Category: poverty

I quit my job on Wednesday. I don’t feel that I had any choice.

My paycheck from July 10th bounced. Because I deposit my checks at ATMs instead of actually going to a bank, it takes nine days between an ATM deposit and the bank yanking the money back out of my account.

I didn’t notice that my paycheck had bounced until several days after it happened. At the same time, I realized I hadn’t gotten paid the day before. Until then, I’d had my weeks mixed up, and thought I was getting paid next week.

A coworker and I showed up at the office the next day to confront the owner, who was in on a Sunday for some reason. My coworker hadn’t received his paycheck either–in fact, no one had. Instead, the owner had given him a $20 bill and said she hoped it would tide him over for the weekend.

She had been expecting my coworker, but not me. This was intentional, we were trying to throw her off guard and outnumber her. I showed her the NSF paycheck the bank had mailed me and demanded a replacement. She spent some time lying to us, which we tolerated with blank, unconvinced stares. After she seemed to finish, I told her that I didn’t care why my checks were bouncing. She reprinted my previous paycheck plus an additional $25 to cover bank fees for the returned check, my missed paycheck from the previous Friday, and my coworker’s missed paycheck. Both were post-dated for the following day, and she warned us not to deposit them before then because the funds wouldn’t be in the account yet. We left without thanking her.

On the way back to my car, my coworker said that he was never coming back. I couldn’t blame him. If it had been possible, I would never have gone back either. But unfortunately, in order to get back on full unemployment benefits I needed iron-clad proof that I was fully justified in quitting. There was still a small chance that these checks would clear. If they did, I’d be unemployed without any income whatsoever. I had no choice but to return to work the following Monday.

I deposited my checks at the ATM down the street from my apartment the next morning. I called my now-former coworker to see if he’d had any luck cashing his check–he’d first brought it to an Associated Bank, the bank NobleLogic uses, and they refused to cash it because of insufficient funds. He eventually managed to cash it at Wal-Mart. If his check was no good, my checks were almost certainly rubber, too. Still, I had no proof. I finished out the week.

By this point, the office had all the vitality and energy of three-day-old roadkill. Everyone’s paychecks had either bounced or never arrived at all, and we knew we were going to be out of a job very, very soon. We grudgingly worked, expecting that we wouldn’t be paid for our efforts.

Nine days went by. Late on Wednesday afternoon, I performed a now-daily ritual of logging in to my online banking account to see if my checks had bounced yet. They had. I was now fully justified in quitting. I was free. Poor, angry, and cheated… but free. I packed up the few belongings from my office I hadn’t already taken home, and left.