A Never ending Saga
When I came home from work today, I found a pleasant little surprise in my mailbox. "Oh Boy!" I thought to myself, "I wonder what it could be!" Upon further inspection, I found it to look surprisingly similar to the paychecks they so delightfully handed out at Sears, while I was employed there.
"Hold on a minute," my inner dialogue continued, "I terminated my employment at Sears months ago! Why on earth would they want to pay me if I don't work for them?" However, not wanting to lose my chance on potentially millions of dollars, I opened it with extreme urgence. Inside, I found this:
"Wait just a darn tootin' minute!" the ever-loudening voices inside my head pondered, "What's that number on the check?" I looked slightly closer.
Yes! You guessed right! Sears, Roebuck and Co, has willfully paid me the grand sum of 56 cents!
"But what for?"
Overtime? For hours I didn't even work? Upon further examination, I saw that my benefit rate was hovering at around $15 an hour. With time and a half for overtime, that would make it about 1.6 seconds i worked between 6/4/06 and 6/17/06. After I quit! And Overtime!
"But hold on a minute! That says 60 cents! My check only came out to 56 cents!" I quibbled in troubled amusement.
For this, I sat for hours waiting for a sign to come. And then it did: I looked slightly to the left, and what did I see?
Ah yes! Taxes! Of course, Federal FICA, the act that pays 12.4 percent of my salary to social security! Of course, that comes out to only .744 of a cent, but when I reach 65 i get an extra .256! PLus OASDI, which covers Medicare.
So I have 56 more cents, right? Well, I don't think I'll cash it. It's kind of a memento for me - plus, it's fun! Because after some research, I found out that if i don't cash it, it would flub up their whole payroll system. Apparently, every uncashed paycheck costs major corporations about $25-$50 in the accounting department to figure out what went wrong. Plus, there's this:
That's right! They mailed it to me! At a cost of 34 more cents!
So let's recap: If I don't cash this check, the cost to the company would be $25 - $50 in accounting, plus 34 cents in postage, plus 4 cents in taxes, coming out to about $25.38 -$50.38. The cost to me would be 56 cents - that I'm pretty sure I didn't earn in the first place. Oh, 1.6 seconds of time.