Holiday pay for Thanksgiving... oh wait, you're cutting my hours?

[bean]

This irritated me a bit today when I got next week's schedule.

MOST federal holidays, we get 1.5x our normal pay rate for working. Thanksgiving and Christmas we get 2x our normal pay.

On Thanksgiving, we're only open from 8am-2pm, so I figured I'd be scheduled from 7:30 to 2:30 and have slightly longer shifts for the rest of the week, the way it's always been. Thanksgiving shifts are purely voluntary, you have to sign up to get scheduled for that day.

When I got next week's schedule today, I found I was scheduled 10:30 to 2:30. 35.5 hours for the entire week. ALLLLLL closing shifts, which means that 35.5 will turn into about 33 (I can count the number of times I've clocked out at my scheduled time while closing on one hand, in the past 2 years... I always leave 15-45 minutes early, not by choice).

Yeah, I AM getting double pay for Thanksgiving, and I can make up the rest by using my vacation pay (which I fully intend on doing). But they've never cut our hours below 38 the week of Thanksgiving before.

On the plus side, hourly employee's monthly bonus is based on how far under budget the dept winds up on labor... so we should get a fat bonus (and my using my vacation pay to make up the difference won't affect that at all).

edit: My drawer was off by more than a penny for the first time in 4 months today too. Exactly $3.00 over. I don't know how the hell it happened, and we're actually in a contest for over/shorts right now too. The only times I've been off in the past 4 months it's been by under 10 cents (10 cents once, 1 penny 3 other times). The only thing I can come up with is someone tried to play the old shortchange/bill swap trick with me and I was faster than they were once I realized what they were doing, and wound up shortchanging THEM and not realizing it. The last time someone pulled that on me, I caught on quickly and confused the hell out of them and managed to pocket nearly $20 for myself (my drawer balanced to the penny that day after I removed their "tip", boss knew about it too). I'm pretty damn good at that game, normally.

[Gerrinson]

I used to always balance on or near the penny every day, at the old grocery store. The quick change artists soon learned to stay the hell away from me. At the time, I was studying calculus, quantum physics, and digital processors. My brain was a lean, mean, calculating machine and they couldn't ever throw me off.

I'm not quite as good as I used to be at that stuff, though, since I've let my studies fall by the wayside. Ah well.

[LillFilly]

I used to work somewhere where you got a write-up if your drawer was 5-cents off either way. It's a company run by a Mouse.

[calulu]

Work is screwing with my hours this week too to my detriment.

Today told to work 11 - 6, I am off on Mondays usually. Log in and the phones are down and the software platform and server I use are screwed up. Told to log off and log back in at 3 and work till midnight, my usual shift on other days. No biggee, I have things to do and it's a longer shift.

Company forcing me to use my nearly expiring vacation days on Friday and Saturday but being told since I'm violating the no day off adjacent to a holiday I'm not getting holiday pay.

[bean]

I used to work somewhere where you got a write-up if your drawer was 5-cents off either way. It's a company run by a Mouse.

Write up.. for +/- 5 CENTS? I bet their turnover was pretty high. I generally balance to the penny, but we have cashiers that are regularly off $20 or $30 at a time.. they're just not off quite enough to get written up for it.

At Papa John's, as long as the store was +/- 10 DOLLARS by the end of the week management was happy. They didn't care if money disappeared one day and showed up the next, or vice versa, as long as you were in the ballpark by the close of business on Sunday.

At the Whole, we don't get writeups until we're off by $50 (either at once or over a week or so). $100 off? You get 2 writeups at once and placed on final for a year and it's strongly suggested you step down to bagger for that time.

[cinema guy]

At the cinema we didn't get a 'fact finding' until we were more than £5 out on a till.

This usually resulted in being told, 'Be more careful'. I don't know of anyone who got into trouble for having a till out.

[Retail Associate]

At the hellhole store I work at they used to suspend cashiers for 3 days if their drawer was off. I don't know if they do it anymore because on any given day, most of the people on a lane are pulled up there from other depts and not classified as cashiers. (Nor paid as well.)

Maybe management realizes that mistakes are going to happen when you have unwilling, overworked, overstressed people cashiering rather than doing the job they were hired to do...all the time knowing that they will be getting a lecture from their manager about why nothing got done it their own dept.

But then again, I could be wrong.

[bean]

We don't technically do suspensions. However, if you get a "50 point writeup", you're demoted to bagger for 1-2 weeks. If you wind up on "final" (2 writeups in 1 year for money issues), it's STRONGLY suggested you step down to bagger for a year to let the writeups expire.

I've seen frontend supervisors step down to bagger because of money writeups. They can still get a drawer if it's REALLY busy, but they won't ring unless they have to.

[Rine]

I don't know what my store does if you are off. The thing is...so many people use the registers every day that it's hard to tell sometimes were the money goes. It's not like a grocery store where a cashier starts with a drawer and turns it back in.

Usually, cashiers at my store pick the register in their cac that they will use all day and use another just for the floater or cashier assist to use.

The sad thing is...if a drawer ends up being short, the cashier is the one in trouble even though he or she might not have been the one to have caused the problem. The other people who may have used the register that day aren't even looked at.

[tollbaby]

I have to say that I don't think it's any better to pocket a profit from a short change artist than it is for them to have tried to scam you in the first place. You're just going right down to their level.

[Broomjockey]

I have to say that I don't think it's any better to pocket a profit from a short change artist than it is for them to have tried to scam you in the first place.

Yes, I agree. It's still technically theft. I'd hate for anyone here to try that and then get the cops called on them by the con-artist.

[Dips]

Nah. Bean asked his boss and, since he's apparently allowed to accept tips, it was considered a tip. As long as he declares it as income to the IRS, he's in the clear.

My sister did the same thing. She worked in a donut shop. A quick change artist tried to scam her, she yelled "Hey, Bernie! Get out here! Someone's trying to flim flam me!" The guy ran before Bernie could get out there and she found he had left $5 behind.

If he had come back and asked for it, she would have given it back to him, but he didn't so she declared it as tip income and kept it.

[Broomjockey]

If he had come back and asked for it, she would have given it back to him, but he didn't so she declared it as tip income and kept it.

*snerk* That's awesome. I mainly meant for anyone else trying the trick. Bean cleared it, so he's cool. And .

[Andara Bledin]

Company forcing me to use my nearly expiring vacation days on Friday and Saturday but being told since I'm violating the no day off adjacent to a holiday I'm not getting holiday pay.

I know I'm coming in pretty late on this, but you may want to look into your local labor laws. I know that my company doesn't pay holiday pay only if you're out on days you're scheduled to work.

If you take a vacation day, then you're not scheduled and that day doesn't count as regards holiday pay.

It's very possible that they're breaking the law, there. Can't hurt to check. Of course, it could also be a voluntary system that companies do on their own, and then you're just screwed. Sorry.

^-.-^