I’m sorry sir but you are an idiot to keep showing up for work 6-months with out getting paid. You’re either completely crazy and showing up to an empty office or your one hell of a loyal bastard.
This guy works for his wife, NO WAY someone works 6 months for no pay and can come home to their wife and tell them that unless they work for their wife
Believe me, I know it’s “insanely ridiculous” because I’ve been living it. I show up because: I’m loyal to my co-workers, I enjoy a lot of what I do, I believe I am accruing a legal receiveable against a firm that has the means to pay it and I think being employed will make it easier for me to find a job than if I quit and were unemployed.
I could sue before I leave. This is interesting because it would create an additional potential reason to sue if they fire me because I sued for unpaid wages.
Some days I think I’m a push over, other days I think I’m ruthlessly logical for being able to tolerate this BS knowing that this is accidental generousity on their part since they’ll have to pay me backwages and liquidating damages (“double damages”). The condition here though is I have to continue working. If I just started staying home I wouldn’t have much of a case to collect wages and liquidating damages.
Should I just initiate the lawsuit while I’m still at work?
I attended an Ivy league college and graduate school so I’m not an idiot. I’m not crazy, I’m not showing up to an empty office and I’m probably only more loyal than average. As hard to believe as my story sounds, it’s true. I have a hard time believing that others would really quit before they find another job. Maybe they would just stay home until they were paid, but I don’t think people would quit outright.
My cash flow situation is a major nuisance too. I am asset rich but much of my excess equity is tied up in real estate and I cannot refinance or take out a home equity loan with just my wife’s income.
One thing a little different from others on this board is that I’m probably much older than everyone else. Positions at my level aren’t as easy to come across as they were when I was 22-27. Just takes a lot more networking with contacts and headhunters. One whiff that you’re unemployed and they stop returning your emails/texts. When I was younger and positions were more fungible, I don’t remember unemployment being a huge problem.
The only thing I can do is send my blessings which I have done.
Take your meds Zach.
Hahaha.
“These reports you handed in. It’s almost as if you have no business training at all… I don’t know what this is supposed to be.”
“Well, I’m, just tryin’ to get ahead…”
It’s pretty obvious you are only showing up for your family. I would work hard to get a new job ASAP and take legal action for unpaid wages once you start working elsewhere. It’s silly to be loyal to your coworkers who may be trying to do the same thing behind your back. This is finance afterall, not some arts company. Sooner or later someone will need CF badly and just leave, and you’ll be the one holding the bag. If your coworkers are as good to you as you are to them, no one is going to blame you for leaving to take care of your family.
Make sure you have a paper trail and document the non-responses from mgmt and HR. You’ll need those to stay in Court.
You need contact your State or County’s department of Labor or whatever it’s called where you live. Today!
Everyday you increase your risk of not getting paid. What’s wrong with you?
Do they at least agree that they owe you back pay for the last 6 months, or are they asking you to come in and contribute for free, perhaps with a vague promise that you’ll be rehired/paid again when cash flow gets better? If there is no chance of you getting paid again, then it is pretty crazy for you to keep working for them, except perhaps for the caveat in the next paragraph. If they can’t afford to pay you because of cash flow, then you should be asking for equity (though - assuming this is a startup company with cash flow problems - you are likely to get diluted in the future even if you get equity).
I get that you might want to go in at least to convince yourself that you aren’t lying on a couch all day, and to tell another employer that you are doing things that look work-like, or perhaps you are still covered by a medical insurance plan that you feel you can’t afford to lose, but it does seem crazy to let yourself be exploited by people who are likely to keep riding your gravy train while they can. If they can get you to work for free, the only way they ever have an incentive to start paying you again is if you are able to provide something unique that no other person can provide and your disappearance will be a problem. That’s hard to do, but the only situation where it sounds like they have an incentive to start paying you.
At the very least, you should reduce your hours and take time to 1) look for a paying job, and 2) enjoy time with yourself and/or your family.
I would make sure you are working teh bare minimum. Defn don’t go over 40 hours a week at the very least.
what a sucker
Thanks. Good point about the loyalty.
I have cut back on my hours. I used to work 50-70 hours per week when I was getting paid and now it’s more like 40 hours and I take a 1.5 hour break during the day to train for the NYC marathon. Running’s been an awesome way to cut the stress. This isn’t a start-up. It’s a mature company with a decent sized head count. They’ve shown such blatent disregard for the law that I’m certain I will get paid, I’m just hoping they’ll do it the regular way and not through FINRA arbitration where we agree to pay for our own legal fees. In another life I was a corporate lawyer and I learned prolonged discovery is an easy way for defendents to increase the pain for the plaintiff. Employers defend themselves within in-house salaried counsel and we pay our lawyers per hour.
Interesting thing is that these labor agencies don’t actually have any enforcement capabilities. So it might make sense to go through this channel, but if they can’t enforce the ruling and I’m subject to FINRA arbitration anyways, it might be more hassle than it’s worth to go through the department of labor.
Based on all the legal advice I’ve received, nobody has said anything to the effect that “everyday you increase your risk of not getting paid” in large part because they didn’t pay me a new reduced salary, they decided not to pay me at all. It violates Federal minimum wage requirements and my state wage laws. But there is a time limit on claims, so that does come into play, but it’s either within the time limit or outside of the time limit. There’s nothing that causes each day to increase my risk of not getting paid.
I can’t imagine the OPs situation, probably partly because I barely want to show up as is and I do get paid every 2 weeks.
No one this naive and stupid would make it in finance. This fake afer is a trolling joke and not even good at it.
Let me be the first one to motion for Blake to be unbanned. He was like the Chuck Norris of trolling.
yo OP, your story never happened. Take your meds Zach.
If you’ve had experience in FINRA arbitration or have a lawyer referral, please PM me. I work in NYC but the company is HQ’d in Chicago.
Wow, this is unbelievable.
Although I had the opposite once – I quit and they paid me for months. Likely my space-case former-boss never got around to filling out the paperwork saying I quit, this sort of thing was why I quit. Not my problem, kept it.
Unlike everyone else on this thread I would actually do what you are doing, with the exception of perhaps starting to talk to lawyers much sooner, in order to establish the absolute validity of your claim at the very least. Perhaps you can share the costs with your colleagues?
Merely leaving leaves you with no potential upside and you nix whatever (miniscule) chance there is of the situation actually working itself out.
The major risk you are running is that in fact your receivable is not enforcable for whatever legal reason. Then the last 6 months would be a huge net loss to you, not just in terms of wasted hours but also in terms of job hunting opportunities.