This week, I whine about not getting paid.
That's pretty much it.
Update: Changed title due to my losing count.
Two Fridays ago, I got my next-to-last paycheck from my former employer. The way the pay structure was set up, I received a salary twice a month, and a bonus for each month on the first paycheck of the second month after. So in March, I got a small payout for the month of January.
How screwed up is that, that they held back a chunk of my pay for six weeks? Wait. It gets worse.
Like a good little peon I informed Unemployment of this payment, as Seperation Pay:Bonus. One of two things should happen next, either my next unemployment payment is reduced by half of the amount I got paid, or (more likely) there's no effect at all. For those of you not on unemployment, the way it works is your benefits get reduced for any week you earn money, even if it hasn't been paid. So if I had worked 20 hours the first week of March, and not been paid until today, my benefits would have been reduced for that week, not the week I got paid. Since I already was disqualified for unemployment in January (due to the oh-so-fucking-generous way they paid a whole 2 weeks salary when they drop-kicked me out the door) I figured that it was no big deal.
And it isn't. It's essentially free money.
Except.
Just because of the way the system works, I'm screwed.
When I reported this income, the automatic machinery kicked in. I had one week to file my claim. Once that's done, and the issue came up, my former employer has another week to respond. To challenge.
They aren't going to challenge. No reason to. No reason for them to respond at all -- this friday, if they don't respond, the wheels grind and out pops a check.
Of course, when I filed for unemployment this week, there's a hold on my account. No claims to be processed until the issue is cleared up.
So for that little check, I get to go 2 weeks without any income whatsoever.
I have some other resources I can bring into play, so I'm not in a panic. But the whole thing pisses me off, that even though I no longer work for this operation, they can still fuck with my head. I mentioned that I got my penultimate check. There's one more on the way. It's a bonus for 2008. No, I was not in banking! But I was expecting it to be paid out last week, and now it won't be paid out until next week.
They could have told me. They could have said, when they shitcanned me, that my final bonus would be paid the last week in March. They just said "in March". What possible reason could thay have for playing it so close to the vest? What motive is served by keeping the date of the payout a mystery?
It's a power game. The business model is to keep employees in the dark, to whip them with fear, to threaten them with disciplinary action, to act like what you have earned is actually a gift they are giving you. In today's economy, the employers have even more power than they used to, and can freely treat their workers like dirt because they figure no one is going to quit.
As far as treating former employees with any respect? Where's the profit in that?
I don't know if my former employer is deliberately screwing me by not responding to the issue, or if it's just the system. Maybe if I called them and said, hey, respond to the issue so I can get paid, they would.
But I doubt it. I'd be dealing with the payroll clerk, who denied my sick pay and docked my wages when I took time off to visit my dying father, even though my old boss, who sits on the Board of Directors, had approved it before I left. The payroll clerk who forced another employee to use vacation time when they were working from home, even though that had ben pre-approved by their boss, who is not only on the Board but was second only to the President/CEO in terms of clout. The payroll clerk, who as far as I can tell is an officious little bureaucrat who outranks everybody. In what rational universe does the payroll clerk have so much power?
Last week I was bitter, anxious, and depressed. I built that shelf I have been talking about. It was utter crap, primarily due to my choice of materials. Next piece of furniture I'll get better wood to start with -- you cannot use mortise and tenon and peg and glue construction with warped lumber, even if it is only 51 cents a board. In the end I had to use nails. Sigh.
I feel better this week, even though I'm a bit screwed, because I have to be amused by it. When you are being slapped in the face with a fish, after a while you start being glad that it isn't a porcupine.