Paid Arbitrarily or Not at All

– Cheryl Dickason, M.D.

As an emergency medicine physician, I like to feel as if I am an important person—not necessarily a VIP, but someone of note. I say this because recently I was made to feel so insignificant. I was fired because I demanded to be paid on time by the locum tenens agency I worked for. Here’s my story.On one fine November Friday I was expecting my paycheck to show up—just as it had been showing up for the past three biweekly paychecks. When it didn’t arrive I panicked — I worried that my mailed check had been stolen. I called my employers—I was ready to ask for a stop payment on my missing check. But I was told that my paycheck hadn’t been sent.

The first excuse given was that I wasn’t supposed to be paid that Friday — my payday wasn’t due for another two weeks! I insisted that they check their payroll records and see that I indeed was to be paid when I said. This was done, and sure enough I was right. However, since I hadn’t sent in my timesheet on their new unpublicized holiday schedule (Thanksgiving), I shouldn’t be expecting to get paid on my regular schedule. Therefore, my paycheck still wouldn’t be sent out for another two weeks—the next pay period!

Please understand this. There was no debate as to the shifts I had worked, or how I had been paid in the past. Everything had been placed on a precise schedule worked out with them beforehand. When I told them that they hadn’t informed me of any new holiday rules for sending in my timesheet, they came back with yet another excuse. This time it was that they had received my timesheet, but I had failed to get it signed by their client.

Okay — two out of three timesheets I had sent in the past weren’t signed by their client and I was still paid on time. My understanding was that even if I did get the client’s signature they had to verify it again anyway.

So what was the problem? Why couldn’t they simply get this verification and pay me on time? Why make up lame excuses and ridiculous reasons as to why they couldn’t make things right? I was getting fed up — I was also afraid that they weren’t going to pay me at all.

Finally I told them that if they felt they could pay me arbitrarily, then I would work for them again after they had paid me what was due. Unfortunately, this wasn’t my first experience of being stiffed by an agency.

After all the needless arguments, the day before I was to work they complained that I was being “unprofessional.” Finally, after stating they couldn’t do a direct deposit of my funds, they turned around and suddenly agreed to wire my pay to me. They wanted me to continue working and “trust them” to send the money “the next day.” Again I told them I would work once I saw that my payment had been deposited. I admonished them for not simply wiring my funds two days earlier.

After all this, my paycheck was finally wired to me (3 days later than necessary) and I was fired for withholding my services. Oddly enough, in my severance email they vowed to send me my last paycheck “in advance.” I guess I should be grateful. It only took three “reminder” timesheets for them to send me my last payment a month later. Or was it my threats to write the labor department?