Wednesday, September 14, 2011

These are the Jerk Business Owners That Give Business a Bad Name

I'm upset.

I almost injured myself from upset. I was cutting up a green pepper while making some chili and my wife told me something her employee's old boss did that made me SO ANGRY I nearly slammed the knife down right where my other hand was. Damn I'm upset. How on EARTH can people be such assholes and not even flinch, not even have second thoughts.

For the sake of privacy, we'll call the employee "B".

Quick summary: My wife just watched as B's previous employer and staffing agency conspired openly to cheat B out of her last week of pay with a wink and a nod.

PISSED ME OFF.

Okay...and let's just get this out, this woman is AWESOME. Holy shit. She's in her mid 20s, works her ASS off, smart as a whip, nice, respectful, thoughtful, doesn't take shit and picks up slack. AWESOME. If she wasn't living in a city with nearly 12% unemployment and few job prospects she'd be some friggin' director of something or other by now. But being part of "The Lost Generation" in a high unemployment town during the Great Recession...as far as we can tell she's been treated like human filth by most of her employers up 'till now.

My wife considers herself LUCKY to have found B, because B has literally paid for herself and made that business hum like a Frank Sinatra tune, free'd up my wife's time to get more done...

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1. Last week after much agonizing about it, FINALLY...FINALLY...my wife decided to take the leap and offer B full time. She agonized over it because she didn't want to offer full time and not be able to maintain it.

Now I want to make something absolutely clear...my wife is pretty egalitarian in how she pays people. She's not taking home much more than B is at this point. And hiring on a new person full time was a bit of a leap of faith.

But she did it.

Why?

Because B is THAT AWESOME. Everybody likes her. My wife didn't want to lose her to another biz, and jumpin' geebus on a pogo stick, B freakin' deserves it. She DESERVES a better work experience where she's not treated like shit, especially after years of being under the thumb of a verbally abusive employer who wasn't even her employer since she technically worked for a staffing agency.

She worked for that jackass for years, part time for minimum wage through a staffing agency and was expected to take work home, and work late...did I say PART TIME? She was just PAID part time. She worked her butt off for that guy. Begged for full time for years...but nooooooo...


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2. After my wife offered her full time, she put in her two weeks with Mr. Asshole Incorporated and he tried to keep her working there for free, training the new person even after her two weeks were up. And when that didn't work....he called the staffing agency she worked for. The staffing agency he had hired her from.


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3. B's boss told B's staffing agency not to bother paying her for the final week...he wanted the honor of doing that himself.

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4. The staffing agency called B up and told her they wouldn't be paying her. They told her that their client, her boss, would be paying her.

Never. Gonna. Happen.

.................it was just two businesses having an agreement to mutually fuck over some random worker for a pittance. A PITTANCE. Maybe a hundred bucks. An amount that means NOTHING to them. But it means EVERYTHING to the employee. Groceries, gas...

Shit...you know, UltraConservatives should be pissed at these guys, because THESE are the fuckers who give Business Owners a bad name. These are the fuckers who unrepentantly piss on employees and treat them like chattle and give a bad name to entrepreneurs and bosses in general.

Pissed off about regulation? Blame assholes like this who will sleep soundly without any remourse or second thoughts for twisting the knife into the back of a young, industrious worker for nothing. For NOTHING. Just to be a jackwad. Hell...they'll probably sleep BETTER after having ripped one of their workers off.

How the Hell do you DO that?

How the Hell do you cavalierly screw over another human being like that when you have NO NEED to. When there's no gain in it other than sport?

This dude owns several businesses in town and he simply can't help himself from crapping on people, joyfully lording over them the fact that they either work twice the hours under his cruel ways for part time wages, or they're tossed out and another young man or woman, easily taken advantage of, comes along.

5 comments:

Cathleen said...

Complain to the state labor board. I'm not sure which department Snyder may have moved that to - but there is somewhere to register a claim.

And make sure she rats them BOTH out. Sounds very illegal, what they did there.

Needs to be on record, because where there is one, there are likely to be others. I'm guessing this is a trick they pull on a lot of employees, and the state needs to know about it.

Muskegon Critic said...

Definitely.

It makes me crazy, the conscienceless ease with which some of these people screw their employees over, and the general lack of consequences.

missinmichigan said...

Would love to know what business that was so we could all boycott it. Keep up the fight, Muskegon man.

missinmichigan said...

Give em Hell Muskegon!

Muskegon Critic said...

I'd love nothing better than to expose this guy...but so far I'm putting it on hold until I get permission from the person in question.