So it's come to this...
Derrick invited us out to his place in Wilson, Oklahoma so that he could cut us a check. Wilson is a good two and a half hours from where we live, but since we desperately needed the money (my car payment is due tomorrow) we decided to head that way and try to get a few things straightened out about our pay.
I know I've mentioned before that we had at least $6,000.00 worth of work done for Derrick, and so far we've received three checks totaling only $1,405.00... so, as any idiot can see, he still owes us a butt-load of money.
Let me try to put it into perspective though. Derrick has been trying to snow us from the beginning by saying that we haven't turned in all of our paperwork and pictures. But in reality, we can check the Southern Star website ourselves and see whats been submitted and what has not.
There is over $4,000 worth of submitted work, and around $2,000 of unsubmitted and MOST of those are due to neglect on his part. We had gathered every last scrap of paperwork and pictures for the unsubmitted work and brought it with us to Derrick's place yesterday.
As usual, he was incredibly difficult to get a hold of. (it's been that way since we told him to stick-it if he didn't intend to pay us) We finally got in touch with him when we were in Duncan, (about forty five minutes away) when he informed us that he wouldn't be back in Wilson until after five. We drove on, however, as we had a limited amount of gas, and turning around and going home would only ensure that we didn't get there at all later on.
So, we arrive in Wilson at 4:30pm. His wife was home and she answered the door. In fact, she stepped out on the porch and shut the door behind her treating us like peddlers that were there to sell her some much unwanted product. She informs us that she talked to Derrick and he said that he wouldn't be done in Duncan until around 7pm. Which meant that he wouldn't actually make it to Wilson until about 9pm.
So, since she wasn't about to invite us in to visit and wait, we informed her we would find a place to hang out until Derrick got into town. But not before I explained in a very serious tone that we had only $2 on us and NO gas to make it home, therefore there was no way we could make it home empty handed. She seemed to sympathize....
We waited and waited and finally called at around 8:30 to 9:00 to find out where Derrick was. No answer.
So, we drove back to his house at which point his wife told us that he was in Comanche and he should be home shortly. We informed her that we would wait outside, since AGAIN, she had no intention of letting us in. It was about another hour before we decided it was time to call Derrick again. We got in touch with him at around 9:30 to 10pm and he off-handedly informed us that he was still "working" and was an hour away from his home. Dale asked him if he just wanted us to leave but he insisted that it was up to us and that he would be there as soon as possible to take care of things.
Another two hours pass. It's 11:37 exactly when I'm about ready to pull my hair out and drive my jeep right through their living room, but Derrick finally pulls up. He drives right past us to the back of the house. We wait patiently expecting a greeting or some form of acknowledgment,.. but none comes. Dale gets out of the car and walks to the back of the house. Derrick has already locked himself safely away from us at this point,... and won't answer to our insistent knocks OR phone calls. He ignored us. Completely.
Jeremy screeches up the drive way. A big burly looking "good-ole-boy" who's favorite past-time is kissing Derrick's ass. At this point, we expect a show-down. Our first impression was that Derrick called him over to get us to leave. But to our surprise, Jeremy just wanted to ask Derrick for a day off, and after flirting with me and trying to console Dale and tell him that Derrick was in there right then getting payroll taken care of and cutting us a check, he took his leave.
It's around 12:30 now. And Jeremy had informed us that payroll can take Derrick up to 2 hours to complete. And apparently, since Derrick didn't answer the door or the phone, he didn't want us around while he did it. So, we settled back into the jeep to wait.... some more.
We both fall asleep and I awake abruptly at 2am. Derrick's lights were off, and the mother-fucker was in bed... without one single WORD to the two people who had no money to get home that were sitting outside his house for a total of ten hours. I freaked and started crying out of sheer humiliation, exhaustion, and frustration. And this set Dale into motion. He popped out of the jeep and started beating on his door,... trying to figure out if his intentions were simply to ignore us until we went away. And apparently they were. We saw Derrick's shadow move to the door, and across the room, and back to the sofa. Dale knocked louder and called his name. Eventually the door flung open and Derrick told us to get lost.
After all this time, my friends. He tells us to fuck off.
So, crying, tired, and furious, I start heading back home from a town I've never been to with not even enough gas to make it home.
We had to write a hot-check just to make it to Cache. Nevermind the fact that neither of us had eaten since that morning and had even less to drink. Derrick shot Dale a rather nasty look and venomously informed him that he had worked a 17 hour day, had just had dinner at 2 am and was not about to do paperwork to cut Dale a check. Nevermind that he was the one that okay'd us coming out. Nevermind that he was the one that promised he would cut us a check Wednesday. Nevermind that we had a total of $2 to our names, had not eaten dinner at all and were waiting outside his door for 10 hours just to be told to piss off.
Fuck you, Derrick.
So, we stumble in at nearly 5am and get about 4 hours of rest. We sadly and with much humiliation explain to my dad what had happened and how we were treated. And naturally, my dad got pissed. And if there is one thing my dad is good at, it's threatening people. Dale tried several times to contact Derrick this morning, but Derrick ignored his calls and voice-mails,... until we left him a voice-mail explaining that if he didn't make an attempt to contact us about this problem by 2 this afternoon, we were going to the DA's office to file fraud charges, have him arrested, and cost him his business.
He returned our call.
But my dad got hold of him first. Derrick started yelling at my dad telling him that he would sue for defamation of character, yadda yadda yadda, and my dad very calmly told him, "Derrick, we're taking it to the DA to file criminal charges. If the DA finds it to be a worthy case, you'll have to sue him, not us."
It didn't take long for Derrick to realize that he couldn't talk his way out of this one.
He made the promise to pay us tomorrow and we made a promise in return,.. if he doesn't get serious and start treating us with some respect, he can expect a formal police investigation into his business.
Dale and I just got back from the Sheriff's office in Lawton. They gave us some advice on how we could handle the situation and gave us hope for actually getting some sort of justice from this. They're on our side. And I know they'll do everything in their power to see to it that if we are not compensated, he will be punished.
We have all the paperwork to back this up, so I know that we have a great case against him. He shouldn't have under-estimated us. Pricks like him get what they deserve.
I hate to be a bitch,.. but I'm tired of being a doormat.
I know I've mentioned before that we had at least $6,000.00 worth of work done for Derrick, and so far we've received three checks totaling only $1,405.00... so, as any idiot can see, he still owes us a butt-load of money.
Let me try to put it into perspective though. Derrick has been trying to snow us from the beginning by saying that we haven't turned in all of our paperwork and pictures. But in reality, we can check the Southern Star website ourselves and see whats been submitted and what has not.
There is over $4,000 worth of submitted work, and around $2,000 of unsubmitted and MOST of those are due to neglect on his part. We had gathered every last scrap of paperwork and pictures for the unsubmitted work and brought it with us to Derrick's place yesterday.
As usual, he was incredibly difficult to get a hold of. (it's been that way since we told him to stick-it if he didn't intend to pay us) We finally got in touch with him when we were in Duncan, (about forty five minutes away) when he informed us that he wouldn't be back in Wilson until after five. We drove on, however, as we had a limited amount of gas, and turning around and going home would only ensure that we didn't get there at all later on.
So, we arrive in Wilson at 4:30pm. His wife was home and she answered the door. In fact, she stepped out on the porch and shut the door behind her treating us like peddlers that were there to sell her some much unwanted product. She informs us that she talked to Derrick and he said that he wouldn't be done in Duncan until around 7pm. Which meant that he wouldn't actually make it to Wilson until about 9pm.
So, since she wasn't about to invite us in to visit and wait, we informed her we would find a place to hang out until Derrick got into town. But not before I explained in a very serious tone that we had only $2 on us and NO gas to make it home, therefore there was no way we could make it home empty handed. She seemed to sympathize....
We waited and waited and finally called at around 8:30 to 9:00 to find out where Derrick was. No answer.
So, we drove back to his house at which point his wife told us that he was in Comanche and he should be home shortly. We informed her that we would wait outside, since AGAIN, she had no intention of letting us in. It was about another hour before we decided it was time to call Derrick again. We got in touch with him at around 9:30 to 10pm and he off-handedly informed us that he was still "working" and was an hour away from his home. Dale asked him if he just wanted us to leave but he insisted that it was up to us and that he would be there as soon as possible to take care of things.
Another two hours pass. It's 11:37 exactly when I'm about ready to pull my hair out and drive my jeep right through their living room, but Derrick finally pulls up. He drives right past us to the back of the house. We wait patiently expecting a greeting or some form of acknowledgment,.. but none comes. Dale gets out of the car and walks to the back of the house. Derrick has already locked himself safely away from us at this point,... and won't answer to our insistent knocks OR phone calls. He ignored us. Completely.
Jeremy screeches up the drive way. A big burly looking "good-ole-boy" who's favorite past-time is kissing Derrick's ass. At this point, we expect a show-down. Our first impression was that Derrick called him over to get us to leave. But to our surprise, Jeremy just wanted to ask Derrick for a day off, and after flirting with me and trying to console Dale and tell him that Derrick was in there right then getting payroll taken care of and cutting us a check, he took his leave.
It's around 12:30 now. And Jeremy had informed us that payroll can take Derrick up to 2 hours to complete. And apparently, since Derrick didn't answer the door or the phone, he didn't want us around while he did it. So, we settled back into the jeep to wait.... some more.
We both fall asleep and I awake abruptly at 2am. Derrick's lights were off, and the mother-fucker was in bed... without one single WORD to the two people who had no money to get home that were sitting outside his house for a total of ten hours. I freaked and started crying out of sheer humiliation, exhaustion, and frustration. And this set Dale into motion. He popped out of the jeep and started beating on his door,... trying to figure out if his intentions were simply to ignore us until we went away. And apparently they were. We saw Derrick's shadow move to the door, and across the room, and back to the sofa. Dale knocked louder and called his name. Eventually the door flung open and Derrick told us to get lost.
After all this time, my friends. He tells us to fuck off.
So, crying, tired, and furious, I start heading back home from a town I've never been to with not even enough gas to make it home.
We had to write a hot-check just to make it to Cache. Nevermind the fact that neither of us had eaten since that morning and had even less to drink. Derrick shot Dale a rather nasty look and venomously informed him that he had worked a 17 hour day, had just had dinner at 2 am and was not about to do paperwork to cut Dale a check. Nevermind that he was the one that okay'd us coming out. Nevermind that he was the one that promised he would cut us a check Wednesday. Nevermind that we had a total of $2 to our names, had not eaten dinner at all and were waiting outside his door for 10 hours just to be told to piss off.
Fuck you, Derrick.
So, we stumble in at nearly 5am and get about 4 hours of rest. We sadly and with much humiliation explain to my dad what had happened and how we were treated. And naturally, my dad got pissed. And if there is one thing my dad is good at, it's threatening people. Dale tried several times to contact Derrick this morning, but Derrick ignored his calls and voice-mails,... until we left him a voice-mail explaining that if he didn't make an attempt to contact us about this problem by 2 this afternoon, we were going to the DA's office to file fraud charges, have him arrested, and cost him his business.
He returned our call.
But my dad got hold of him first. Derrick started yelling at my dad telling him that he would sue for defamation of character, yadda yadda yadda, and my dad very calmly told him, "Derrick, we're taking it to the DA to file criminal charges. If the DA finds it to be a worthy case, you'll have to sue him, not us."
It didn't take long for Derrick to realize that he couldn't talk his way out of this one.
He made the promise to pay us tomorrow and we made a promise in return,.. if he doesn't get serious and start treating us with some respect, he can expect a formal police investigation into his business.
Dale and I just got back from the Sheriff's office in Lawton. They gave us some advice on how we could handle the situation and gave us hope for actually getting some sort of justice from this. They're on our side. And I know they'll do everything in their power to see to it that if we are not compensated, he will be punished.
We have all the paperwork to back this up, so I know that we have a great case against him. He shouldn't have under-estimated us. Pricks like him get what they deserve.
I hate to be a bitch,.. but I'm tired of being a doormat.