More Trouble with Pay

Anyone who has been following me and/or allowing me to complain about my situation with my former employer over pay knows that this issue has been a rather inconveniencing one. This particular problem, thankfully, has been mostly rectified (they still owe me a couple thousand dollars, but "the check is in the mail" so I guess I am all good.

This post is not about that pay problem, however. My present job had a SNAFU with my pay as well. They quickly fixed the problem, so it caused minimal hardship, but it is yet another interesting example of how my life, no matter how mundane, can never seem to be boring.

On Thursday, a number of people received their pay stubs. I didn't get one, so I figured that they may hold back a check like some of my previous positions had done. The actual payday was Friday, but I did not go into work on Friday, so I had to wait until Monday to ask about it. It turned out that I also received a statement, though it came on Friday, the normal day for such a thing to occur.

I was advised to open it to make sure it was correct. I did so, and what I found was quite interesting. Under pay rate it had my correct wage. Under hours worked it had the correct number of hours: 30. Under gross pay: $0.00!

While my math skills are not the best, I was pretty sure something was wrong here. I took it to my supervisor who then sent it to payroll. It took a day or two for them to issue a new check. Now, if my former employer was on the ball this much, it would make me very happy indeed!

Why Can't My Life be Boring?

When people first hear about my travels and experiences, they normally say something along the lines of  "Wow! You have such an exciting life."

I politely smile, nod, and say "it seems pretty normal to me."  All the while I am thinking to myself, "you have no idea!" It seems that even when I do what seem to be the most mundane things, I find a way to make it just a little more exciting.  I can just hear some of you out there begging for an example, so here you go.

Having obtained a job, I found myself back in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, affectionately known as the UP. This was a bit of a surprise for me as I had mostly ruled out coming back up here because of the pervasive cold and snow that I am not too fond of, but find myself up here I did.

One of the first things I needed to take care of was getting my car registered. My plates expired near the end of December, and it was already the second week of January. I was told that they police normally don't catch this sort of thing, but I was weary of it nonetheless. At the first opportunity, I stopped at the Secretary of State office to take care of this issue.

I pulled into the almost empty lot, turned off the car, took a deep breath, and headed into the office. It resembled the parking lot in that it was mostly empty. As I walked through the door, I heard the person at the counter say "You dropped your glove." Sure enough, there it was lying on the floor right behind me. I picked it up, thanked her, and walked up to complete my business.

She looked up my plate information and told me that it had been blocked. I had called a couple weeks earlier and was told that it was blocked, but they also told me that they were releasing that after I provided them with the information they requested. Apparently, that release had not taken effect! She suggested that I just get a different plate as that would be the easier route. As much as I didn't want to have to try and memorize a new plate number, I decided to take her advice. "I guess I can have a fresh start to the New Year," I commented.

I had given her my insurance card when I first arrived at the counter. She had made a copy of it and was in the process of handing it back when she said, "oh, this isn't effective until tomorrow. Do you have proof of insurance for today?"

I rolled my eyes realizing that I was still having a difficult time keeping track of the days. Perhaps a calendar would be a good addition to my life, even though I do have one in my phone! Anyway, I pulled out my phone and attempted to obtain my insurance information online as I thought it would be quicker than going back out to the car. Boy, was I wrong! Apparently, there were issues with my data plan or my signal or something because it just was pulling up my information. Finally, I decided that it was taking too long, and I went back out to the car to get my insurance card from there.

I figured this would be easy because I knew exactly where the insurance card was. I grabbed it, turned around and headed back toward the building. Thud! Down I went. I started getting up only to slip again. I made it to my feet on the third try and slowly worked my way back into the building. I handed the card to the agent; she looked at it and said, "This isn't the right one."

I took the offending piece of paper and scrutinized it. Sure enough, it was for my brother's car! We both have Ford Fusions, though different styles and years. All I could do was sigh. The next step was to call the insurance company. This took a bit of time. The call itself was easy, but it was all computerized, and there were a lot of steps to go through. Eventually, I made it to the end, and the recording stated that they would fax my insurance information in 15-20 minutes. Fortunately, it only took about five.

I left as quickly as possible and wondered how, and when, I would put it on. I had no screwdriver, and I had purposely left snow over the plate to kind of hide the tags that were then expired. I did manage to change the plate, so all is well now, but one should not have such difficulty doing something so "normal" and easy.