I fucked up. Bad. I took a job immediately after losing my last one. I worked 6 hours for one day the first pay period. My second week I worked 7 days for a total of 61 hours. I got the job through a friend I had worked with a few months ago. He literally called me as I was filing for unemployment. I thought fortune had smiled on me! Having just lost my job a few days before, here is a friend calling, and saying "Can you work as a waiter? If so I have a job for you."
I did not file for unemployment. Instead, I took the job. That was how I was raised.
The place is a pizzeria/restaurant in Queens, NYC. The first day I do not wait tables, instead I work the counter, and my friend who hired me gets shitfaced drunk on a bottle of blackberry brandy in the office. I leave for the day, and the next day my friend text messages me with the words "I got fired" in them, and I know things are going downhill from there.
Now, my friend who hired me before inadvertently firing himself told me I'd get $8 an hour for working the counter. The next week I worked 61 hours and some odd minutes. As I talk to the other employees I hear stories of people not getting their checks on time, ever, employees who have waited 3 or 4 weeks for their paychecks, and all the time I'm thinking, 'How do I keep managing to find these crappy fucking jobs?'
So my first payday comes. Where I come from, when you ask what day is payday, you tend to expect to be paid for your work on that day. Sure it's a radical idea, but I think I can teach my new boss about this. He owed me for 6 hours and 13 minutes. I wrote down the exact time I punched in and out and kept it for my own records. At the end of my shift I asked for my paycheck and the other employees looked at me like I had declared myself Napoleon. The owner, an old man who watches Fox Fucking News all day, shrugs at me and says "They haven't arrived yet."
"Well, I need to get paid. I need to buy a metrocard or I can't come to work tomorrow."
So he pays me out of the register, and as he is doing so he says "You get $7.25 and hour."
I reply by saying that "(drunken fired manager friend) told me it was $8 an hour. That was my agreement."
The Fox News watching sweatshop owner simply shrugged again and handed me cash.
This exchange occurred on Friday last week, so this Friday, after one day off where I damn near slept all day, I worked 3 double shifts on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and then a half shift on Friday (Yesterday). For some strange insane reason I had the expectation that I would be paid come said Friday. I know, I am silly like that.
So I get out of work at 5pm. I expect my check. The check isn't there, Fox News watching boss left around 3pm, and his wife will be in with the checks around 6. My fellow sweatshop employees tell me she rarely arrives at 6, it's usually later, and even then checks might not come. So now I have to waste my free time waiting for my check. I wander around, go into bookstores, I am losing my patience. I check back in at my job, checks aren't there, I call my boss, his wife is on the way.
I punched out at 5:22pm. By nearly 7, the boss and his wife arrive.
I get my check. I know the fucking Too Big To Fail bank is closed. Now I can't cash my fucking check. I need money, that's why I took the fucking job in the first place.
So I ask the owners wife, "Where can I cash this check this late? The bank is closed."
And Fox News watching sweatshop owner says "We will cash it for you for $5."
If that sounds like a scam, it is because it is. The ownership purposefully withholds pay until after banking hours, than charges you $5 for the privilege of allowing them to pay you. Unfuckingreal!
So I tell him it sounds like a scam and I explain to him why, but unfortunately, years and years of watching Fox News every morning has rendered this man's ability to reason totally useless, so he says "That's the way we've always done it."
And I reply, "Then what you've always done was scam your employees."
Now I figure screw it, I'd rather go to a check cashing place, because I am flat broke at this point with eight dollars to my name. While there, I notice that my paycheck has 60.49 hours on it BUT NO OVERTIME PAY!!!
I call my boss. He tells me I get "Shift Pay". I call bullshit. I can see where it says on my check how many hours I work and at what rate, so I'm not fucking stupid, and I'll be damned if I let some Fox Watching sweatshop owning dittohead try to fuck me out of my LEGALLY MANDATED overtime pay. I do not say this to him. He tells me the place is busy, we will talk about it later.
Now, among many other question I would ask you, because I always find the advice I get here very valuable, allow me to posit you this . . . .
HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO LIVE IN NEW YORK CITY ON $7.25 A FUCKING HOUR?
Rent and Utilities $750 with roommates $1100 minimum without roommates
Food per month $200-300 for one person (with a tight belt and a small plate)
Transportation $104 monthly subway/bus
Health Care BWAHAHAHAHAHA LIKE I CAN AFFORD HEALTH CARE!
Retirement fuck it all to hell Wall Street will get my retirement before I do
What kind of a country do we want to live in? A country where we pay people shit money that they might still starve on despite working full time? A country that doesn't make anything but financial products and fast food? A country that can't build a fucking rail system anymore, but can justify war after war after war for decades on end? When poor and working class people have their rights and ability to earn a wage placed under attack it is really America that is under attack, and America is under attack, under attack by a vampire squid monster named GREED and WEALTH and POWER, under attack by the out of touch super rich who think you haven't sacrificed enough at their altar yet. Paying the help less so we can give the rich more is a recipe for Monarchy, not Democracy. When Americans are denied good jobs with decent wages, America suffers. This leads to my next question, which I ask of John Boehner, Harry Reid and President Barack Obama; WHERE IS THE FUCKING JOBS BILL???????
So seriously, what the fuck? As stated above, I screwed this up bad. I would have accomplished much more by taking the unemployment and getting a quality job instead of taking the first thing I could get. I don't know what to make of this situation with my current shit sweatshop joke of a job. I have rent to pay and I am not going to have it ontime unless I land a real job real fast, because I doubt I will be going to work for my Fox News watching sweatshop running boss on Monday. Personally, I could use some advice. I don't have a computer right now, so when I am writing online or able to look for work online I have to go all the way to my brother's place to do so, but I will be here for a while. Anyone have any good ideas or thoughts? Or maybe you just want to chat and say hello, I am all ears.
And with that said, some mood music.
Peace and love to you and yours,
MoT
You can follow me on twitter @JesseLaGreca