It's funny to see the difference between how a person would handle sending a check to someone mistakenly, and how a corporation would.
I was sitting at home today after dealing with the California DMV again and somehow heard the barely-audible doorbell in the apartment. It seemed a little odd, since neither Cathy nor I really know anyone out here yet, but I decided to answer the door anyway. It was my friendly neighborhood postal worker with a certified letter. I signed for it, then noted it was from a company I used to work for, Lockheed Martin. Even more interesting, it came from Lockheed Martin Financial Services. At first I thought it had something to do with the August 31, 2000 paystub I had received in the mail on June 7, 2001. Then I opened it.
I should probably give a bit of history. I voluntarily left Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics & Surveillance Systems – Marine Systems (their name changed 3 or 4 times in the 2 years I was there) on August 28, 2000 in order to pursue work outside of the defense industry, of which I'd grown rather tired. Within a few weeks, I'd received the payouts on my accrued and purchased vacation, as well as what was left in the savings bond deduction account I had opened. What I hadn't received was my final paystub. But I figured it would be sent out soon and didn't worry.
In October 2000, I received what looked like the paystub I was expecting, but in an LM envelope. They're normally sealed with those tear-off edges so they're private from the eyes of curious coworkers, and can be dropped in the mail if the proper postage was affixed. The reason this one was in an envelope is because someone had torn off the perforated edges, opened up the trifold, and then decided to send it out to me. But it wasn't the paystub I was expecting. It was a check dated 10/5/00 in the amount of $1418.25 (net...gross was $2500), and the summary part of the paystub/check listed it as "Special Payments / Hiring Bonus". Now I definitely thought this was odd, and knew that I hadn't referred anyone, nor had I managed to get a "golden clown's umbrella" when leaving (think "golden parachute", only comically smaller). I did think it was funny, though, and decided to hold onto it, at least until I got the paystub I was waiting for. And then, since I was busy with work and grad school, promptly forgot about it and lost it in the ever-present pile of bills, paid bills, paystubs, and printouts cluttering my computer desk.
Around the end of October, I got an email from an HR person at NE&SS. If she hadn't mispelled one of the email addresses she sent it to, I would have gotten it sooner, like within a day of her sending it instead of over 2 weeks later. As it was, she sent it (misspelled) to my old college account, to an ACM account I no longer had any access to but for which mail slowly trickled into a folder I'd check when I was bored, and my former address at the employer I was at before I went to work for LM.
In it, she freely admitted that NE&SS HR had royally screwed up and put me in for a referral bonus when it should have been someone else. I asked what was up with the check, and mentioned that I'd just gotten the email. When she basically repeated her first email to me, but this time mentioning the gross dollar amount, I decided to ask what was going on with that paystub I was still waiting for, and mentioned it was probably still on my desk someplace. Then school really picked up, and working 50+ hours a week, along with grad projects, I didn't happen to notice any response come back, and again forgot about the matter (yes, I'm the type that has to make sure important things are in a well-known place if I ever want to find them, and I need a due-date-sorted stack for bills someplace I'll see them daily if I'm to remember to pay them). Then the layoffs at Cidera happened, and I was suddenly looking for work, and then moving across the country. Everything on the desk was dumped into bags and boxes to be sorted later.
So, now 4 months later, a lot of bags and boxes are still cluttering the new apartment. And then I get that certified letter. Notice how the want me to send them a check or money order? Remember how I said I wasn't going to cash it? Well, after some digging through a bag or two in my office, I managed to find the check still uncashed. It would seem obvious to most people that there would be a record of this check having been sent out. And presumably, there would be a way to see if it had been cashed or not. At the very least, some Lockheed Martin accountant should be able to balance their books and see an excess of at least $1418.25 sitting in the account this check is supposed to be drawn from. And if they're worried about my cashing it in the future, there's this thing called a "stop payment" they could always put on the check.
What puzzles me is why they apparently did none of this. Instead, they send a semi-nastygram demanding I send them money instead of the original check. Clearly there's a disconnect somewhere. A friend, upon hearing me say that mentioned that it's probably an accounting department that would do that, whereas this letter probably originated in the "Fuckup Recovery" department.
It's also interesting to note that while this letter claims to be the second one sent, it is, to the best of my knowledge, the only letter ever sent to me over this. Presumably, the supposed "first letter" would have also been sent certified with return receipt as well, and since I don't exactly get letters like that even an average of once a year, I can only assume that there was no first letter. An email or three, yes. But a letter? No.
Unfortunately, this had to arrive on a Saturday, late enough that I couldn't even consider getting a response off today (I'm certainly going to send everything certified with a return receipt). And the 1-888 number in the letter only has a message to call another number, which dumps me into a voicemail system. I seriously doubt anyone would be there on a weekend, anyway, to answer my questions and take my comments. I figure I won't have time to even consider doing anything until next weekend with the schedule I have for the coming week, except MAYBE try to call the number before I need to work, and take advantage of the timezone difference.
What I'd really like to see happen is another letter arriving, stating that Lockheed Martin knows the check hasn't been cashed, and would accept the original (which as far as I know, being 8 months old, is uncashable anyway) back, along with an apology for taking so long to actually ask for the money and send me the paystub that should have been sent no later than September 2000.
Am I holding my breath waiting for it to happen? No. There was a reason I got out of the defense industry, and it wasn't just because we had a President using the product we were making to kill civilians halfway around the world distract the public from sex scandals.
So I finally found the time to call when Lockheed wasn't closed. Not a very satificatory telephone call, to say the least. I spoke with a "Debbie Easter", who told me to mail her the uncashed check, and she'd deal with it. She couldn't answer my questions about why it took so long to hear anything (she claims there was a letter sent "in October or November"). She couldn't tell me why there wasn't a stop payment on the check. Nor could she tell me why they had no clue that the check had never been cashed, except to say that she herself would assume that a check wouldn't go uncashed that long. She didn't even want to update my address in their records, even though what they have is plain wrong, and if she's really going to take care of it, they'd need to mail me updated 2000 W2s, based on what she told me.
So, now I have a choice. I can attempt to finish this up quickly, and send in the check right now, or I can wait to see what happens. I can picture the following scenario if I send in the check: Knock on door. It's a postal worker. Oh look, another certified letter. "Mr Gurski: We have not received payment. We are referring this to collections." FSCK! Of course, the same thing could happen now if I don't send in the check, but then at least I'd have the actual check still with me to prove it's never been cashed. Maybe I should photocopy the check, get the photocopy notarized (since it should have the date on the notarization), then mail the original off certified mail with a return receipt.
In any case, I'm currently on the road, so it's got to wait until at least this weekend. I'm just sick of Lockheed Martin in general at this point. From being given the wrong number to call, which wasn't even a direct line to the person who contacted me, to just the sheer idiocy involved, I'd like to just see everything go away.
Well, a few weeks ago, I received some more mail from Lockheed Martin. Surprisingly, it was updated W2s. I'm assuming that the whole matter is "closed" now, since they likely wouldn't have sent those out without first verifying the check hadn't been cashed.
I find it simply amazing that most of this could have been avoided by a simple stop-payment on the check. Sometimes, it just seems like corporations can be even dumber than people.
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