1) Refused to initially honor verbal hourly wage agreement for seasonal help hanging decorations at the Hotel 1000 downtown Seattle (negotiated after the initial team of 17 ended up being 4 due to bad weather) Job completed as scheduled in spite of skeleton crew. Still not paid in full.
2) Incorrectly claimed Federal Withholding on an independent contractor, (who's supposed to do his own withholding) keeping it off the net of the paycheck.
Total: $140.00
I am an unemployed student with epilepsy trying to make ends meet and saw this opportunity as was way to augment my meager cash. Due to my condition my job options are limited and this seemed like the perfect part time fit Gratefully I jumped at it. I am struggling to make rent while planning to start my last quarter of school. Every dollar counts.
Although I was told to expect a crew of 15-17 working with us on the Hotel 1000 setup, when I got there the first night there were a total of 5, then for the remaining two nights there were only 4. I was told that the snowstorm had caused many to cancel. This work was no mere hanging of ornaments, but involved hoisting immense wreathes up ladders, fashioning brackets to protect delicate hotel surfaces from heavy objects, concealing wires along ceiling beams, etc. Many lighted decorations partially worked (or didn't work at all) and needed to be troubleshot or re-strung, which took a lot of time. In addition to the manual work, due to the fact that the team was so stretched, certain hard to hang heavy features had to be re-done due to lack of initial proper direction. One crucial team leader, the planner from the year before was not there due to the fact she had injured herself on the loading dock.
By the third night, I told my team leader I needed an increase in pay (which ends up being less than time and a half) for the last two nights or I had to go home and not work. She agreed and we got the job done. One week later I got the check and it didn't honor that pay increase and had withholding taken out.
An initial call to the shop to talk to the owner was deflected, first him telling me it wasn't him, then telling me it was him. Taking no responsibility, he pushed me off to my crew supervisor who ""dealt with payroll issues."" I then called her and she told me (after I left several messages) that she was really busy and would take care of it herself with me personally, but I'd have to wait until she was done working. Knowing the nature of the job setups and how they consistently stretched to 1 and 2 in the morning, I couldn't afford to wait that long.
Rent was overdue (it was now the 3rd at this point) and I needed to be paid, so I went down to the flowershop hoping to talk to someone in person and resolve the issue. The owner wasn't there but was across the street doing a setup and couldn't be disturbed, and my crew supervisor was offsite doing another setup.
When I insisted in person that I be paid, I was accused of causing a scene, mall security was called and Bellevue Police. The shop owner did show up at this point, but (obviously) did not talk to me.
The reason that I am posting this is after all this, I got my final check from them that still has withholding taken out. Over a measly 20 bucks. (which means a trip to the grocery store to me.)
I highly recommend you do not use this shop. Your money will go to funding an uncaring, purposefully overstretched, disorganized business raking in over 10k a large seasonal setup and willing to let x number of hard working people not see falsely withheld rightfully earned dollars. Whether through negligence or not, it just isn't right.
If I could have given it zero stars I would have.
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