11.25.2008

i'm so tired of being here

It really shouldn't be possible, how much anger I still have. But every single day there is something to remind me of you and what you've done to my life. I wish you could look in the mirror every once in a while and feel guilt, and I'm angry and ashamed I have such ignoble feelings. If you've said to yourself "it wasn't so bad - I didn't really mean it and she's probably getting along fine" I want you to know you're dead wrong.

Dead wrong.

11.15.2008

there's straw for the donkeys

But not for me.

Listen, Employer:

I know legalese can be hard to understand at times. But the Federal and State laws regarding overtime for non-exempt employees is really very clear. A child could understand them. Here it is:

"no employer in the commonwealth shall employ any of his employees in an occupation, as defined in section two, for a work week longer than forty hours, unless such employee receives compensation for his employment in excess of forty hours at a rate not less than one and one half times the regular rate at which he is employed"

Easy, right? For each 40-hour workweek, if I work more than 40 hours, I am paid overtime for those hours in excess of FORTY.

Here is what my Employer did for a year:

All employees are salaried and there is no overtime - meaning not only is there no 1.5 time compensation, but you are not paid AT ALL for hours in excess of 40. OK. BUT this was only true when they benefited. If you did NOT work forty hours - let's say you had to go to the doctor's and it took two hours - you were docked pay for every hour you were out of the office. If you had no sick time left (out of the five days a year you were given) then you were out of luck and not paid.

So: salaried employee when it works to their benefit, hourly employee when it works to their benefit.

Finally an attorney straightened them out on the exempt/non-exempt thing. The attorney also attempted to explain overtime. But since the Employer pays every two weeks, they decided that if you worked 39 hours in one week and 41 hours the next week, that canceled the overtime out.

WRONG.

And no, I'm not just griping. I have been actively seeking another job for some time. I continue to do so. But this is frustrating. After a year I still have not received the promised raise (no explanation at all on that one) and am still not being paid correctly. Just grrr.