> I didn't get paid
Wait, you didn't get paid for the time you had been their? I'm pretty sure that is a violation of labor law, at least in any state in the US.
Wait, you didn't get paid for the time you had been their? I'm pretty sure that is a violation of labor law, at least in any state in the US.
In California, at least, enforcement is vigorous. Once a client tried to stiff me on a couple months' wages on the grounds that they didn't have the money. I paid a lawyer to write them a short note, in which he explained the 7 kinds of hell that would rain down upon from the state government, and that by law wages come before pretty much any other claims on whatever assets they had. A check for the full amount was promptly overnighted to me and that was the end of it.
I found out the hard way that Colorado law doesn't protect you at all. Even better, if you sue to get your back pay you can't recover the legal costs even if you win.
It's vigorous in Virginia as well: the state has a unit with totally humorless employees who've heard it all and are highly motivated and competent at helping you squeeze your back wages out of your deadbeat ex-employer. Or so was my experience in 1997 which I and 12 or so other employees of a startup resigned one day due to devil investors.
Others have noted sqldba might have been a contractor, but it sure sounds like he was being treated as an employee. That can be addressed by reporting it to the IRS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misclassification_of_employees...
I'm glad you did though! That's how it should be. :)
State enforcement doesn't seem to be involved in your case -- you went self-service with a direct lawsuit in court.
If you want State enforcement, you file a wage claim with the Department of Industrial Relations, Division of Labor Standards Enforcement.
In this case though (when I followed up with accounting) they confirmed they wanted to step on my neck.
Even now the entire situation seems utterly surreal. I've been through a few companies since then and never had any problem, I'm the likeable hard working quiet person. I guess they just really didn't like me!
Anyway I remember walking out of that office in tears and feeling that no matter what happened I could cling onto whatever self worth I still had. I didn't know how bad it was about to become. But I came out okay in the end :-)
They would probably fire you immediately anyway and you would get paid.
You have misstated the law. If you sign an employment contract that requires two weeks notice from either party to terminate, then you work a week and quit without working the two week notice period your employer is not required to pay you for the notice period, they absolutely must pay you for the week you did work. Similarly if an employer tells you not to work the notice period they are still obliged to pay you for it.
I understand your confusion as the wording the clauses about withholding pay on notices is somewhat unclear and takes a pretty close reading to understand
Anyway, I found out later by searching public records that this company had been sued in small claims a number of times and lost just that year. The moral of the story is to look up future potential employers' court records like you'd do a background check on a potential girl/boyfriend. Wait people don't do that to potential girl/boyfriends?