It Pays To Go Home Once In A While

(I work as a shift manager, scheduling freelance employees and helping them with payroll. An employee calls me with a question about his last paycheck. We pay biweekly.)

Employee: “Hi, I’m just wondering if my hours for that shift last week were paid on the last paycheck. I still haven’t gotten paid for those.”

Me: “Let me check! I see here that I processed them before payday, so they definitely were sent to accounting… Did you recently set up direct deposit?”

Employee: “Yup, and I haven’t seen a deposit, either.”

Me: *checking out his payroll account* “Okay, well, your banking stuff looks good. It does take two pay periods for the direct deposit to kick in, so most likely you were mailed a physical check. Is your address still [address]?”

Employee: “Yeah.”

Me: “That’s good. It looks like we mailed a check out on [payday]. Have you still not received that?”

Employee: “I don’t know. I haven’t been home in two weeks, so I haven’t checked my mail.”

Me: *pause* “You should probably do that, then, and if it’s not there, then call me back.”

(He was very flustered and hung up pretty quickly.)