In which Thea foils Wal-Mart's evil plot

The BBQ Pit
1

So, I used to work at Wal-Mart.

I had been having severe back pain for months, to the point where I was missing frightening amounts of both work and school. Wal-Mart has a policy of not transferring an employee who develops physical or health problems that make them unable to do the job they were hired for unless there is a worker’s comp claim, even if, as was the case in my store, the department the employee.

So, I took a leave of absence. While I was on my LOA, I filled in the paperwork to be paid for my “illness protection days”- what Wal-Mart calls sick days. I eventually decided to quit the job. I was going to school to be a massage therapist, and I realized that if I continued to work at Wally World, I would be crippled by the time I finished school, and unable to work in my chosen profession.

But, they still owed me the sick time, since I had put in for it before I turned in my resignation.

I had direct deposit when I worked there, so I figured the money would be deposited directly to my account. When the money did not appear, I went, in person to personnel and asked why I hadn’t gotten it yet. I can’t remember how the conversation went, being four months ago, but the upshot was I didn’t get a straight answer.

Wednesday, a check arrived by certified mail. My mom signed for it. Yep, it was my sick pay. She magnetted it to the fridge before leaving for work.

Here’s the kicker, though. Wal-Mart’s checks have “void if not cashed within 90 days” printed on them. The check was dated 2-12-04. It arrived on 5-12-04. On the 90th day after it was issued.

If my mom hadn’t happened to be home when the check arrived, I would not have gotten it until at least Thursday.

If I had gotten home after school a few hours later than I did (I do sometimes run errands on the way home, and since I take the bus, it takes for freaking ever to get anywhere), I might not have arrived home in time to get to my bank and cash the check- my bank closes at 4:00 on Monday thru Thursday. I guess that’s the trade off for excellent customer service, no amusement-park feeder lines for the teller windows, they give you coffee and cookies, and they have comfy chairs to sit in at the teller’s desk while you do your transaction. My mom sometimes just goes for the coffee and cookies.

But I digress. If for some reason I had been unable to cash that check on the very day I got it (deposits take 24 hours to process, which would have rendered the check void) I would not have been able to get the money. I would have had to move Heaven and Earth, and maybe a few alternate universes, to get them to cut me a new one.

They sat on that check for 90 days. I had direct deposit, so there was no reason why they should not have deposited the money into my bank account. Barring that, there was no reason to not mail me the check the day or the week it was cut. I was no longer employed at Wal-Mart, and most companies I have worked for simply mail the final check to a former employee. And there was sure the hell no reason to wait until the 89th day to send it certified mail, with the high liklihood that there would have been nobody home to receive the check.

Except that…

they really didn’t want to give me the money.

So, they could go through the motions of sending me a check, with the odds being pretty high that I would have been unable to cash it before the deadline, and hope that I would not be willing to go through the hassle involved in getting them to cut a new one.

But…

I cashed the check.

I got my money.

Your plan failed, Rob Walton.

You actually had to pay me what you owed me.

I feel good about that.

2

Who’s Rob? Is he the … er, son of Sam? Or were you making a pun on Rob Roy, the dude that Liam Neeson played in that movie?

3

The first thing you said.

4

I never got all my money from a job I got fired from a few years ago.

I had made my monthly sales quota the month before and got fired a week before I was to get my bonus check.

When my final check came, it only had the hours I had worked. No bonus, no shift premium. When I called my ex-supervisor he just laughed and said, “No, you’re not getting that” and hung up.

5

Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity. It is very likely that it sat on some lazy ass’s desk for a while. Or got stuck at the post office.

Did you happen to see the post mark?

Regardless, the check going ‘void’ doesn’t release them from their obligation of paying you. And I doubt anyone would just throw thier hands up and not go after what’s theirs. So the check going void only hurts them, in terms of them having to go through the process all over again.

BTW, I believe only checks processed in the regular pay cycle go through direct deposit. Closing checks and severence checks are usually live checks.

6

If the money involved was in any way significant, your next call should have been to a lawyer.

7

It was sent Certified Mail.

Haj

8

Very true. Checks that fall outside of normal payroll processing do not get paid via direct deposit.

Empoyment agreements usually have a "must be employed x amount of time past the end of (whatever time period they use - quarter, month, etc) in order to receive payment clause. Also termination (especially being fired) usually negates any additional incentive pay. Odinoneeye should check his/her agreement to see if any such clause was in effect.

9

True, but there might also be state law limiting the applicability of those clauses, or construing them in a way that still leads to a favorable result. Which is why consultation with a lawyer is the best course.

In any event, Odinoneeye said this was several years ago, so there’s a pretty good chance that the statute of limitations has run on any claim she might have. Though again, this is something to ask a lawyer licensed in the state where you worked.

10

Have you been so lucky in your life that you have never coming up against bureaucracy? Yes, they would still owe Thea the money, and yes, she would probably get another cheque from them eventually, but it would probably take her multiple phone calls, being transferred from pillar to post, and months of waiting to get the next cheque. The people that Thea would have to fight with to get the cheque don’t care; they’re at work, and they’re getting paid regardless. It is much more hassle for Thea to try to get another cheque out of them than it is for them.

11

This is not true in all cases. My employer direct-deposits my bonuses, which I expected, but it also direct-deposits my tuition reimbursement, which I did not expect. Next time, use “usually” or “in most cases”, and I won’t be able to nitpick you.

12

There’s always exceptions…
However, while still employed bonuses and expense reimbursements are USUALLY processed along with the payroll. Once you cross over into former employee status, the process is USUALLY different. :stuck_out_tongue:

13

And how would that profit the company or it’s employees charged with the task?

This is what I disagree with. Paying what I’m sure to them is a pittance would be much less of a hassle than trying to fuck with one employee and just possibly run afoul with state authorities and pay staff to handle what would probably be a hundred phone calls, and almost certainly have to pay it out anyway. Not to mention the fact that it would be a discrepency in their book keeping and AP staffs hate that kind of shit. In your scenario, walmart would have spent much more to screw Thea than** Thea** was owed.

From Walmart’s company perspective, it has to be much easier to pay it out. So, I doubt that Walmart’s intent was to screw Thea. It is much more likely that a staffer simply dropped the ball on his/her duty

Not malice, but stupidity. That’s all I’m saying.

14

Actually, spooje, Wal-Mart is an extremely petty company when it comes to financial matters. The AP or other financial employees are going to get their wage or salary no matter what, so it really isn’t any skin off their teeth financially to transfer an employee, explain to them why we can’t cut you a new check, it’s your own fault that we didn’t send it to you in a timely manner. Yes, they would go through all that to save a pittance. Multiply my pittance by several thousands of other former employees’ pittances, and you’re talking some serious coffee money, just from the interest of that money sitting in the bank.

And, yes, I do think Wal-Mart would consider it worth the hassle to save what in their eyes would be coffee money. We’re talking about a company that keeps intensely tight track of employee hours and goes to great lengths to keep from paying overtime. So, if an employee gets caught having to wait on that one last customer a few times during the course of a pay period, at some point, that employee will be required to take a long lunch or go home early so the company won’t have to pay fifteen minutes or a half-hour of overtime. A store that made a million dollars a month in profit (they like to brag about the figures) went to some pretty extreme lengths to avoid paying out a few hundred bucks to employees who were concientious enough to not give a customer the brush-off at the end of their shifts.

Yeah, they’d try to hold onto the money they owed me for as long as they possibly could, just so they could get the equivalent of an hour’s worth of my wages in bank interest.

15

I have also worked for an Evil Corporate Whore of Satan, and companies with a toxic environment will cut off their nose to spite their face, or act in “penny wise, pound foolish” ways, just so that they can pat themselves on the back about how cunning they are.

For example: keeping all employees part-time to avoid paying benefits, which means having a roundly undertrained staff, which leads to poor customer service, which leads to losing business due to dissatisfaction and bad word of mouth.

Just because it doesn’t “make sense” in the long term, doesn’t mean an Evil Corporate Whore of Satan won’t do it. Big Business doesn’t care about sustainability.

16

This is what I get for living with an economist.

A belief that companies will act in a rational manner.

[Stewie]
BLAST!!
[/Stewie]

17

This reminds me much of the issue with that guy that deposited a promotional check for something like $500,000. Anybody have a link? Sorry for the hijack but it’s relatively pertinent at least.

18

This guy. $95k and change. A good read.

19

State law can definitely control. In this state, employers are required to pay you for all earned vacation and sick pay within three days after you stop working for them. It’s one of the few sane labor laws in Louisiana, the otherwise employer-friendly state.

Although I’m sure Wally World has found some way around this one, too, knowing them.

20

They probably have. Alberta law also requires employers to pay up with employees in a timely fashion, but there’s no teeth to the law - if your employer just doesn’t pay you, you must send them a registered letter demanding your money, wait fourteen business days, go to the Alberta Labour Board and register your complaint, et freakin’ cetera. You will (probably) get your money eventually, but no guarantee. Companies continue to do this because there aren’t many consequences for them.

I see why we were on different pages, spooje, if you were expecting companies to behave rationally. They just don’t seem to - it has never made sense to me, but it seems to be business as usual to save pennies in the short term and not notice the dollars they’re wasting in the long term.