Thanks to anyone who's returned to Intermission despite our diminished output and visual quality these last weeks. While I can assure you there are good reasons for the delays, I can't promise any resolution in the near future. But we'll get to that.
Returning to our original story; the conversation mentioned in my previous post took place around the 2nd week of April. "Gotta increase your billing Lodo. Improve your quality or we cant keep you...at least, not at the same compensation level."
Okay reader. Sure my boss and Jimmy were full of shit, but I was at least prepared to go thru the motions of generating that extra billable hour or two a day; or making that meaningless, cosmetic change to my report's introductory paragraph that seemed to so irk poor Jimmy.
But as April went on, I received no new assignments. I had casework leftover from previous investigations, so I worked those to the bone. Dredged them for any and all possible billable hours I could generate; and to my credit, I still managed to produce close to 40 billable hours a week. Not particularly impressive (on a good day I can generate 12-18 hours), but I worked with what I had.
Eventually April came and went; and it was time for payday. I'd get paid once a month--which is how they do things in Slovakia or when you're a prison employee; but I never complained about it. I knew that was the deal when I accepted the position.
Course I assumed that Barry would actually pay me on the 1st of each month; but instead he'd always wait until the last possible moment. Stretch it out. I never actually received a check until the first Friday of the month--after 2:00, so it'd take another weekend to clear.
The first Friday of May 2011 was May 6th. That's when I got my check for April. Keep in mind reader, I'd gone a whole month without being paid; plus had to lay-out the various expenses associated with the day-to-day aspects of my work. So I needed my check.
But when I pulled that envelope from the mailbox and hastily ripped it open, I had to do a double-take. A triple-take. The amount wasn't right. It was short--by close to $1,000.00 gross. What?
I immediately grabbed my phone.
"Barry P____."
"Barry, its Lodo. How ya doing?"
"Good Lodo, what's up?"
"...Well Barry, I just got my paycheck today--May 6th, and,...well, its wrong."
"What d'ya mean, wrong?"
"Well, I mean its wrong. This thing's close to $1,000.00 short. Plus there's no explanation as to what's been taken out--FICA; Social Security; NY taxes, all that stuff. Its...just a check."
"Well I told you Lodo that if you couldn't increase your billing or get your quality up we couldn't keep you at your same compensation level. We had a whole meeting about that."
I had to take a deep breath.
"...Barry--are you kidding me? We said 'if' I couldn't get my billing up or improve my quality. We never said that was a done deal. And we certainly never discussed what that reduced compensation level would be. Or if I would accept it--which I don't."
"You're telling me you won't accept that check?" Barry asked.
"That's exactly what I'm saying. You owe me another $1,000.00 for April. I worked the whole month assuming my salary was $__,____.00. You can't just arbitrarily decide to change my salary halfway thru the month. This is a a really low-brow move. I'm really upse..."
"Lodo we told you that you're not billing enough to justify your salary."
"Well then we need to discuss what my new salary would be. Its not for you to just come up with a number on your own halfway thru the month. Plus, you didn't give me any new assignments--so how could I increase my billing?"
"Well we couldn't give you any new assignments Lodo 'cause your quality's been so poor. So we had to re-assign the cases you'd usually get. That's another reason why I had to reduce your salary--'cause of the quality issues."
I took another deep breath.
"Barry,...how does paying me less money resolve your quality issues? I don't get that association. You'll send your clients crap so long as I'm being paid less? It makes no sense. You either think I'm not good enough and have to let me go; or you just want to pay me less money, which you should just come out and say. But we both know I can't generate more billing without cases. So...you need to decide what you're gonna do."
"...You're really wont accept that check?" Barry asked again, with what seemed genuine surprise.
"Not for a second. You owe me for April and now its May 6th."
I could continue with the rest of the story (I didn't actually get fired 'til June 2nd); but it isn't particularly compelling or even educational in a life-lessons kind of way. The post's not even worthy of a title. I only brought all this up to exhume the negativity from my spirit, and I think I've done that now. So if the new posts are a bit less frequent these summer days. Somewhat lighter in terms of content; you'll know the reason why. Hell you already knew.
I'm on intermission.
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