Yes
Posted By: (sm) on 2009-10-07
In Reply to: Thanks. nm - alm
I did write the post that I provided the link for above. I do not know what happened to the conversation thread that I referred to in that post, but explained a bit of what went on. Basically, I signed a contract with her and agreed to work every other weekend. She was very unclear about scheduling when she hired about four of us at the same time (February of this year), assigning me weekends 1 and 3, with me not knowing whether she meant the 1st and 3rd weekends of each month or the 1st and 3rd weekends after being hired, so I was prepared to work the first weekend after being hired and was actually not scheduled until the next one, which was no big deal. She then did not have any work for me on the weekend that I was scheduled to work, but did not let me know that until the end of the day, saying enjoy, as if I might have an opportunity to enjoy the weekend off when I did not know I had it off until it was too late. I worked for her for about three months, and had called her twice during that time. She seemed nice and we had discussions both times, and I was trying to find out about this overflow she needed help with during the week, of which I was not really getting much and wanted more. Two of the four that she hired when I was hired were gone pretty quickly, for reasons of whic I am unaware. Anyway, I was pretty happy with the work and the amount of work, but there was no regularity to it and I just had to check regularly to see if she was assigning me work, with at first her saying she would e-mail to let us know, then later sending an e-mail stating that we should check the FTP site to see if there was work for us, as she might forget to e-mail and let us know, which was a bit of a pain, but whatever, I needed the work. Now, mind you, I was only scheduled for every other weekend, so when I had an extreme (and I do mean extreme) situation arise in the middle of the week, I called her to let her know what was going on. A sexual predator who was volunteering with the youth group at a very large (10,000+ members) church in our community had targeted my son as his next intended victim, having already victimized at least two boys who my son knows very well. My son had attended the Wednesday night youth meetings at this church a few times, but had only seen this man one time, and not met him face-to-face as the guy worked with the 6th grade group and my son had attended in 8th grade and a few times in 9th, with the last time (the time he saw the guy there) being the last day of the 2008-2009 school year. My son looks young for his age, as do several of his friends, but the friends who were victims were about 2 years younger than my son. I had been monitoring my son's MySpace and had been aware of a girl he was virtual friends with for about a year, and began reading conversations where she was trying to get him to do something with a friend of hers named Antoine, at one point near the end asking my son to add this guy as a friend. Long story long (and short, really -- this was a very bizarre situation, as it was really Antoine posing as this 16-year-old girl the entire time, apparently being quite busy for the year that he stayed in touch with my son but did not attempt to set up any meetings), we had to work with the police for about a week, keeping him going on MySpace so as to not let him know that we were on to him. I was told by the detective working the case that the worst case scenario would be that they pick him up at the top of my neighborhood at the meeting we set up with him that Friday night, but they were going to try and pick him up before then, because we had already provided them with the evidence they needed to make an arrest. The problem was that they could not find him. One of the officers involved in the case (the one who eventually pulled him out of the truck that Friday night) attended the church where this guy volunteered (the church also being 'friends of the department,' with handling situations of fallen officers, etc.), and he said that he had not seen Antoine at church in about a month and a half, plus he (Antoine) apparently had a few different vehicles that he drove.
I know this is really long, and perhaps I just need to get some of this off of my chest, but back to Debbie. I called her and informed her of the situation, and she seemed understanding at first. I was not scheduled to work during the week, but she had one Transcriptionist who had some sort of tooth difficulty, and also Debbie herself had a family member who was having a medical situation, and she asked if I could still help out. I said that I would try to still help, and, in fact, did continue working. Some of the files were later than I would have wanted them to be, but that was not why she 'let me go.' When I began working for her, I made up a color-coded chart showing the weekends that I was scheduled to work and which ones I was off. I was scheduled to work the weekend after the Friday night arrest, and I did, in fact, work that weekend. My MIL's B-day was the day of the arrest, and we had already put off having her over for dinner until the next week because I was scheduled to work that weekend. Debbie later tried to say that I was scheduled to work the following weekend, and I had already told her that my sister was coming to help me care for my family during the week, so she claimed that I was wrong and that I was scheduled to work on the weekend that I was not. She refused to review the color-coded chart, or any of the e-mails (her e-mails to me) that I sent her showing proof of the weekends that I had worked, claiming that I myself had WRITTEN that I was unstable, which could not be further from the truth. Stressed to the max after quite literally saving my son's a$$, yes, but not unstable. Needing some family time after bringing this guy down -- they would not have him behind bars without us -- yes. BUT, I had my color-coded chart and my e-mail proofs, and Debbie stated to me on more than one occasion that she has a condition that makes her scatter-brained and forgetful, and she is the one who was wrong about scheduling. I let her know that I would be available for my next scheduled shift and confirmed the date, once again, for her. She accused me of breaking our contract, which states that she can cut in half the amount of the final pay of anyone who quits without any notice. Since my final paycheck would not have been much anyway, that did not satisfy her and she wound up cutting my final two paychecks in half. Therefore, it is my belief that she is both legally and morally wrong in this situation; I simply do not have the money to go to Sacramento to fight her on this. I did not quit and was quite willing and prepared to work my next scheduled shift, so I most certainly did not break the contract.
Once again, I apologize for this being so long, but I do feel better after typing this out. It has been almost four months since this happened, and this is the 2nd time I have seen her advertise for the position since that time, so draw your own conclusions from that, as well. Not to mention that I had seen her advertise for it a few months prior to the time that I answered the ad.
Disclaimer: I do still have e-mail proof of everything I have stated in this post, applying to both the work situation and the personal situation.
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