*** DISCLAIMER ***
*** This is going to be a rant. Strong language will be used. I will not be offended if you skip this one.***
So … I do property management. It’s a fluid business, and things can change nearly without warning. Take for example, February of this year. In January, we were told that the company I was working for had lost the contract on my building, effective March 1st. They weren’t yet sure if they had a place for any of us, but would keep us updated.
Three weeks passed with nothing. Then the games started. The “HR liaison” (because their HR is outsourced) told me there were a bunch of different opportunities. She saw (for the first time, no doubt, though I’d been working for the company for 10 months) that I had EA experience. Well, there was an EA post opening up! Would I be interested? Oh hell, why not. OK GREAT! Let’s talk again on Friday!
Friday rolled around (3 weeks out from the end of the contract now), I showed up for our chat, and was thrown into an interview. You know, in my Casual Friday jeans. ::sighs:: Luckily it was with the outgoing EA, not the boss, and we had a good chat. Then the CFO wanted to see me.
That man sat me down, and told me I wasn’t cut out to do anything as “difficult” as an EA position. But, he DID have a receptionist post … at a pay cut. Wouldn’t that be wonderful?!
I looked for other opportunities. Found one, with a FANTASTIC company, in my field, and I’m super happy with them. We made the transition fairly peacefully, and all was well.
Or so I thought.
In March, I logged into my old HR account to retrieve all my paystubs (since no one gets paper copies any more). And there, in the middle of several stubs, was one for $1000 of “Supplemental/Bonus Pay”. $1000? I’d never received that! So, I called the HR company. They said it had been mailed to the corporate office, and probably had been overlooked. They’ll find out and make sure it gets to me.
A week later, nothing. A week after that, nothing. And so on.
I contact the company directly, and left a message. At least twice a month, from April – August. Totally ignored. Hmm … now this is seeming like less of an oversight and more of a willful withholding, right?
In August I had a friend who is a finance lawyer draft a letter saying if I didn’t have resolution by September 1st, I would be filing a fraud charge. (The willful withholding of salary coupled with the fact that they’d reported to the IRS that I’d RECEIVED THE PAYMENT when in fact I had not, is open and shut fraud.) No answer. So on September 1st we started that filing. In DC, we have to provide the company with proof of filing, and then they have 30 days to remedy the situation.
October 1st came and went. I sent one last email to everyone (everyone being the big boss, the CFO, and the HR company rep who’d been helping me) letting them know the filing was going through. The HR company called and begged me not to, as it would affect them as well … when they had done nothing wrong. A fraud charge on a company that provides payroll services is a business-ender. She told me that since it had been 6 months the check was dead and she’d cut me a new one, without waiting for approval. Sounds like a good plan to me! I’m on board with it.
Yesterday I got an email from the CFO asking if I can give him a call. Now, so far, I’m upset and I’m irritated at their shenanigans, but whatever. I can deal. So, I call him.
This fucker spent 20 minutes talking in circles. Here are a few highlights:
“The check was reversed on July 26th, it should not show on your W-2.” – FALSE
“You were not entitled to it because it was not in your offer letter or any other correspondence that would have led you to expect it.” – AND YET ONE WAS CUT TO ME
“Bonuses are discretionary, and we decided not to give you one.” – AND. YET. ONE. WAS. CUT. TO. ME.
“Our policy is that you must be an employee on the date the check is handed to you, or you forfeit it.” – IDIOTIC POLICY
“We cut all the checks at the same time, but give them to different people at different times.” – ALSO IDIOTIC
“No one from your team got a bonus.” – COMPLETELY FALSE
“The check was a mistake, you should never have seen it.” – BUT I DID SEE IT
Basically, he spent the time telling me that I shouldn’t have ever expected a bonus (even though they announced that they would be giving them), and that anyway their policy was to cut one for everyone and then hand them out as they saw fit. When I pointed out to him that I’ve BEEN an HR Coordinator and I would never NEVER cut a check I had no intention of handing out, the idiot had nothing to say.
But he DID go on and on about how they made me what he felt was a fair offer to stay, but I chose to leave, so too bad.I told him it sounded like he was saying “If you’d stayed, you’d have gotten the check.” He said that wasn’t at all what he’d said.
BULLSHIT. WHY would you bring up your offer if it had nothing to do with the bonus? Bullshit bullshit bullshit.
Then he told me that it was a mistake because “payroll and taxes are all automated in DC”. Um, no. I’ll give you a lesson, asshat – you have to manually call in and pay your payroll taxes EACH WEEK in DC. And once a month in Virgina. Don’t try to tell me you know better than I do when you’ve never done payroll at all, and I did it for a living.
I explained to him that a bonus check cut on February 11th is for work performed in the prior year. The year I was an employee, and as such I WAS entitled to it. He had nothing to say, except “I’m sorry you have hard feelings about this.”
::fumes::
So basically, they’re stiffing me a grand. Those assholes have no IDEA how hard we worked on this building. Hell, we worked so hard on it, another company hired us to stay! Everything he spouted to me was bullshit, everything he gave as a reason was a lie. The simple truth was that SOMEONE fucked up. Someone allowed a check to be cut, and the stub to be provided to me, and didn’t want to make good on it. So they hid and they lied and they stepped over TOO MANY lines.
If he’d been honest with me I would have been pissed, but not like this. But to LIE to me on top of committing fraud?
That earns a big fat FUCK YOU.
I’m contacting the HR company in the morning. If they can confirm the tax payment was reversed, I’ll send a letter to the company owner throwing the CFO under the bus for his fucking games. But if that payment WASN’T reversed? I’m filing for fraud.
Hope your current business and financial dealings don’t get TOO messed up when that happens, fuckers.
* !!!!!!!! In the time it took me to write this, the CFO sent me a screen shot of the “reversal”. First off, it’s actually a dead check, not a reversal. Secondly, IT. HAD. MY. SS. NUMBER. ON. IT. You know, something he should NOT have access to. Who do I contact about THIS?
Little Pieces Everywhere 