Back To Normal

Well it is a new year and a new day and everything should be back to normal. This can only mean one thing!

Time to pick up arms and resume the battle with the County. See, right before the holiday madness kicked into overdrive I got a letter from the County saying I owe them money. Like $350 or something like that. They claim that I was "over paid" or some such thing.

I can assure everyone - I was not over paid! It is not like I was getting hundreds of dollars per hour or anything. Here is what I think went down.

When I took my cruise I also took a day off the week before the cruise to chill in my boat. The cruise left on a Thursday and returned on a Monday. I had Sunday and Monday off. Therefore according to my calculations I took 4 days off that pay period. I noted this as such on my time record sheet.

The software used to keep track of all this took a crap. When I got my pay stub I noticed that no vacation hours were subtracted from my balance. So I bring it to the attention of the person who inputs all that shit in the computer. Apparently, it was not an isolated malfunction.

But wait! There is more! I had 20 some odd hours of overtime from the pay period BEFORE the cruise that I was never paid for! The computer system that was supposed to make life easy turned out to be a cosmic abortion of epic proportions.

So I send an email explaining about the unpaid overtime and that my vacation bank should be deducted 4 days. No big deal. I had used that time anyway. It was the truth. And it would not cost me squat because all they had to do was remove some hours from my vacation bank. Painless.

But then came the budget cuts. My position dried up and I had to leave. Here is where it really gets good!

1. I had 54 hours of sick time in the bank because I was a good minion and never called in sick. I LOST all that time. I did not have enough advance notice before the cut to take even one "sick" day like most people would have done. There was stuff I had to do. That is a full week plus one day and 6 hours of potential "not go to work and still get paid" time I lost.

2. I was never paid that OT! Still waiting on that.

3. When my vacation time was cashed out, those 4 days were never deducted from the balance. I was paid for them. The error I had nothing to do with was never corrected.

So now I owe for those days. I guess. But the days do not add up. My pay scale was a little more than $350 for 4 days work. So something screwy is going on here, I just do not know what. The letter they sent me is just a jumble of numbers without any notation of what the numbers are for. Is it overtime pay? Regular pay? what is this $105 for? How about this deduction of $90? No matter what numbers I pick to add and subtract, I can not arrive at the disputed amount. I am not a math genius here but I know how to push buttons on a calculator.

So I have to go downtown and figure out what the hell is going on. I may owe money but at this point I do not care. Let them try to get it. It was shitty to end funding for my position with only one week notice. They were the ones to screw up my vacation time thing. Did you remember to subtract ALL the overtime I was never paid for? And how about those 54 hours of sick time STOLEN from me huh? Oh yea forget all about those things and concentrate of this mythical $350. Ill concentrate on writing that check, one of these days. When I feel like it. I mean I have to find a ball point pen that writes, then I have to find the checkbook I never use because of this wonderful thing called ELECTRONIC BILL PAYMENT. Who the hell sends off checks anymore? I just set my electronic bill payment up to transfer the funds hours before the grace period is over. Checks??? What kind of stone age crap is that?

Today, I shall "forget" to bring any checks, credit cards, cash, or whatever. Totally by accident of course. I be po, so what $350? I got to pay for stuff you know. My pimpin life style is at stake here! Am I to sell my spinner rims or something? I do not think so.

I could just do the easy thing and pay. But I think this will be more fun. I am going to make someone actually do something. Like research the over time claim. It is on record somewhere. And if it ends up in court? Bring it! I will pick out my "peers" and we will go toe to toe. Ill be all like "this is just another case of THE MAN (pointing at the County attorney) trying to bust the balls of honest working people. Now I may be all white and pasty like THE MAN over there - but do not let looks fool you! Slavery is working and not getting paid right? Well where is that overtime I was never paid for? THE MAN will tell you I am not owed for it. Well I say to THE MAN over there that Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation ENDED all that garbage over 100 years ago! Mr. MAN over there with your brief case and shit - it is OVER! The South LOST that war! Get with the times already!"

Yea. Lets see THAT on Court TV. Nancy Grace can sit and spin. Who needs law school when you can just make it a case of THE MAN vs some working slob.