The Check That Didn't
or: Haus Morgenrot Discovers How to Employ a Man Without Letting Him Work
There are paychecks.
There are small paychecks.
There are paychecks that arrive already looking like somebody mugged them behind a Dollar General.
And then there is the magnificent financial innovation currently being developed by Haus Morgenrot:
The paycheck containing absolutely fuck-all because I did not work.
This revelation came to me embarrassingly late.
I was sitting here thinking about the next check. Wondering how badly suspension had beaten it. Wondering whether it would limp through the door with one shoe missing, holding an ice pack against its forehead.
Then I actually looked at the calendar.
September 14.
That was the last day I worked.
September 15?
Nothing.
September 16?
Nothing.
September 17?
Nothing.
Keep going.
September 18.
Nothing.
I have spent approximately half a month performing the highly specialized occupational task known as Existing Near My Phone In Case Somebody Decides To Tell Me What The Fuck Is Going On.
And unfortunately, Haus Morgenrot does not currently pay $16 an hour for that position.
Believe me.
I checked.
So barring PTO, an adjustment, paid suspension time, or some other payroll artifact descending from the heavens like an administrative angel carrying a W-2, my ordinary hourly earnings for this stretch are looking suspiciously like:
0 hours × $16.00 = $0.00
That isn't a small paycheck.
That's not even a paycheck.
That's an idea.
A theoretical paycheck.
A philosophical exercise.
An accounting koan.
What is the sound of one direct deposit not depositing?
For comparison, here is the aggressively boring part.
I actually did work at Haus Morgenrot.
A lot.
I made $16 an hour. I worked twelve-hour shifts, usually about eleven paid hours after lunch. I worked overtime. I worked holidays. I trained. I showed up.
By the pay period ending September 15, my payroll records showed $30,092.48 in year-to-date gross earnings.
There.
Receipts.
No home address. No employee number. No banking information. No tax information. No exciting secrets.
Just an aggressively boring document saying, in the driest possible language:
Yes, this motherfucker did in fact used to get paid.
And that is what makes the next part so funny.
Because we may now be transitioning from more than thirty thousand dollars in documented gross earnings for the year to the most powerful number in mathematics:
ZERO.
I have entered Schrödinger's Employment.
I am apparently employed.
I am apparently not working.
I have not been told that I am terminated.
I have not been cleared to return.
I have not been given a return date.
I have not been scheduled.
I have not been working.
My employment exists in a quantum superposition where I must remain available for a job that currently provides me with no job to perform.
At any moment, somebody may open the box and discover whether the employee inside is alive, dead, transferred, cleared, terminated, suspended, reassigned, or has evolved into a raccoon from prolonged exposure to administrative bullshit.
Until then:
PLEASE WAIT...
YOUR EMPLOYMENT STATUS IS BEING PROCESSED...
DO NOT TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER...
ESTIMATED TIME REMAINING: GO FUCK YOURSELF
And this is the part that has driven me absolutely fucking insane.
I can deal with an answer.
Maybe I don't like the answer.
Maybe the answer sucks.
Maybe the answer punches me directly in the wallet, steals my lunch, and tells me to go hug a cactus.
Fine.
But an answer gives me something extraordinarily useful:
A direction.
If I'm cleared, tell me I'm cleared.
If I'm moving somewhere else, tell me where I'm moving.
If there are conditions on my return, tell me the conditions.
If the investigation is still active, tell me that.
If I'm fired, then for fuck's sake, fire me.
I can work with any of those.
What I cannot work with indefinitely is:
i don't know, lol.
Because unfortunately, the rest of human civilization has declined to participate in Haus Morgenrot's HR loading screen.
Rent doesn't accept limbo.
The grocery store does not have a payment option labeled PENDING ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW.
Uber has never once looked at my account and said:
"Damn, Boris. Sounds complicated. This one's on us."
The electric company has yet to introduce its revolutionary new billing program:
PAY US WHEN YOUR EMPLOYER FIGURES THEIR SHIT OUT™
Life continues operating on the deeply unreasonable assumption that money should occasionally enter my bank account.
Which brings us to my poor paycheck.
I've had the Little Check That Could before.
That brave bastard had been kicked, punched, robbed, and thrown down a staircase before finally reaching my account.
But it made it.
It staggered across the finish line.
I think I can.
I think I can.
I think I—
DEPOSITED.
Beautiful.
Inspirational.
Put that little motherfucker in a children's book.
But this next one?
This may be something entirely new.
The Check That Didn't.
Imagine the paystub.
Hours Worked: 0.00
Hourly Rate: $16.00
Gross From Hours Worked: $0.00
Employee Status:
¯
(ツ)/¯
Thank you for your service.
See you next payroll.
Maybe.
And this is where ACT BROKE has experienced its final evolutionary form.
ACT BROKE used to mean:
Don't spend money just because you have money.
Don't let a good paycheck convince you that you're suddenly the Sultan of Houston.
Don't DailyPay yourself into oblivion.
Don't keep feeding another dollar into a machine after you've learned what the machine does.
Save.
Wait.
Be boring.
Now?
ACT BROKE isn't financial discipline anymore.
It's a fucking weather report.
"Today's forecast calls for scattered poverty with a 90% chance of Haus Morgenrot."
The Accountant Raccoon has stopped guarding the wallet.
He has opened it.
He has looked inside.
He has looked back at me.
There is a long silence.
Somewhere in the distance, a single shopping cart rolls across an empty parking lot.
Jerry slowly closes the wallet.
No words are exchanged.
And the strangest part is that this has clarified what I want from my next job more than any career questionnaire ever could.
I want boring.
I want spectacularly boring.
Warehouse.
Shipping.
Receiving.
Assembly.
Put Thing A into Thing B.
Scan box.
Move pallet.
Count inventory.
FIFO.
Highest priority first.
Clock in.
Work.
Clock out.
PAY ME.
I don't need an adventure.
I don't need character development.
I don't need institutional lore.
I don't need another side quest.
I don't need to unlock the secret ending where HR finally tells me whether I fucking work there.
Give me a scanner.
Give me a pallet jack.
Give me a stack of boxes.
Tell me where the boxes go.
I will move the boxes.
At the end of the agreed-upon period, you will exchange United States currency for my box-moving services.
This economic system has existed for quite some time.
I am willing to participate.
There are worse things than losing a job.
One of them is being kept indefinitely in the space where you cannot tell whether you've lost it.
Because once something ends, you can react to the ending.
You can be pissed.
You can laugh.
You can update the résumé.
You can throw the deuces.
You can walk toward whatever comes next.
But limbo asks you to remain psychologically attached to something while simultaneously receiving none of the stability that attachment is supposed to provide.
That's the exhausting part.
Not necessarily the answer.
Being denied an answer.
I've spent enough time trying to understand the machine.
At some point, understanding becomes sufficient.
You don't have to keep putting another dollar into a machine after you've learned what the machine does.
And you don't have to keep staring at the screen hoping LOADING... eventually becomes a life plan.
When the battlefield changes?
Change the mission.
So now I wait for payday.
Not because I'm expecting some magnificent deposit.
Mostly because I want to see the punchline.
I want to meet this thing.
This mythical financial creature.
This brave little payroll statement that may emerge from the darkness carrying approximately zero hours of labor on its back.
THE CHECK THAT DIDN'T.
It didn't bounce.
It didn't get stolen.
It didn't get delayed.
It looked at zero hours, saw $16 an hour waiting on the other side of the multiplication sign, and chose not to fucking exist.
Godspeed, little buddy.
We hardly knew ye.
Mr. Jerry's Unsolicited Advice
Silence is not necessarily an answer to why something is happening.
But after enough time, silence becomes information about what you can reliably expect from the people responsible for answering you.
Those are not the same thing.
Learn the difference.
Then act accordingly.
And remember:
When the battlefield changes, change the mission.
Also, if your paycheck contains 0.00 hours, Mr. Jerry strongly recommends that you do not attempt to spend it.
His preliminary financial analysis indicates that this would be suboptimal.
— Jerry "The Ankle-Biter" Silverhand
- Raccoon, Financial Analyst, and Acting Director of Where The Fuck Is My Money