Rant #3,427: Gimme Dat Ding

Related to yesterday's Rant, the pain continued for another day, and only recently subsided.

Late yesterday, I was finally paid by my place of work for the month of August.

But getting my money was not easy.

As I told you yesterday, the president of the association I work for just so happened to ask me if I could cover a conference on Thursday, and I said I would ...

But with the caveat that I had to be paid first before I would fully commit to cover this meeting.

Well, I heard absolutely nothing about being paid for several hours after that.

Finally, as I was finishing up my physical therapy appointment, as my legs were being iced, I decided to do something about this.

Again, I contacted the comptroller for the company, the employee who I always send my monthly invoices to, and explained, nicely, that I need to be paid, that my pay is supposed to be in my account on the first of the month, I have to pay rent, etc.

I sent out this email a little bit after 12 noon as my legs continued to be iced.

A little later, I received a return email from the comptroller.

He said that I would be paid today, and that the reason I was not paid was that my invoice could not be processed because it was sent in too late on Friday.

I knew that that explanation was a bunch of hooey, but for fun, I checked when I sent in the imvoice email.

I sent it out at exactly 8:13 a.m. ... using their inane explanation, I guess I should have sent it out at 4 a.m. in the morning, early enough so it could be processed.

And I let them know in a subsequent email that I sent out my monthly invoice pretty early indeed.

Of course their explanation is utter nonsense, they simply forgot to, or neglected to, send me my pay, and their explanation was beyond lame, especially since I actually had to ask them where my pay was.

This whole thing threw me for a loop, especially since it has happened several times before--

And what's worse, there is absolutely, completely and totally nothing I can do about it.

Many remote workers are considered/treated as second- or perhaps even third-class workers, and that is the way it is, whether anyone likes it or not, or whether that assessment is fair or not.

I think that I finally was paid late on Tuesday because of my second email alerting them to the time I actually sent my invoice in.

Maybe it set a fire under someone's tuckis about how lame--and wrong--their explanation was--

And it proves, once again, that if something has gone awry, you must open up your mouth--or in my case, voice your dissatisfaction in an email--or you simply will not get heard.

But the indignity of me having to bring this up to them--and their extremely lame tale about why i was not paid--simply leaves a very bitter taste in my mouth.

This is all compounded by my having to cover this meeting on Thursday, a write-up that takes time to do and completely kills my day.

The president of the association obviously saw my return message to him, yet nothing was done to make everything right until late in the day, leaving me needlessly simmering for hours.

Again, I had to contact the association and ask for my pay, which is totally embarrassing.

And it isn't like it hasn't happened before.

Yes, I wish I really could be fully retired, and not have to worry about such nonsense, but that simply isn't the case.

I envy those who can really, fully retire and do exactly what they want to do after decades of hard work.

That scenario will clearly never be one that I will experience, that's for sure.

I am happy that this story had a happy ending, but I know that this probably won't be the last time I have to ask for my pay, money that I earned fair and square.

This is retirement?

It can't be, it just can't be--

But it is, at least for me.