update from the reader whose office wasn’t processing payroll on time

Remember the reader whose office manager wasn’t processing payroll on time?  She worked in a small law firm and was concerned that the supervising attorney wasn’t aware of the issue. Here’s her update.

After your response and the comments on the post, I went back to my supervising attorney and talked with him again about the payroll issue. He then told me that the firm has had some financial difficulties (apparently some of the attorneys had even gone without pay for a while) but said he would talk to the founding partner. I’m not entirely sure how that discussion went, but he then came back to me and told me that the situation was being looked into and asked me to let him know if it happens again.

I had already been halfheartedly looking for a job before all this transpired because it’s truly a dysfunctional workplace, but after the second discussion with my boss, I really began looking in earnest. I used a lot of tips from your site, went on multiple interviews, and I ended up getting a job offer from another law firm! I was on the verge of accepting this job when my supervising attorney told me (on the very day I was going to take the other job) that he was going to leave the firm and open his own practice. He and I have a wonderful working relationship, and he asked me to come with him and be his office manager. He offered me slightly more than the job that I was going to take, so I accepted his offer. I’ve been in that position for three months now and am loving all of the new challenges and experience I am gaining. And since I left my previous job, they have laid off two legal assistants and have cut back the hours of another employee, so something is clearly going on. I couldn’t be happier about being away from my old toxic workplace!

{ 7 comments… read them below }

  1. Steve M.*

    On the original post I was gonna say that late payroll in your case is due to lack of funds in the bank account to process payroll. I had the same problem with my former employer but I was aware of why payroll was late most of the time. I worked 3 years with my company and was paid late almost every time. My employer tried to say that he paid the week of the 7th and week of the 23rd which is wrong in every state. Labor and wage laws very in every state however no state allow payroll to be paid by terms “the week of”. Basically my former employer violated state and federal laws and never got in trouble for it until I put my 2 week notice in and filed unemployment and won. Late payroll normally means company doesn’t have money to pay on time or bad HR person.

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