Evostevo
08-03-2006, 10:27 AM
Some people here seem to be well-versed in workplace laws and everyone seems to be
intolerant of bullshit. For the lack of being able to find a better forum, I thought I'd
post here.
I worked for an independently owned and operated upstart pool company in summer 2005.
This company offered the following: pool management services (stopping by on a specified
schedule to clean, inspect, fix pools etc) and full pool service (all of that plus a
staff of lifeguards).
It is currently 4:36 AM and I am taking a break from studying so I will delve into the
full story here. I worked for a different and larger pool company in summer 2004. I
switched to this new company because I figured there would be more upward mobility (not
that I was looking at this as anything more than a summer job) and there were better
wages. Little did I know at that age that wages do not equal job satisfaction in all
cases. I had to renew all my lifeguarding/CPR certifications for over $150. That's
fine. I had to buy a pair of trunks two sizes too small for me (I am 5'8 155 lbs...I
don't know if they tailored the orders for Gary Coleman clones) because no larger ones
were in stock. This cost $30. I thought nothing of it. I was placed at the pool
located nearest my house. I had worked at this pool the previous year under the
management of the previous company and knew all the ins and outs. I thought I could save
gas and exercise by biking there. Well, this was the neighborhood of my ex-girlfriend.
All was well the year before but since then we had a rocky breakup. God forbid I work at
their pool. Her mother called my new boss 24/7 complaining that I was stalking her
daughter and that I was a babykiller/serial rapist/direct descendant of Hitler. I am
only half kidding. After our breakup a half year prior I began to want her back and we
did an off and on thing for a few months. She finally totally lost interest in me due to
my inexperience in the ways of a relationship. I would call her often and practically
beg. I never once threatened her. Eventually I lost interest. This was months prior to
the start of my tenure at her neighborhood's pool summer 2006.
I worked at the pool for about a week. Her mom was a suburban gossipy housewife who had
nothing better to do than lounge at the pool all day long and teach swim lessons for next
to nothing. Funny because it was against company policy to allow any swim lessons at any
pool unless it was through us. Her daughter/my ex would show up occasionally. I acted
like they were ghosts and they reciprocated. But behind my back her mother was on the
phone bitching. Despite my assurance from the company owner that I would not be
transferred and that they would not respond from threats, said company owner became
understandably weary. When you have a housewife with many hours to herself and you are
an upstart business owner without a second to spare, this will happen. That and said
housewife was a raving lunatic. I was transferred to another local pool but this pool was
not within reasonable biking distance. Even so, my car was broken down and I would bike
to work each day off of the clock on public 50mph roads on a busted 1950s Schwinn with no
brakes save my feet. I was not given a direct reason as to my transfer. I was sat down
during adult swim and asked how old I was. When I said 19, I was then offered a manager
position. Age discrimination? This conversation took place between me and one of the
higher-ups, an 80 year old lady who, bless her, was not very PC. In addition to the
comment above, she rattled off things all the time like "Those orientals over there...or
what do they like to be called now...asians?". Oh well. I am simply including this to
knock any perception of integrity out of this company. This may seem biased, but believe
me, if I could say a single thing positive about the company I would. In exactly the
same way I will detail the negative aspects.
So I begin managing the local pool. Within days, I am also managing another pool. By
managing, I mean these were staffed pools. The other pool had a problem-child manager
who never, ever showed up. Forgive me when I say that the guy was a douche. I judged
him for 5 seconds on the fact that he was a straight male who wore low-cut girl's pants
sagging low with circus-tent boxers flapping in the wind, wore shirts so tight he must
have had to tear them off after use, had mismatched-colored shoes with plain socks hiked
up far too high, and a giant dyed blonde afro. Then I beat myself up for judging him on
his appearance. I would instead judge him on his character. Within 5 minutes, I found
that this was even worse than his outward appearance might suggest to some. This guy
would turn away from the pool (HUGE no-no) quite often to play games of hacky-sack with
friends he would invite over during his shifts. The private neighborhood pool would be
crowded with punks who didn't even live there. He blared music loudly with lyrics that
surely caused the ears of the red-state conservative housewives to bleed. This was when
he actually decided to show up. And he would leave early when he did. In the beginning
I was told that a manager had the power to fire. So I "fired" him and let my boss know.
This was fine. Then I got a call back saying I couldn't fire him but I could give him
zero shifts. So I did and I told him why. He was transferred to some other pool and
given many hours. So this guy was still with the company and now I had to singlehandedly
take over his hours in addition to my own.
As if working two 8 hour shifts 7 days a week was insufficient, I was offered a position
where I could run around and clean unstaffed pools as well. I was told that if I
accepted, more guards would be transferred to my pools to take care of the hours.
Otherwise I would have to work 24/7 literally. So I accepted. I was now on two
different pay scales. For my lifeguarding I received $7/hr and for my maintenance on the
unstaffed pools I received $9/hr. Yippee-kay-ay. I did my first week of "shadowing" a
maintenance guy and would then work long lifeguarding shifts afterwards. Once the guy
left a pool vacuum 50 miles away. He was frustrated at himself and so he took it out on
me. As a gesture of goodwill and thinking it would score me points and I'd never have to
do it again, I went back late at night after a lg shift on my own time and gas to
retrieve the vac that he left behind. I was not even thanked.
This begat more insanity. I would independently start my day on the clock around 5 am
doing maintenance, end the maintenance anywhere from 9 am to 12pm depending on the day of
the week, then lifeguard (covering 1st shift at one pool, then 2nd at the other) until
around 9 pm every night. This was 7 days a week. I received my first paycheck under
this new maintenance/lifeguarding combo and found it odd that although I had worked over
80 hours per week (paid biweekly so this was for 160+ hrs) I had received no overtime.
Part was at a flat rate of 7 and the other at 9. There was no formal clock in/clock out
system. They relied on the honor policy and we were to record all hours on a piece of
recycled paper. The owner (my boss) would then sign off and pay us.
At this point my car was fixed so I could drive around to the pools needing maintenance.
I headed to a pool in the far northeast, then onto the interstate to the far west side,
then down more to the southside, then back up to the central/northside to guard. Then
home. I found alot of my money going into gas expenses. I asked on a daily basis about
gas reimbursement and was promised that I'd receive it. Especially since I was putting
miles and wear on my PERSONAL vehicle.
Here's some juiciness. There were two other maintenance guys. Both were certified
lifeguards but were not required to guard. They did so only in very rare cases where a
misbehaving guard would have to be relieved and sent home. Both did the same thing I did
maintenance wise, except they were more experienced in construction and could fix
equipment when it really went to hell. I could fix almost anything, especially given my
NONEXISTENT training, but if something exploded, I'd need them. Both were salaried and
were far more well-paid than I. One used a company truck--the only company truck--and
was reimbursed for gas. The other used his personal truck and was reimbursed for gas (I
think at a higher rate). Now, the company truck driver was a close family friend and the
personal truck driver was the brother of one of the owners (they were a married
couple--he was the brother of the wife). So perhaps there is grounds for nepotism when I
explain that...
Never once did I receive the gas money I was promised or any sort of compensation for
using my personal vehicle. All I got was my craptastic hourly pay. With no overtime.
Towards the end of the season they began to criticize my work and at some points I
suspect they may have even sabotaged things in an effort to find a reason to fire me.
But I always came through and in my opinion my work was outstanding especially
considering the absence of any training. I had no life during this three-month period.
I told them I would soon be going back to college for fall semester and some of this
finger-pointing died down. Most likely because they figured I'd be gone soon. It was
sort of funny that before I left they even offered me a "senior" position for the next
summer consisting of busting my ass to the same degree or worse, but with a pretty new
title. Instead of having an unorganized bunch of older people with drastically different
compensation doing the exact same work, they were going to consolidate us into a nice
upper caste. I declined. I told them verbally I was going to college, finished what was
required of me, and left for college. I was never fired and never signed anything
concerning quitting.
I then received my last paycheck. It was short several hundred dollars (I'm not even
talking about overtime or gas $). I went to the office and had the "secretary" pull all
my timecards up. I took the originals, made copies, and gave her copies back. I kept
the originals and duplicate copies of all timecards. The owner had, in ink, nixed an
hour off of my last timecard and signed off. But my paycheck was drastically different.
It was at about this point that I heard about lifeguards' measly $6/hr paychecks
bouncing. I knew I wasn't going to get my money anytime soon but I discussed it with the
owner anyway. The man is one of those people who can make you feel so uncomfortable and
twist anything in such a way as to portray you in a negative light that you walk out of
the office convinced that you're the one that owes him money.
After doing research fall 2005, I found that all of this company's practices were
illegal. And I haven't even mentioned the fact that we did not receive pay for required
manager meetings. Noone knew that they had to pay us. We were freaking kids. I called
the department of labor and got automated messages. I went down there physically and
that didn't help much. They could only handle claims totalling up to $800. Anything
greater had to go to small claims court. I went to the courthouse and got the
information about small claims. If I lost, the attorney fees and the court fees would
kill me. I didn't know my chances of winning or losing because to merely speak to an
attorney you must pay. And the threshhold for small claims is up to $3000. Tallied up
pretax, I approximated the money owed to me to be very near this. Overtime was just over
the Department of Labor limit of $800 at $9xx. This was made astonishingly confusing by
the two separate pay rates and the fact that I could only figure things in terms of
pre-taxation. Gas was so high at the federal standard for personal vehicle/energy usage
that I used a ridiculously conservative rate-per-mile to get everything under $3000. I
figured moving to a higher court would be obnoxious. My impression is of a harsher
judge, an insanely long turnaround time, and massive legal/attorney fees. I don't know
if I'm right. At my current job I get paid .45 cents per mile if I have to drive
somewhere on my gas in my car. This happens rarely. I know that the other two
maintenance people during this 2005 nightmare job we are discussing received either 25
cents or 35 cents per mile. This includes the guy using the COMPANY truck who should
only be compensated for GAS ALONE. If I figured the money owed to me at rates like
these, the amounts owed would be astronomical. Each day was at MINIMUM a 120-mile round
trip. On the clock. Usually I drove more than this because someone fucked up somewhere.
Sometimes double. Still, I was conservative so as not to be "greedy." I documented my
miles as I was told on my timecards on a daily basis and I have these in my possession.
On my last pay period I talked about earlier, the reasoning for the insane underpayment
was attributed by my boss to be the following: "you get paid your hourly rate while
clocked in. when you clock out and go driving you do not get paid your hourly rate."
The entire summer except for this period I got paid the hourly rate for time spent
driving. The last pay period they instated a system where clocking in was done by
telephones. I would log the time at the start of the day manually like usual but would
not clock in via phone until arrival at the pool to guard at/maintain. Before leaving
the premises I would clock out via phone and drive elsewhere, clocking in again on
arrival. I still logged my hours manually including driving time on my timecard and was
assured that I would be paid for driving time verbally. So on my last paycheck I got
paid for only the time I spent clocked in via the phone system. My signed timecard did
not reflect this, but my paycheck did. Like I said the only other mark on my timecard
was that a "6am" was crossed out for a "7:10 am" and the owner's initials. I wondered
about this.
(cont...)
intolerant of bullshit. For the lack of being able to find a better forum, I thought I'd
post here.
I worked for an independently owned and operated upstart pool company in summer 2005.
This company offered the following: pool management services (stopping by on a specified
schedule to clean, inspect, fix pools etc) and full pool service (all of that plus a
staff of lifeguards).
It is currently 4:36 AM and I am taking a break from studying so I will delve into the
full story here. I worked for a different and larger pool company in summer 2004. I
switched to this new company because I figured there would be more upward mobility (not
that I was looking at this as anything more than a summer job) and there were better
wages. Little did I know at that age that wages do not equal job satisfaction in all
cases. I had to renew all my lifeguarding/CPR certifications for over $150. That's
fine. I had to buy a pair of trunks two sizes too small for me (I am 5'8 155 lbs...I
don't know if they tailored the orders for Gary Coleman clones) because no larger ones
were in stock. This cost $30. I thought nothing of it. I was placed at the pool
located nearest my house. I had worked at this pool the previous year under the
management of the previous company and knew all the ins and outs. I thought I could save
gas and exercise by biking there. Well, this was the neighborhood of my ex-girlfriend.
All was well the year before but since then we had a rocky breakup. God forbid I work at
their pool. Her mother called my new boss 24/7 complaining that I was stalking her
daughter and that I was a babykiller/serial rapist/direct descendant of Hitler. I am
only half kidding. After our breakup a half year prior I began to want her back and we
did an off and on thing for a few months. She finally totally lost interest in me due to
my inexperience in the ways of a relationship. I would call her often and practically
beg. I never once threatened her. Eventually I lost interest. This was months prior to
the start of my tenure at her neighborhood's pool summer 2006.
I worked at the pool for about a week. Her mom was a suburban gossipy housewife who had
nothing better to do than lounge at the pool all day long and teach swim lessons for next
to nothing. Funny because it was against company policy to allow any swim lessons at any
pool unless it was through us. Her daughter/my ex would show up occasionally. I acted
like they were ghosts and they reciprocated. But behind my back her mother was on the
phone bitching. Despite my assurance from the company owner that I would not be
transferred and that they would not respond from threats, said company owner became
understandably weary. When you have a housewife with many hours to herself and you are
an upstart business owner without a second to spare, this will happen. That and said
housewife was a raving lunatic. I was transferred to another local pool but this pool was
not within reasonable biking distance. Even so, my car was broken down and I would bike
to work each day off of the clock on public 50mph roads on a busted 1950s Schwinn with no
brakes save my feet. I was not given a direct reason as to my transfer. I was sat down
during adult swim and asked how old I was. When I said 19, I was then offered a manager
position. Age discrimination? This conversation took place between me and one of the
higher-ups, an 80 year old lady who, bless her, was not very PC. In addition to the
comment above, she rattled off things all the time like "Those orientals over there...or
what do they like to be called now...asians?". Oh well. I am simply including this to
knock any perception of integrity out of this company. This may seem biased, but believe
me, if I could say a single thing positive about the company I would. In exactly the
same way I will detail the negative aspects.
So I begin managing the local pool. Within days, I am also managing another pool. By
managing, I mean these were staffed pools. The other pool had a problem-child manager
who never, ever showed up. Forgive me when I say that the guy was a douche. I judged
him for 5 seconds on the fact that he was a straight male who wore low-cut girl's pants
sagging low with circus-tent boxers flapping in the wind, wore shirts so tight he must
have had to tear them off after use, had mismatched-colored shoes with plain socks hiked
up far too high, and a giant dyed blonde afro. Then I beat myself up for judging him on
his appearance. I would instead judge him on his character. Within 5 minutes, I found
that this was even worse than his outward appearance might suggest to some. This guy
would turn away from the pool (HUGE no-no) quite often to play games of hacky-sack with
friends he would invite over during his shifts. The private neighborhood pool would be
crowded with punks who didn't even live there. He blared music loudly with lyrics that
surely caused the ears of the red-state conservative housewives to bleed. This was when
he actually decided to show up. And he would leave early when he did. In the beginning
I was told that a manager had the power to fire. So I "fired" him and let my boss know.
This was fine. Then I got a call back saying I couldn't fire him but I could give him
zero shifts. So I did and I told him why. He was transferred to some other pool and
given many hours. So this guy was still with the company and now I had to singlehandedly
take over his hours in addition to my own.
As if working two 8 hour shifts 7 days a week was insufficient, I was offered a position
where I could run around and clean unstaffed pools as well. I was told that if I
accepted, more guards would be transferred to my pools to take care of the hours.
Otherwise I would have to work 24/7 literally. So I accepted. I was now on two
different pay scales. For my lifeguarding I received $7/hr and for my maintenance on the
unstaffed pools I received $9/hr. Yippee-kay-ay. I did my first week of "shadowing" a
maintenance guy and would then work long lifeguarding shifts afterwards. Once the guy
left a pool vacuum 50 miles away. He was frustrated at himself and so he took it out on
me. As a gesture of goodwill and thinking it would score me points and I'd never have to
do it again, I went back late at night after a lg shift on my own time and gas to
retrieve the vac that he left behind. I was not even thanked.
This begat more insanity. I would independently start my day on the clock around 5 am
doing maintenance, end the maintenance anywhere from 9 am to 12pm depending on the day of
the week, then lifeguard (covering 1st shift at one pool, then 2nd at the other) until
around 9 pm every night. This was 7 days a week. I received my first paycheck under
this new maintenance/lifeguarding combo and found it odd that although I had worked over
80 hours per week (paid biweekly so this was for 160+ hrs) I had received no overtime.
Part was at a flat rate of 7 and the other at 9. There was no formal clock in/clock out
system. They relied on the honor policy and we were to record all hours on a piece of
recycled paper. The owner (my boss) would then sign off and pay us.
At this point my car was fixed so I could drive around to the pools needing maintenance.
I headed to a pool in the far northeast, then onto the interstate to the far west side,
then down more to the southside, then back up to the central/northside to guard. Then
home. I found alot of my money going into gas expenses. I asked on a daily basis about
gas reimbursement and was promised that I'd receive it. Especially since I was putting
miles and wear on my PERSONAL vehicle.
Here's some juiciness. There were two other maintenance guys. Both were certified
lifeguards but were not required to guard. They did so only in very rare cases where a
misbehaving guard would have to be relieved and sent home. Both did the same thing I did
maintenance wise, except they were more experienced in construction and could fix
equipment when it really went to hell. I could fix almost anything, especially given my
NONEXISTENT training, but if something exploded, I'd need them. Both were salaried and
were far more well-paid than I. One used a company truck--the only company truck--and
was reimbursed for gas. The other used his personal truck and was reimbursed for gas (I
think at a higher rate). Now, the company truck driver was a close family friend and the
personal truck driver was the brother of one of the owners (they were a married
couple--he was the brother of the wife). So perhaps there is grounds for nepotism when I
explain that...
Never once did I receive the gas money I was promised or any sort of compensation for
using my personal vehicle. All I got was my craptastic hourly pay. With no overtime.
Towards the end of the season they began to criticize my work and at some points I
suspect they may have even sabotaged things in an effort to find a reason to fire me.
But I always came through and in my opinion my work was outstanding especially
considering the absence of any training. I had no life during this three-month period.
I told them I would soon be going back to college for fall semester and some of this
finger-pointing died down. Most likely because they figured I'd be gone soon. It was
sort of funny that before I left they even offered me a "senior" position for the next
summer consisting of busting my ass to the same degree or worse, but with a pretty new
title. Instead of having an unorganized bunch of older people with drastically different
compensation doing the exact same work, they were going to consolidate us into a nice
upper caste. I declined. I told them verbally I was going to college, finished what was
required of me, and left for college. I was never fired and never signed anything
concerning quitting.
I then received my last paycheck. It was short several hundred dollars (I'm not even
talking about overtime or gas $). I went to the office and had the "secretary" pull all
my timecards up. I took the originals, made copies, and gave her copies back. I kept
the originals and duplicate copies of all timecards. The owner had, in ink, nixed an
hour off of my last timecard and signed off. But my paycheck was drastically different.
It was at about this point that I heard about lifeguards' measly $6/hr paychecks
bouncing. I knew I wasn't going to get my money anytime soon but I discussed it with the
owner anyway. The man is one of those people who can make you feel so uncomfortable and
twist anything in such a way as to portray you in a negative light that you walk out of
the office convinced that you're the one that owes him money.
After doing research fall 2005, I found that all of this company's practices were
illegal. And I haven't even mentioned the fact that we did not receive pay for required
manager meetings. Noone knew that they had to pay us. We were freaking kids. I called
the department of labor and got automated messages. I went down there physically and
that didn't help much. They could only handle claims totalling up to $800. Anything
greater had to go to small claims court. I went to the courthouse and got the
information about small claims. If I lost, the attorney fees and the court fees would
kill me. I didn't know my chances of winning or losing because to merely speak to an
attorney you must pay. And the threshhold for small claims is up to $3000. Tallied up
pretax, I approximated the money owed to me to be very near this. Overtime was just over
the Department of Labor limit of $800 at $9xx. This was made astonishingly confusing by
the two separate pay rates and the fact that I could only figure things in terms of
pre-taxation. Gas was so high at the federal standard for personal vehicle/energy usage
that I used a ridiculously conservative rate-per-mile to get everything under $3000. I
figured moving to a higher court would be obnoxious. My impression is of a harsher
judge, an insanely long turnaround time, and massive legal/attorney fees. I don't know
if I'm right. At my current job I get paid .45 cents per mile if I have to drive
somewhere on my gas in my car. This happens rarely. I know that the other two
maintenance people during this 2005 nightmare job we are discussing received either 25
cents or 35 cents per mile. This includes the guy using the COMPANY truck who should
only be compensated for GAS ALONE. If I figured the money owed to me at rates like
these, the amounts owed would be astronomical. Each day was at MINIMUM a 120-mile round
trip. On the clock. Usually I drove more than this because someone fucked up somewhere.
Sometimes double. Still, I was conservative so as not to be "greedy." I documented my
miles as I was told on my timecards on a daily basis and I have these in my possession.
On my last pay period I talked about earlier, the reasoning for the insane underpayment
was attributed by my boss to be the following: "you get paid your hourly rate while
clocked in. when you clock out and go driving you do not get paid your hourly rate."
The entire summer except for this period I got paid the hourly rate for time spent
driving. The last pay period they instated a system where clocking in was done by
telephones. I would log the time at the start of the day manually like usual but would
not clock in via phone until arrival at the pool to guard at/maintain. Before leaving
the premises I would clock out via phone and drive elsewhere, clocking in again on
arrival. I still logged my hours manually including driving time on my timecard and was
assured that I would be paid for driving time verbally. So on my last paycheck I got
paid for only the time I spent clocked in via the phone system. My signed timecard did
not reflect this, but my paycheck did. Like I said the only other mark on my timecard
was that a "6am" was crossed out for a "7:10 am" and the owner's initials. I wondered
about this.
(cont...)