competitor. (Now I feel bad that I lied about it.. then again, they’re the ones that wanted me to paint this picture)
As of today (9/29), they still owe me ~1/3 of the 2-month total because they have only sent partial payments. I received those on July 2, July 23 and August 1.
There are 30+ emails in our chain going back and forth about it. A cycle of “we can’t pay”, me getting frustrated, them citing their financial stress, me following up about payment, them throwing out random timelines they didn’t observe, me following up, them thanking me for my patience.
Recently, I kindly reminded them that I really did love my job, miss everyone, learned a lot, etc. but I am struggling to move forward with this unfinished business lingering and I’ve really been negatively impacted by the delays. They were nice in their response and said they were waiting for something to come in by 9/9 so they could “try” to pay me.
When I followed up, they said it didn’t come in yet but they “hoped” to resolve this soon. My friends still at the company told me they missed 9/15 payroll and promised checks by 9/19, but paid them 9/16. One confidentially showed me the last minute message from the CEO explaining the situation, saying an investor deposit and a bank loan were both delayed and they didn’t know or they would have given a heads up. (This is the first time they accepted investor money in the history of the company, it had been self-funded up to this point and I know they’ve put at least $12m of their own capital in)
I have tried to be patient, but they have put me in an incredibly tough position as an individual because I trusted those payments would be made on those dates and i was left scrambling multiple times when they told me with minimal notice that I wouldn’t get paid.
The facts:
– I have lived in Santa Monica, California since 2019
– the company was based in California but moved to Texas in 2021. They still have a California mailbox
– it’s a tech company owned by a family and structured as an LLC. The CEO and Director of Finance are siblings around my age (mid-30s)
-as mentioned, I didn’t sign anything and this is only in writing via email
-I was successfully paid out for my last days of work and unused sick leave through our PEO. They wanted to process the severance payment outside of them.
-I’ve been collecting unemployment
-There were no layoffs or pay cuts when the pandemic hit, this all started in 2022
– June 6 was my last day
Another fun caveat: the company had us all as 1099 contractors until summer 2020. They had promised to switch us to employees with benefits many times over the years, but I heard they couldn’t get a PPP loan with “0 employees” so they finally decided to do this at that time. Yes, we had scheduled meetings at specific times and everyone chose to oblige with this practice for our own various reasons.
I feel like they’re exploiting my loyalty and the positive relationships I spent half a decade building. I’ve avoided taking further action because i wanted it to be easy and amicable, but it’s been excruciating for me and I need the money (especially in case they end up going bankrupt).
I just wanted them to settle what we agreed to when promised.. but realize I can do more here and am open to taking action at this point.
Thank you for reading, and thank you in advance for any advice