Still working, still no pay

For those of you following the travesty that is my current workplace I want to reassure you that its still full of things that are so awful that the only thing I can do is laugh.  So yeah, why not call it funny.  Its more politically correct than telling my boss he’s a scumbag(or thief, which I may or may not call him every time he passes me in the hallway.)  Don’t worry, he doesn’t speak English.

Last Friday most of my coworkers met the buyer and future owner of our school. (I took a “sick” day for my birthday).  He allayed some of the fears and spoke a little English but the meat and potatoes of his conversation was still “trust me.”  Maybe he doesn’t need to tell us exactly where he’s getting the money from but he assured everyone that he would be pay us whatever he owes us.  Who pays us depends when the sale actually occurs.  Whoever the owner is on payday is responsible for paying us that paycheck.

The new guy at least showed some signs of intelligence (which the current owner has failed to do) when he mentioned he won’t be buying the company unless all the bills have been paid.  Unfortunately the only difference that made was 2 months worth of pension pay.  We are still owed 3 more months of pension and lets not forget the remaining 2/3 of our latest paychecks.

Most of the teachers have been showing a significant number of Disney movies and doing the bare minimum, perhaps less.  I’ve stopped my centers and phonics lessons.  I do the bare minimum bookwork required and give a lot of playtime.  It makes me a little sad for when I’ll have a job I actually care about and go back to doing real work. Many of us are leaving after our last class rather than desk warming until 6:00 everyday.

I wrote this yesterday, January 21st, our latest “maybe payday” we were told but alas the accountant is MIA.  The CEO is MIA and so are our paychecks.  We’ve lost any remaining faith in this guy’s ability to pay us and are trying to figure out how to best play our cards.

After repeated talks with a lawyer and the ministry of labor their best advice is to keep working and file a formal complaint.  The only problem is the formal complaint puts our jobs in jeopardy so we thought we’d wait until March so we don’t get fired early.

Today we found out the CEO told the Koreans we’d be paid “Friday or maybe next week.”  In the foreigner meeting they told us we’d be paid “maybe tomorrow.”  This contradiction increases the feeling of being strung along.  Oh and did I mention the CEO has fled the country?  Maybe he’s on a business trip?  Maybe he’s on vacation?  Maybe he’s putting all our money into a Swiss bank account?  All I know is I don’t trust him.

I don’t know what to do but I told the principal I am going to the ministry of labor first thing in February if we aren’t paid.  Plus I decided to leave a note in the CEO’s office for whenever (if) he returns.

I just keep telling myself 23 more days!