You are a new employee, who started in between the company pay period. The first week you work 40 hours and get a check. Now your in the cycle. The second week you work 40 hours, and you pick your medical benefits…which are billed every pay period. The third week you work 40 hours…first big paycheck, and they take out 2 pay periods worth of benefits.

Ask them why, they say the benefits are deducted “Per pay period”, and your first week they didnt charge, and now they are catching up. This happened to me twice and friends three more times. Its not much, but it amounts to a lot of people.

Here is the catch. Per pay period…ok, except you were not covered the first week by insurance (you didnt pick it your first day)they refuse to provide coverage proof for the first week…so you just payed for something and got nothing. Worse yet, the “pay per period” wouldnt apply because you didnt even contract with them to provide medical insurance till the second week. Still, HR and benefits say you have to catch up.

somewhere around 50% of all new employees start work between pay periods. Of these MOST companies have the same “Per Pay Period” deduction schedule for benefits. All will charge for the first week…retroactively. Remember, your last check has deductions too, so this is not money in advance. Its plain stealing. Average ripoff per employee is somewhere around 40.00 to 100.00. Hundreds of thousands of people…means lots of money.

Look it up…happens every day. You are billed money and got nothing in return.

Comments?

I work at a start-up and thankfully the snacks and sodas are free. I don’t eat a lot of sodas and snack foods, but the organic coffee is really nice. I love this job and not just for the freebies. It’s a great place to work, with nice people on staff.

I’m feeling pretty blessed that I don’t get taken for coffee or sodas.

@Monevator: I think you make a great point! For me, as an engineer, I almost always choose to work through my lunch. But since I earn a salary, I think that comes with the territory — so I don’t feel like I am being taken advantage of there — although I would feel very different if I wasn’t on salary.

The perks and the atmosphere are great, but Pink-Slip Fridays suck.

My last start-up went under during the tech bubble burst. I worked my butt off for a bunch of worthless stock, but the experience was awesome. Here, we are well funded and in the medical device industry, so I’m pretty happy about that.

@ Bret: Well, the pink slips are everywhere now – not just the start-ups. I’ve never worked for a start up, but I do work in the research and development group of a very high ranking Fortune 500 company. So I get the worst of both worlds – long hours working business development AND a lack of freebie snacks to boot! lol