Help!! Quick hire/fire sitch, employer not paying up!

(Disclaimer: Is IMHO the place for advice?)

So anyhow, here’s my story of woe:

I’ ve been less than fully employed for a bit now. In the first half of September, I saw a short, vague classified in my field and emailed my resume. Then, on Friday, Oct 3, I finally hear back from the company. Turns out it’s a one-man operation run out of this guy’s garage in LA, and he hires independent contractors as needed. He wants me to be his guy in NorCal. By the end of our phone conversation, he’s practically hired me on as an employee, and I’m going to fly down for 3 days of training the next week Tuesday.

So I get there, do a bit of the training he talked about- he was a little too scattered to get in all that he had planned, but we’ll be talking about an hour a day to get me up to speed. I’m going to be a full-time employee on payroll, and payday would be the 17th. I returned to the SF area Thursday the 9th, do a job on Friday, sit around on Monday and Tuesday waiting for equipment to arrive UPS (he didn’t have anything for me to do), and do another job on Wednesday the 15th. That afternoon, he decides that he’ll be to busy to train me over the phone an hour a day, so it isn’t going to work out, and basically fires me. I am finally able to get my expense report (I wound up spending about $40 out of pocket, plus another $60 in mileage on my car) and timecard to him the 16th, and ship the equipment back to him the next day. He says he’ll get me one check for everything and just 1099 it (as in he never put me on the payroll), when he stuff gets back to him.

So the stuff gets to him on the 21st, and I called on the 23rd to see if he received it and if he was sending out a check. Well, he can’t because he doesn’t have my receipts. So I call on the 27th to see if those arrived, and they did, so he’ll send a check that week (since it’s also payday the 31st for his pt assistant). He also says I’m being pushy. Check never arrives, and I’m feeling the heat from all of my bills. I email on the 10th, saying that I’ll go to the labor comission to figure out the regulations and report any violations if need be. He comes back with I was never put on payroll, and he’ll 1099 me, but that he pays all his contractors net 30 days, and if I want to get paid, I should back off, but if I want to play hardball, we can take it to court, we’ll see what the judge thinks about you wasting me time and money, yada yada.

So to sum up, he flies me down to LA last minute ($200?) puts me up in the Holiday Inn for 3 nights (at a rack rate of $200) ships stuff up to me, and back to LA ($200), for a total of about a grand, then changes his mind about hiring me (partly because I go to a chiropractor and didn’t want me to file a worker’s comp claim against him), and thinks I wasted his time/money. True, I wasn’t A-one on the job for the 2 days I worked on my own for him, but most of that was equipment/inexperience problems.

I hope that made a bit of sense- I wasn’t sure if being vague on specifics was necesarry or not- I doubt he’ll find this. I’m a little emotional about the whole thing. Am I getting totally dicked here or what?

He says he’ll pay you in 30 days? Great. On day 31, if the check isn’t there, file suit in small claims court.

There are pricks like this everywhere. Unfortunately you ran into one. IANAL, Laws vary from state to state, but if he does business in your county, you may not have to travel down to his to file. Something to consider if it comes to that.

Good God Man!! File suit now Dave!! You need the money to pay your bills! I had this happen when I consulted for a yearling architecture firm…they finally paid up but it took 2 months and a call from my lawyer.

Maybe I wasn’t clear- he paid for the trip to LA. The check would be for about $800, maybe not enough to get a lawyer.

Small Claims court … now.
So, what, he’s gonna like you less if you file in Small Claims?
My suspicion is that, since he hired you to work where you live, you can file with small claims where you live.
IMHO, he is not planning to pay you, ever.