How I_t REALLY went down
Monday, July 24, 2006I am typing this from a tape-recorded meeting with two owners of Synergy, P and son H, and JK, and HR_D and myself (KAL) two weeks ago, July 10, 2006. Obviously, I am not typing it in its entirety, but the tape can be made available. I hope this will clarify for people some of the concerns and questions raised about the issues involved and what actually happened and was said by whom.
As a preface, I had been working with P and H and JK since the week+ my team leader C had been gone with his family to DisneyWorld and before to obtain some relief for my survival needs and the stress caused by making too little at Synergy to pay for the roof over my head, food and gas. I had also spoken with HR_D about said concerns and some alternative ideas I had. This all before a change in pay structure that only worsened matters for me. I have voiced on several occasions that my ability to perform the type of work Synergy made available to me depended on my mental state and whether or not I believed I could make sufficient money. I checked myself to see whether or not I was alone in my dilemma and was merely producing (over the long haul) too insufficiently to expect some monetary gain and found much reason to believe that I was not alone, nor was my production too poor to warrant my expecting to be heard.
The letter which is the post previous to this followed a conversation between P and myself wherein it was agreed some relief was to be had that (agreement) was changed upon her talking to her son, H, and our not talking again as she had assured me we would. We did meet that Friday and that was the first convening of the five people who met again Monday the 10th, which conversation will follow once I begin typing from the tape. What needs to be known before I begin that is that P brought up that she did not believe they were doing anything illegal regarding the new pay structure but they would take a look at that and if they were they would fix that because of the type of people they were. She said that following bringing up that "people love to tell us what you are thinking", which I took to mean that someone had told her I was planning to go to the Labor Board about not being paid minimum wage. Here goes:
Bottom line, after 15 minutes or so of rehashing previous meetings conversations and lots of emotionalism, P asked me why I even stayed at Synergy and I told her she knew the answer to that and that I had reiterated it many times, "I have several reasons for remaining at Synergy. .... Because you people are good people and you have done good things for me and I have made a LOT of POINT of that, because I DO believe in you. When I called, that day, when my stuff was sitting out in the rain after people had come over and helped me, I said, I believe in YOU people. You do not believe in me, but I believe in you, I wish you well. And now I know what I
am going to do. Do you remember that phone conversation?" (It was not a conversation, but rather a phone message I had left that I would not be coming in to work as I had no place to live, to be.) "Why do you think I would stay with a company that I could not make enough money with, __ . You know, I told you when I came in and interviewed with you , I explained to you what was going on in my life, and I wrote a letter, I have a copy of it, I explained to Heinz, 'do you know what it does to people when they live on MINIMUM paycheck? Do you know what it means TO ME, to pay my rent-by the week- which I'd been doing ever since, when I wrote you that, that letter, whenever that was, March, April?, I explained to you, if I take home a paycheck-no taxes taken out-I have zero on the board, that means I have twenty dollars, for gas and food.' Now that touched you. You came upstairs. You sat by me and you looked at me and you said, " 'we don't want that. What can we do for you?' " "Did I say 'give me money'? Did I get money from you then? No, I kept waiting, I kept waiting, kept waiting, kept waiting. Things are gonna be different, things are gonna be better, things are gonna get better, things are gonna get different. I did not come to you for many months after that. And I kept waiting. Joe kept telling us, '"most of the people here make a third of their income the last quarter of the year.''' And you know what? I improved. You know what? If they look at what I've done, over the year, and we look at it in comparison, the reason I'm sitting here is __ I know I'm of value to you people. I've talked to you about that, I've talked to you about that, I've talked to you about that, I've talked to you about that, (looking at each of the others in turn). I am totally capable of talking to any one of you, one on one, or one on four, and tell you, I'm worth it. I AM WORTH IT. I am capable of doing a good job here. I am capable of putting up sales and I am capable of being worth it to you. What I'm NOT capable of, ---you think I'm ASKING you to pay my landlord---you think I'm ASKING you to take on my responsibility, __what I'm not capable of ... . What I am not capable of, is making 17,000 dollars in a year, when you've said the average setter, - and I KNOW THAT DID NOT HAPPEN LAST YEAR ... I look at last year and unless you paid people differently than you paid me, I know what the top setter made last year, and it was NOT anywhere near, even minimally, it wasn't near a thousand a week, it wasn't!" [[which was the middle of what the ad I came in on said the average setter made a week]] (interruption took place here by P wherein I was told the reason I didn't make money was because I did not do what I was told to do and did not cease from doing what I had been told over and over by her and even certain other of my peers whom she named who had told her they had told me the same as she told me_not to do. Ensuing conversation led to my being fired as I brought my own index finger out to wag to accompany my screaming, "you stop that" to her wagging her index finger disapprovingly at me to emphasize what I had done wrong.) The coup de grace was to send me my final paycheck with some [quote, unquote] "advance" (ya think?) to my door via the same constable who had served me eviction notice last October. Thank you, good folks. My mind and opinion have been thoroughly changed. Best to you!
posted by Karen @ 6:07 AM
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