I’m mixing things up today. Question first, story after. I have to know: How many of you guys have Direct Deposit? If you have DD, how often do you check your paystubs?
From the time I got my first job until about 2 years ago, I was pretty much against the direct deposit. Granted, at the time, I thought “they” just sent your check “somewhere” and hoped it “ended up” in your bank “account”. Account definitely needed the quotations for emphasis. Thank you parents for making me Worrywart Wanda! Because of those “live checks,” when I didn’t have time to head to the bank, I would have weeks upon weeks of paychecks just sitting around in my room, chillin’. When I started working at my current company about two years ago, my check, which was physically bigger than the DD stubs, annoyed the heck out of my boss who then inquisitioned me into getting DD. But now that I have it, I honestly don’t know how I ever lived without it.
With the live checks, I would always look for some egregious error. Missing money. Wondering who the ef “FICA” was and why this person got a generous portion of my pay. I wanted to be her. Or him. With DD, you would think I would be extra cautious, but I’m not. I’m pretty reckless actually. I just hop onto online banking and make sure the money is there. And you’d think since I’m Non-Exempt, I’d make sure that I got my OT paid, but nope. I just kind of ballpark some figure that should be there and am pleasantly surprised when its higher. Point is, I don’t really focus on how much makes it into the account. Just that there better be some money in the account on Thursday morning or someone is getting an angry letter.
Anyway, what does this have to do with the title of my post? I pretty much opened a pay stub for the first time since starting this new role in August of 2009, just so that I can check to see how much I was contributing to my newly opened 401K and was BLOWN AWAY by what I saw. I really loved the blue that they chose as the background. KIDDING. Oh, it was depressing to see all of those deductions, but my OT was looking kinda cute in the right hand side. My pre-tax pay was looked mysteriously HIGH for some reason. So, being the nerd I am, I multiplied this amount by 27 (the number of paychecks that we are getting this year) and noticed that the base salary was definitely greater than what I signed on for.
I went from ecstatic to confused to just plain happy in about 3 seconds. I don’t know if any role just doles out raises without notifying their employees, but a raise is a raise is a RAISE. I wanted to go thank my boss, but then I went back to my state of confusion and stayed there for a bit. I mean, wouldn’t I get a review or something? So, I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t just playing Jedi mind tricks on myself (it happens a lot…) To end this roller coaster of a story, the OPERATIVE factor is that there are 27 paychecks this year (thanks to the three-fer), meaning what I thought was a raise was just another paycheck.
How embarrassing would that have been if I went into my boss’ office with tears of gratitude?
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