17. Working For Pennies

Stassi

S tassi took a sip of her coffee and heaved a sigh. Now that was a fresh brew. She couldn’t go another day with the hospital coffee. She just got paid and could finally relish in the deliciousness that she had grown to expect. She leaned back in her chair and pulled up the app on her phone. She had downloaded it the minute she learned that was the most effective way to get details on her paycheck. She had been there three weeks, so it was finally time to enjoy the fruits of her labor and she was surprised by how excited she was to see what all that hard work had produced.

It was different being a model. In modeling you might get paid high dollars for a photoshoot, but it was one day. You could work, get paid, and then not have another job for several days. Working at the hospital you had days of exhaustion because you were working over twelve hours every day, dead on your feet by the time you left and went home. Most of the time if you didn’t eat at the hospital, you didn’t eat. It wasn’t a gig for the wary, but Stassi was working to make the best out of it. She had to admit; she was even proud of herself.

She refreshed the screen and her paystub popped up. She stared at it. Her eyes bugged out as the number attempted to process in her brain. “This isn’t possible,” she mumbled.

She had done the math several times and had a general idea of what she expected to get paid. And this was about a quarter less than what she anticipated. She shook her head and refreshed again. There had to be some sort of mistake. She went to the spot where it said how many hours she worked, and her jaw dropped. There was definitely a mistake. A huge one. She had been back to her schedule numerous times to gauge how many hours she should be paid for and for the two weeks, she was looking at one hundred and one hours. She was paid for eighty.

Stassi went back to her calendar where she documented all the hours she worked and calculated them once more. She hadn’t made a mistake. But a mistake was made and that was with the hospital accounting department. She pocketed her phone and finished off the last of her coffee. She would have words with them, because no one was going to short her for the long hours she put into her shifts.

As she left the coffee shop, she thought about the previous night. She had worked four hours over her scheduled shift. If she wasn’t going to get paid for her overtime, then why even bother? She reached the hospital, determined to walk straight into the hospital and demand answers with anyone that would listen.

When she reached her floor, she got off the elevator and saw Sage. She was immediately hit with the connection they had formed the previous night. Those four hours she worked were well received by Sage and Stassi actually caught herself thinking that she would have gladly given another four, even if she knew that it would all be for nothing.

Sage grinned as Stassi approached her. “Hey, Stassi began.”

“Hey!” Sage had this goofy grin on her face that Stassi found quite endearing and beautiful. She was taken aback by it. She had thought maybe she would rattle off her annoyance with her paycheck, but Sage was so cool, calm, and just easy to be around. “I wanted to thank you again for your assistance last night. It was greatly appreciated.”

Stassi grinned. “I was happy to do it. If you ever need help like that again, you know who to call.” She beamed like a beacon on a lighthouse and instantly recoiled. She most likely looked like a fool, but standing this close to Sage had her ready to say all the cheesy things.

Sage wasn’t like the typical women she was attracted to. She was butch, had a single gold chain that was usually hidden by her scrubs, and didn’t thrive on makeup and material things. But she was as real of a woman as Stassi had ever encountered. The women Stassi typically gravitated towards had the same outlook on what was important in life as her: fashion, makeup, and accessories, to name just a few.

“What are you thinking?” Sage asked.

Stassi quickly brought herself out of her thoughts. Sage kept a simple smile on her lips, looking like she genuinely wanted to know. “Just how last night showed me what is truly important.”

Sage nodded. “Those are moments that one can always hold onto.”

Stassi locked eyes with Sage. She was caught in the moment and a single strand of hair was out of place at Sage’s temple. Stassi reached up to brush it back, but Sage quickly jumped back.

“I’m sorry,” Stassi quickly apologized. “There was a hair, and I was going to, but I should have—instead...um” She stammered, quickly looking away for her escape. There wasn’t a hole she could crawl into, although that would have been pretty nice.

“That’s okay. No need to apologize. If I would have seen a hair out of place, I would have done the same.” Sage smirked. “But you never seem to have a hair out of place.” Her tone softened and Stassi looked up at Sage. There wasn’t any judging and she completely put Stassi at ease. Stassi gave a smile, glad to have that comfortability factor back.

“I got my first paycheck today,” Sage began, glad to change the subject. “It wasn’t quite what I expected.”

“No surprise there,” Sage mumbled.

“I didn’t get paid for any of the overtime I had the two weeks that’s on this paycheck. I had twenty-one hours and nothing. Clearly, it’s a mistake, right?”

Sage shook her head. “I wish I could say it was a mistake. The hospital doesn’t currently pay for OT. They don’t say you can’t work over, just that you can’t get paid for it, if you do work over.”

Stassi’s jaw dropped. “How is that even legal?”

Sage shrugged. “We ask those questions, too.” She then frowned. “It should have been in your manual, though. If it wasn’t, then they can’t enforce it. I’m fairly confident they added it last year, though. If you want, I can look at your manual with you. You might actually have a leg to stand on, if they don’t have it in there.”

Stassi groaned. “You mean the manual that was like fifty pages? I thought it’d have things in there that were obvious to anyone. So, I didn’t really read it. In fact, I’ll have to look around for it.”

Sage gave another genuine smile. “I get it. It’s boring and true that most people don’t pay much attention to it.” She glanced at the computer and frowned. “I’m sorry, my patient is here, but if you need me to help you locate where it gives that information, I gladly will. It’s the least I could do. And I can tell you’re frustrated. It’s quite understandable, but if you think about going to your supervisor, it won’t do any good. It’s just the way things are.” She shrugged and rushed away to grab her patient.

Stassi didn’t like that mantra; it’s just the way things are. No one should get away with something so devious, as getting people to work for free. It’s not cool and even if it was in the manual, that didn’t change anything. She had two tasks at hand. Call her father and make sure he was aware. There wasn’t any way he would stand for that. But she also needed to find the manual. There was some chance that maybe it wasn’t in there and then she could fight it. That was always a possibility.