the magical payroll calculator
A mashup of last & this weeks QOTW. Back in the days when I was starting out in the world of the employed I had travelled away from my native Dublin for the first time and found a job in a big cafe/resturant. It was a place that employed a lot of part-time staff, just over 200 at the height of summer. It was a good bunch of people and my manager was only a few years older I thought he was easy enough to get on with (turned out to be sadly untrue), payday was always ended with about forty staff in the pub (this resulted in many stories for future QOTW's).

As it was a summer job I didn't care too much about it however I was keen to do a decent days work for a days pay. This was noticed and I was rewarded/punished with the task of opening up and checking deliveries, it meant a 6am start but I'd by finished & out in the sun just after lunch, fine by me.

Problems began when I was called aside and told that "we don't pay overtime", I said I was not looking for any, I wanted out of work as early as possible but my manager explained with the following " Listen Namey you clock in at 5.57am or 5.56am when you start work at 6am thats an extra twenty minutes a week". I countered by saying that I clocked in when starting work and as the clock was a few minutes from the deliveries area and I needed to be there at 6am I had no choice other than leave drivers waiting.

As I was young and keen to work hard (i.e. a pushover) my manager said he would fix it with payroll and there would be no further trouble, I agreed that i would clock out every day at 5 minutes before the hour to balance things out.

Things went wrong when my wages were low, I queried and was told to take the money & go to the pub like a good boy, again I was a pushover and I did. It was not a huge amount of money, about £15.

After a few months I was still being shorted on my wages and I was getting more angry about it, it was then that I found out why (thank you idiot HR lady who gave me all those printouts), the goons in payroll were calculating my wages daily using a calculator so when they seen I had worked six hours fifty eight minutes they paid my hourly rate multiplied by 6.58. So for clocking out two minutes early I lost nearly half an hours pay.

I finally stopped being a pushover (after working ten days straight and getting shafted on my pay again!) I told my manager that I wanted all my back pay and I had the printouts to prove what had happened, his response "you are jeopardising your position here by doing this".

Now maybe I should have come up with a witty & cool reply to this, what I did say, actually scream, was "FUCK YOU, PAY ME!" I was sacked, this did not stop me demanding the money I was due and rather than deal with me anymore it was agreed that when I picked up my final pay packet the back pay would be included.

So the following Thursday I got an extra £250 and told to piss off, I pissed off to the pub and waited for work to finish. When a good crowd of staff had gathered (including a few managers) I told the tale of the magical payroll calculator to all who would listen. The result was that I got to look across at my ex managers face while the whole shift turned towards my him and began demanding a review of their wages. He was not happy but I was.

P.S. Garry if your reading this you were a shit boss and your girlfriend was far too good for you.
(cname, Fri 18 Jun 2010, 12:26, Reply)