I have determined what is wrong with my company. Nobody gives a crap about anybody else. What ought to be an exercise in proper management technique and hell, human freaking kindness, always turns out to be fighting for your rights against them. Sadly, I must use the general term them as the enemy, and sadly those who are supposed to help at work become enemies when they do nothing but fight for those attempting to deprive you of your rights, tends to change based on the situation at hand.

Currently, them is payroll for me. On my most recent check, I was supposed to be paid 80 hours at regular pay and about 27 at overtime. What I was actually paid was 72 hours at regular pay and 22 at overtime, I have the paystub to prove it. I also have the timecard spreadsheet that my manager prints every two weeks that lists how many hours the company thinks it should pay us for the current pay period. I informed my manager of the discrepancy after work on Friday (yesterday). As can be seen, I stated the issue clearly and succinctly. I stated where my claim can be verified and I think that I used the proper channel to have my issue cleared up. Below is the email I sent my manager about the pay problem. (I have changed all of the names to protect the innocent and those I believe to be guilty. Manager acts as though she is there to help the employees, I see it otherwise.)

(Manager),

My paycheck isn't right. It was supposed to be 80 hrs regular time and 27.5 hrs overtime according to your timecard spreadsheet and my paycheck was only for 72.75 hrs regular and 22.75 hrs OT.

Her reply was as follows.

I don't know- make a copy of your paycheck stub and leave it in my mailbox- I will look at it monday. Payroll isn't in till then to fix anything till then anyway.

I replied that I would leave a copy of my paystub and thanked her for the trouble. I was not able to leave a copy as I had already left the station when I replied to the original email, and I figured that it did not matter anyways because she was not going to be able to do anything about that evening anyways. A little later on in the evening, I received another email from (Manager).

I just looked at it- you have the correct amount.... 107.5 hours. You traded with T.

How could she have possibly checked what I got paid for without looking at my paystub? She may have been able to check what she submitted to corporate to pay me, but she surely could not have psychically looked at my paystub and seen that it was for the correct number of hours. My first clue that I was not paid correctly was when I looked at the regular hour column and it listed a number below 80. I had overtime both weeks that this check was for, hell I have overtime nearly every week. If I had overtime for both weeks, I would have had to work exactly 80 regular hours prior to beginning to work overtime for the weeks. That is how overtime works. Then I checked my stub against the timecard printout. The overtime was incorrect as well. The 107.5 hours that she quoted me was from her timecard printout, the same one that I told her was correct, not from my check, that I told her was incorrect. My check adds up to 90-some hours, there is a 13 hour deficit between the two. At my current pay rate, it is not alot of money, but based on the amount of time I spend on the ambulance and how little I make, it is ALOT of money. Instead of waiting to look at the paystub to see if the two numbers match, (Manager) decided to stick with the company and say that I am wrong. She has a habit of that. When I was a manager, if an employee came to me with an issue, I would listen to their argument and take what I knew of company policy to resolve the issue. None of that was done in this instance, and everybody in the company seems to have a similar problem. Instead of resolving issues, they blame stuff on other departments, on other people, on our oft-used they. I do not want to have to go through a whole run around to get the pay that I rightly deserve. I want my manager to do it for me because that is her job as manager. She does not do much else as manager. I want her to get me the rest of my pay.

I had a pay issue with my company previously, (Manager) alludes to it in her final email when she says that I traded with T. The company, or rather I think (Manager) does but she claims it is a company-wide policy, has this policy called Trade Time. The idea is that they do not want to pay overtime to the worthless sloths on the ambulances. I do not blame them, many of the sloths are not worth the $9 and change they do pay them. Not paying overtime to employees is illegal, unless those employees are exempt because they are management or salaried or for a few other reasons. I know it is, I looked up lots of labor law when I first came upon this issue with the company. We hourly sloths on the ambulances do not fit into any of the exempt categories. In order that they do not pay us the overtime that we have rightly earned, they have us trade time with another employee when we need to take a shift off that we are scheduled to work or are taking a vacation out of the country even though the vacation time was not approved by management (or risk getting fired because a single no call no show is a voluntary termination to my company). I told T that I would take 3 shifts for him on the week of July 6 through July 12. I worked each and every shift that I told him I would work. I clocked in using my name and I ran alot of calls that week. My call volume for the shifts that I worked for him was probably in the vicinity of 18 or so, those were busy days. When the week was over, (Manager) changed the timecards so that T was paid for those three shifts and I was not. T is now supposed to work 36 hours so that I can get paid for the time that I have already worked. If T decides not to work for me or he gets sent home early or he gets fired or anything happens, I worked for a private for-profit company as a volunteer. I worked as a slave. What really gets me about this entire situation is that when I go to (Manager) and tell her that the policy is illegal and immoral and downright nasty, she tells me no, it is legal and I cannot do anything about it. I mention that I am going to talk to the Illinois Department of Labor about what they are doing, (Manager) talks to her boss and they pay me last time for the hours that they screwed me on.

I am holding on to the evidence about the 36 hours that I have yet to be paid for and will be consulting the Department of Labor if the situation is not satisfactorily resolved by the time that I get a new job. Every time that (Manager) tells me that the policy is legal, I think back to our favorite exploiter of the worker, Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart was sued for essentially doing the exact same thing, many times. Several times, Wal-Mart decided to settle, several times, Wal-Mart took the case to verdict and lost. Wal-Mart was in the wrong, my company is in the wrong. (Manager) tells me that it is legal to exploit the common worker because municipal fire departments have the same policy. I do not know for sure that the municipals do or do not have that policy. What I do know is that firefighters start around $40,000 per year plus overtime, have vacation and sick time, have a pension plan, have good health insurance and have a good 401(k) plan. I have none of the above. I have worked for the company for two years and have earned a total of 140 hours of vacation time, 3 units (whatever unit they are counted in) of sick time, no company match on my 401(k), and the only way I was almost able to hit $30,000 last year was to work 1000 hours overtime. If I wanted to make $40,0000, I would have to work nearly 2000 overtime hours. That would mean that I would have to work over 78 hours per week. I would never leave the ambulance. And a final point that (Manager) neglects to see is that municipal fire departments are a division of the city, an essentially not for profit entity. I work for a private corporation that is solely there to make a profit. If I made $40,000, I would not complain. If I was treated well, I would no complain. If anybody who claimed to give a shit about me at the company actually showed that they gave a shit that I make the company a wheelbarrow full of money every week (I am the second highest volume employee at my station), I would not complain.