The way it is: I'm unemployed right now. I was working as a delivery person for a third party logistics provider, installing appliances for a big box electronics store. From the start this store, or specifically the general manager of the particular store I was serving, had a hostile relationship toward my company. And to be fair, they brought in people who were not particularly well-trained, didn't equip them with the tools they needed to do their jobs very well (my trainer finally bought us some tools about the second week, and then we got more tools when an auditor from the company came and bought us some much later on), and didn't even supply me with more than one uniform shirt until after my first helper got himself fired.
In the incident in which my first helper got fired, he backed into a power pole on the customer's private property against the orders of his trainer. This was only the latest in a series of customer complaints against him, but in this case we were advised by my company not to let the general manager know what had happened--she "didn't need to know". Perhaps it was a failing on my part, but that rubbed me the wrong way, and anyway I worried that she would catch wind of the incident from some other channel, and we'd all be in worse trouble, so I filled her in, and that directly led to my associate's termination.
In the just over three months I worked there we had an auditor from the company to monitor our performance, not once, not twice, but three times, all at the general manager's request. And every time we were told that we were doing a fine job and that the GM was just being too picky. By the time the third auditor had come and gone, I was on my third helper; my second got himself fired for making racist remarks in the GM's earshot. About a week after the third auditor left, we were assigned to deliver a full kitchen and laundry room's worth of appliances, and we were set behind an unreasonable quoted delivery time, which had been changed three times between the store and the customer without our knowledge. Essentially, the customer was already angry enough before I called her to tell her we were unfortunately running behind her quoted time. Although she warmed up to us greatly when she saw just how much work we had to do delivering and installing her appliances, I'm not sure her husband had the best impression of us either. That may or may not be why, the following Monday, I received a call from the regional manager of my company informing me that our contract with the store had been terminated without notice by the GM.
All that is maybe neither here nor there. The bottom line is, I have since applied for unemployment insurance, but I am still owed a check for a final couple days' salary and reimbursements for supplies, fuel, and tools I bought on my own dime to do my job. It has now been over a month and I have not seen that check. My regional manager told me it should be coming to me in paper form, but that I am definitely owed the check. It's in my text messages. The last time I tried to reach out to him, I received no response.
I don't know if this adds anything to a potential case, but I was also told, within the first couple weeks of working that job, that I was promised a different job on a different contract with the same company if I could just hang in there until the contract was finalized. See, I had put in my two weeks' early on because... well, the reasons I already mentioned above. I just had a bad feeling about the company, but after I was made that offer, I decided to stick around. Now I wish I hadn't, because that Monday, the day I was told we were out of work, I asked about the other contract, and apparently the owner of the company had had second thoughts about that without my knowledge, claiming that he worried I was a flight risk because I had put in my notice so early. I don't know how else I could have proven my loyalty than by working 70 hour work weeks of backbreaking labor for a store whose general manager reeeeeally wanted to see me fired in spite of that, and all for $500 a week. I was paid on salary, so in the end I made less than minimum wage per hour. Also, my income was taxed, so I suspect that I should have been paid overtime by DOL laws. But I don't know for sure.
I don't know anything for sure, really. This is why I am asking whether I should consult or hire a lawyer.