Nuts

Today we (as in me and my partner) were witnesses of a nut....a real nut, I mean a nut bag.  Yes, not the first time, but it was a bit more than we expected.

A month or so ago it was time for yearly bonus' at my partners job.  She has been working really hard and was counting on a nice bonus, something we could use to pay up on some bills we owe, maybe put some extra money into our son's education plan, and if we were really lucky, go on a modest family vacation (something we haven't done for 4 yrs).  We thought this because when she was hired she was told that bonus' were part of salary if you qualified.  She new she had qualified after working there only 4 months.  She sells insurance and by years end had sold 52% of the total new sales for the office...all by herself.  There were two other sales people in the office and she had blown them out of the water. 

Well, finally the day arrived and it was time to talk turkey.  He had put it off for a month by this time so we were kind of biting at the bit to get our hands on the cash.  Well if he didn't sit her down and offer her a fraction of what the bonus should have been.  We knew, roughly how much he had gotten from the company so we had our eyes on a small portion of it, however what he offered wasn't anything near what we had hoped for.  He asked her if it was okay, and she told him "no, not even slightly" they then went back and forth about what she thought and what he was willing to do, and well to make a long story short by the end of that conversation she knew it was time to go and work somewhere that would appreciate her hard work.  By the end of business day she had an offer on the table, and was going to go meet with the guy who became her new boss after work. 

We were fine with all of it, it didn't make us happy but the fact of the matter is if you don't like how you are treated you have two options. One being stay and take it, don't complain and just keep your head down, or go to where things could be different.  We decided it was best to go.

Even though she had planned on quitting she had decided she was not going to give her notice until she received her bonus check.  The night before she should have received it he called her into his office and told her he had decided that he was going to take away her salary (she works on commission and salary) and that he was going to reduce her commission to 2 points lower than it was currently.  He said that it was because she got so upset about the bonus.  Well she then told him that she was giving him her two weeks notice.  He told her to just consider that day to be her last. 

Her bonus check was supposed to be directly deposited into her account at some point during the night, but when she got up in the morning she had no such deposit.  It was Good Friday of Easter weekend, and since we were all at home off we went to her former bosses office.  When we arrived he claimed to have stopped the payment because he didn't know if she was going to come back and destroy his office or something and wanted to safeguard himself (this coming from a man that only a few weeks before had had such a temper tantrum that he punched two holes into the office wall).  Yes, she was that kind of a threat...she left happily, glad it was over but I guess to him that meant she was going to come back and trash the place.  He paid her what he owed her, and they agreed that he would have her last commission check to her on the 15th of April.

So, yesterday she was supposed to go pick up her check but was unable to make it before end of day so she texted him and let him know she would be by at 9 am this morning to pick up the check.  She arrived at his office at 9 this morning to find him sitting in his car.  She went inside to the office to talk to a friend there, thinking he would be in shortly, well a half hour went by and he still hadn't come in, so she went outside and sat in her car since she was stopping the ladies in the office from doing what they needed to do. 

Finally, a half hour later he gets out of his car and comes over to her and says "how dare you sit there and stare at me"  She explained that she was not staring at him, merely just waiting in her personal vehicle.  He then went on to say that there was no check made up, and that he wouldn't have a check for an hour or two.  Well his office is more than an hour away from her current office so leaving and coming back was not going to happen.  The only thing she  could do was wait until 11 am to get the check.

At 11am she entered the office and asked if he was ready, when he replied that she was not welcome in his office and to get the F*** out.  She then said she would be waiting in the parking lot, and expected the check quickly as he was just unnecessarily holding her up.  She then called the police, who informed her that they could not force him to pay her, but they could happily come over and scare him...and keep her safe all at the same time.  Before they could arrive he came out saying he was only going to pay her 1/2 of what he owed her, and that she also had to sign something saying that she could not sue him for any more, or she could take a check for an even lessor amount which came with no paper to sign.  She then called me, and then called a lawyer just to find out that in the state of Michigan one can take a former employer to court to get monies owing them, but that since it was not thousands upon thousands it would cost her more in legal fees than what he owned her.  His suggestion to her was get as much out of him as she could as there was little chance she would see another penny.  She took the larger of the two checks, signed the waver and left.

Crazy lives in nice houses, running Allstate agencies and look normal.  Crazy isn't always who you think they will be, they can be the ones you least expect.

Crazy seems to always win!