New Year's Eve was fun. I'm staying with friends I haven't seen in a while in New York and will be returning to LA on Sunday, but sadly not all is right with the world in the dawn of '09.
I started my current job in February of '08. When I was hired, I signed an employment agreement which stated that I was to receive a "year end performance based bonus." This bonus is meant range from about 1-3 month's salary in amount. When you're a broke Hollywood assistant, this is huge. The agreement also stated that I was to receive this bonus no later that December 20th.
Well, it's been two weeks since December 20th, and I haven't seen a dime. I emailed my bosses about it days ago, but haven't heard jack shit from them. I don't want to pester them about it, because that would just make them arbitrarily decide that my "job performance" wasn't as good and that they could give me the minimum amount the agreement stated.
So I'm owed a chuck of money. And to top it all off I checked my bank account this morning and saw that the direct deposit regular salary I have coming to me has not yet arrived either, but that's probably just the payroll company being a day late because of the holidays (but if I don't get that soon I'll be really pissed).
The bonus is what's getting me really mad though. This isn't like I'm whining about not getting an extra christmas bonus from my bosses out of the kindness of their hearts. This is about me being denied money that was promised to me. This bonus was the reason I stayed with this job so long and never looked for another one despite the fact that I don't have any health insurance.
There were plenty of jobs I could have applied to this past year. I know because I took the postings and sent them to friends of mine. I even had someone offer me a job flat out when they connected with me through my college alumni network. I'm starting to think that maybe I should have taken it. I would have been working for more established people and gotten paid better.
So basically, no matter what my job search is going to kick into high gear now. I'm not going to quit my current job until I have a new one, but you can bet that I'm not going to be going the extra mile at the office until I get paid. In fact, I'll probably be doing things like posting on this blog and searching for jobs while I'm there.
In a way it's good. I've been looking to move on anyway, and this gives me the perfect excuse to leave. And if they're dicks about paying me what I'm owed, I can also let some people in the assistant grapevine know what my bosses are actually like, and that they don't pay their employees. They're two guys trying to get credibility around town, and you can bet that a rep for not being able to pay people will make you look pretty stupid pretty quickly.
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