INSIDE DOUGLAS COLLEGE / MARCH 6, 1990

 

 

CONFESSIONS
OF A PAYROLL
OFFICER

by Jane Maltais

W:. a turnover of 150% and 20
plus engineers who see personnel
management as a challenge to be over-
come using the “anything is possible”
method, it is all you can do to maintain
even a basic level of professionalism.

They hire, fire, lay-off, and change
employees’ status faster than you can say
“ROE.” They promise the moon on -
Tuesday, expect delivery on Wednesday,
followed by up-to-date reports on
Thursday. Then just as the dust is «
settling, they tell someone just hired °
that “they don’t have to have tax
withheld if they don’t want to.”

On a good day,
you have a new
employee whose
Employment
Letter you have
yet to see; a
lay-off notice
for someone
who left last

 

 

 

Monday; five
people who
have already
been paid

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

over-payment, tardy payment; too many
deductions, not the right deductions, their
dogs’ puppies and the fact that their
mother-in-law has been there since June.

They tell you the intimate details of
their financial situation and their lack of
cash flow - the fault of which is entirely
yours. They expound on their various
illnesses, unruly children and their
overdue mortgage payments. They
insist that they know their bank account
numbers off by heart and can recite
birthdates and children’s second names
on cue. You are advised and expected to
keep track of everyone in the company
to whom they are either speaking or not
speaking on a weekly basis.

Somewhere between the reception
desk and your office (otherwise known
as The Gauntlet) you are expected to
remember two new addresses, complete
with postal codes; a salary increase, a
new dependent; an old employee’s new
employer; and what happened to George
Adams’ left-over sick-time from 1987.

By the end of the day, you will have
explained to the
new employee
why he doesn’t
get three weeks
vacation as
promised; the
second year
employee why he
can’t join the
pension plan the
same year that his
supervisor told
him he could; and

|

Appts. @&

 

but whose

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the terminating

“ ss oem, employee that

2:00 ==

 

timesheets = po
are missing, — EES
someone who 10:00 =

want’ to add a
dependent to a
dental plan he
does not

 

11:00 ==
12:00 cM

4:00 4

S O00 sa

 

 

participate in; an OHIP invoice that
still has two people on it that you've
never heard of and four urgent telephone
messages from yesterday.
On a bad day—weell, fill in theblanks!
You get blamed for non-payment,

leaving in
September
doesn’t mean he
still gets three
‘weeks vacation
for the year.

It is almost a relief to shut yourself
in your office and calculate W.C.B.

premiums.

DID I JUST SAY THAT?

Stephen
Lewis

Friday, March 16,
7:30 p.m.

Woodward Instructional
Resources Centre
2194 Health Sciences Mall,
Lecture Room #2, UBC

$5 admission

Opening Address for
"Environment &
Health Globally:

Strategies for Action"

A weekend working session
for health care workers, en-
vironmentalists and all who
are concerned about our
planet.

For more information, call
the Oxfam Global Health
Project at 738-2116.