Friend scammed by boss, what to do?

[tadtooornamental]

My friend is going to be on a discovery TV show fixing old cars. He was told he will be making x dollars per week, for 5 weeks. An hour after he told me the good news, he told me that his boss is saying that he wants half of his pay because he argued for him to be on the show rather than the shows original mechanics.

He is doing this to 4-5 mechanics.

@DaveBfd

He didn’t “agree” to the deal, he was told it was happening after the fact and that his boss would discuss it more later. Almost a month of talk about the show and after everything was finalized it was kind of thrown in his face with no notice or hints from his boss.

These two quotes makes me wonder if the deal with Discovery wasn’t brokered directly with the shop. As in: Discovery approaches Boss and says “Hey, we want to do this show in your garage, using your people. We’ll give you x monies per mechanic that appears on the show.” Then Friend hears the number X as the amount that is being given to him personally, when it wasn’t intended that way in the first place. There are plenty of reasons the boss would be entitled to some of the money, IF this was indeed the way things went down. If the show is being filmed in his shop, with 4 or 5 of his workers, he is losing any money that he may have made in the shop and from those workers during that time period. So Discovery offers to compensate his for the work he won’t be getting out of those employees during that 5 weeks, PLUS the wages paid to the workers. Friend may have heard the number out of context, or Boss may have mistakenly announced the whole number, rather than the workers’ cut.

I’m not saying I think Boss is in the right, because he may just be a giant skeeve trying to weasel friend out of his rightfully earned money. BUT: there’s always another side, and I tried to take a stab at it. Something to think/ask about.

[Banquet_Bear]

@tadtooornamental

My friend is going to be on a discovery TV show fixing old cars. He was told he will be making x dollars per week, for 5 weeks. An hour after he told me the good news, he told me that his boss is saying that he wants half of his pay because he argued for him to be on the show rather than the shows original mechanics.

He is doing this to 4-5 mechanics.

These two quotes makes me wonder if the deal with Discovery wasn’t brokered directly with the shop. As in: Discovery approaches Boss and says “Hey, we want to do this show in your garage, using your people. We’ll give you x monies per mechanic that appears on the show.” Then Friend hears the number X as the amount that is being given to him personally, when it wasn’t intended that way in the first place. There are plenty of reasons the boss would be entitled to some of the money, IF this was indeed the way things went down. If the show is being filmed in his shop, with 4 or 5 of his workers, he is losing any money that he may have made in the shop and from those workers during that time period. So Discovery offers to compensate his for the work he won’t be getting out of those employees during that 5 weeks, PLUS the wages paid to the workers. Friend may have heard the number out of context, or Boss may have mistakenly announced the whole number, rather than the workers’ cut.

I’m not saying I think Boss is in the right, because he may just be a giant skeeve trying to weasel friend out of his rightfully earned money. BUT: there’s always another side, and I tried to take a stab at it. Something to think/ask about.

…yeah: this was the first thing I thought of too when I read the OP. without hearing the other side of the story its very hard to give advice.

[Gary_T]

@tadtooornamental

These two quotes makes me wonder if the deal with Discovery wasn’t brokered directly with the shop. As in: Discovery approaches Boss and says “Hey, we want to do this show in your garage, using your people. We’ll give you x monies per mechanic that appears on the show.” Then Friend hears the number X as the amount that is being given to him personally, when it wasn’t intended that way in the first place. There are plenty of reasons the boss would be entitled to some of the money, IF this was indeed the way things went down. If the show is being filmed in his shop, with 4 or 5 of his workers, he is losing any money that he may have made in the shop and from those workers during that time period. So Discovery offers to compensate his for the work he won’t be getting out of those employees during that 5 weeks, PLUS the wages paid to the workers. Friend may have heard the number out of context, or Boss may have mistakenly announced the whole number, rather than the workers’ cut.

I’m not saying I think Boss is in the right, because he may just be a giant skeeve trying to weasel friend out of his rightfully earned money. BUT: there’s always another side, and I tried to take a stab at it. Something to think/ask about.

If that were the case, then the payment arrangement would NOT be “the cheques are being written out to my friend and not his boss,” as stated in the OP.

[DaveBfd]

I appreciate the comments so far, but I think all parties (on our side) want to solve this directly and not by going behind anyones back to producers or other sources, as I’m pretty sure it is not impossible to get some reason into him.

Just a bit more info, his boss is apparently making a lot less money than another person on the show (I don’t know who this person is, wasn’t given a name or position but I guess he is the one providing the cars… probably not) The one person making about 3x (at the lowest) what his boss is making.

From what I can tell, the normal shop work will still be able to be completed. With my friend giving half his pay from the show he is more than paying for all of his hours worked in the shop every week.

Essentially I see it as his boss gets paid by the show, and gets everyone to work free during the week because they are all giving him more than their weekly wages worth in money from the show also. I don’t see how the boss can be losing money from the show (unless somehow they cant complete shop work, but again I doubt that is the case) but the boss is indeed getting “less” than he could. Whether that is from negotiating them into the show if he indeed had to do that is another story.

[Gary_T]

Are you saying that this show will be at his boss’s shop, using his boss’s employees, working on his boss’s customers’ cars, and the show is paying said boss directly for his part? To me, those are critical things to know. Kindly explain enough so I can understand what is going on here.

[DaveBfd]

Sorry for being unclear.

Are you saying that this show will be at his boss’s shop, using his boss’s employees, working on his boss’s customers’ cars, and the show is paying said boss directly for his part? To me, those are critical things to know. Kindly explain enough so I can understand what is going on here.

the show is not at the shop, but the mechanics are basically working in shifts between the shop and the shoot around the corner.

The show is using the employees from the shop.

They are not working on the bosses customers cars, as the shop is somewhat specialized and the cars are not of that make. It is possible the cars are from an acquaintance of the boss, and in that case I think you may consider this to be a yes.

The show is paying both the boss directly, and his employees.

[PandaBear77]

Your friend is a special kind of stupid if he pays his boss anything.

I would assume Canada has something like unemployment. He should put his foot down, say no and if he gets fired … might make an interesting human interest story for the news. Normally nobody would give a shit but since a well known TV show is involved, it might be worth some reporter pursuing on a slow news day.

[Gary_T]

So what I think I understand:

Unnamed person, possibly boss’s buddy, is getting paid a bunch, possibly for providing cars.

Your friend’s boss is getting paid a little, for…well, I’m not sure what for.

Friend and fellow mechanics, all boss’s employees, are getting paid more than double their normal earnings for working on the show. Boss wants half for advocating/arranging that they get on show.

Friend and fellow mechanics will work their normal hours for boss, AND work additional time (8 hours/day? 8 hours/week?) on the show for five week period. ETA: Presumably mechanics will get normal pay for normal work at boss’s shop along with pay for show.

How am I doing? Is that right so far?

Assuming so: It’s hard to know what to suggest without knowing what’s fair, and it’s hard to figure that without knowing how much (how little) the boss is getting, and just what he’s getting paid for. But if was indeed instrumental in getting the guys the gig, and if they’re being paid handsomely while he’s just getting a pittance, I could see something like the 10-20% we’ve mentioned as being reasonable.

I now wonder how many hours the mechanics will be working for the show, and what effect (probably detriment) that could have on the boss’s business for the five weeks in question. If they’re working a 40 week for the show, I suspect the boss is not going to get normal production at his shop. Five weeks of subnormal production and really tired employees is not trivial at most places.

But to get back to the OP question (in light of facts and preferences stated), sit down with boss and make the point that 50% seems ridiculously high. Ask if he can justify it (i.e., make a reasonable case for such a big portion, beyond simple greed). See if everyone can agree on an acceptable deal.

[DaveBfd]

Thank you for the insight, that is an accurate recap.

Any other opinions that don’t involve legal proceedings or destroying the relationship with the boss? (especially because nothing has happened yet)

[Johnny_L.A]

Anything happen yet?