Hi gang! Good news! I have another awful employer story for your reading pleasure, and just in time to blame it all on 2005.

I was given a Christmas bonus. For professional clothes. Then they decided I'd shopped incorrectly at stores I had no permission to go to, so they asked for the $ back. So I wrote them a check and walked away.

I have here a letter from them saying that I should have the maturity to explain myself, and would I please come back in January under a different job title?

I laugh so I don't cry. As Fay said, I don't want to work for fuckwits of the highest order.

But right now I have a huge pot of Triple Garlic Chicken Soup bubbling on the stove and time to enjoy putting together my Bitch Blanket, so I think all that is quite nice.

I'm sorry - wha???

They said - here's a bonus - buy professional clothes.

Then they decided they didn't like what you bought or the stores you bought them from so they asked for the money back?

How the fuck is that legal?

::blinks::

::blinks again::

No, I just can't parse their side of it, Katerina. That's just all sorts of not right.

They want you back for same pay?

Though...maybe explaining yourself could be fun. Want help from the Bitches?

How the fuck is that legal?

What Aimee said. And ita. That's just...I just...I have no words.

Or an employment lawyer? I wish I was one, because that's outrageous.

Katie Bee! The Hell! I can't even find words. Huh? But I bet your house smells good.

Odd small world thing. The accident in Miami yesterday continues to bother me, but today I found out that a guy I work with knew one of the passengers. Just casual a acquantance. He had dinner with the guy and his wife over the summer. She was a couple months pregnant and they had a 3 year old. The husband took off on the Chalks flight yesterday with his father and FIL for a quick fishing trip to the Bahamas. This poor woman, now 8 months pregnant has lost her husband, her father, and her father-in law. Damn.

Oh you bet I do want some help from the Bitches. I plan to have great fun writing the best scathing letter ever before I get around to thinking about editing and sending.

I have no idea if it's legal, but they subtracted the $ from my final paycheck, which is dated the day after I left, so they didn't wait around too much on that one.

I feel kinda guilty complaining about it, though, especially with all the awful stuff that's happened to other people lately. Maybe I should blame this on someone.

I can't imagine how they can just take it back! I'd take them to small claims court. It's not like it was an advance on pay they deducted.

So, wait. They asked for the $ back, you wrote them a check, and they STILL took $ out of your final paycheck?

Also, how is what they did even appropriate? As it is, I think it's dicey to give your employee a bonus and tell them what they're required to spend it on. But then to tell you *after* you'd shopped that you went to the "wrong" stores?

*Maybe* if you were a nurse, and needed a uniform, and they gave you a uniform allowance, and told you to shop at Uniform World, and you spent it at Pasties R Us -- that might be grounds for them to bitch. (You aren't, right? And you didn't....right?)

Katie Bee, I would also think that some local news stations might be interested in some examples of outrageous behavior around holiday time.