I did make 4 attempts to contact Mr. Flynn before my BF did. Three texts and one email over a 2 week period where I VERY politely and VERY professionally asked him to send me my check and provided him the address in which to send it. If he felt so threatened by my BF’s ONE phone call to him or by my BF in general he certainly reached out enough times to my BF to squash that theory. The only reason the term " domestic violence" was ever brought into this entire situation was because in the very beginning and the very first time my BF and Mr. Flynn spoke he stated to my BF he was going to get a restraining order against me if I made any further attempts to get the $ he owed me. As I said NOBODY threatened Mr. Flynn verbally, physically, or in ANY way thru texts,emails, or in phone coversations. Retraining orders aren’t designed for people who need them to hide behind an outstanding debt. They are designed for someone who has been physically assaulted and in most cases in domestic violence situations. They are designed to protect someone from a very serious situation where essentially they could be gravely harmed if not killed. In this situation a judge would summarily tell Mr. Flynn the same had he attempted to obtain one if he showed a judge my 3 texts and 1 email I sent him requesting my $. The arrogance of Mr. Flynn to clog up a court in attempt to avoid paying me speaks volumes to his arrogance and is an insult to people who really need a RO to protect them from a very serious violent situation. Nobody tried extorting,physically or verbally threatened,attempted to harm him physically. For him to threaten to obtain a RO would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic an attempt to not pay someone. Mr. Flynn you and I both know for a fact your reading this and are commenting on this post under fake screen names so just pay me so this can be over. I think your feelings must be hurt that I hung up on you twice on Tuesday. I’m sorry but the sound of your voice grates on my nerves as to why I previously let you and Steve handle this and have numerous phone conversations and I never attempted to call you personally and kept any attempts to contact u via text or email. Balls in your court.
I feel like I want to pay you just to shut you the hell up. My sympathy has plummeted since your first post.
Right :lol:
I am simultaneously amused and aghasted by OP’s description of what “a judge would summarily tell Mr. Flynn” after reviewing her three text messages and one email.
It reminds me of a song… some may recognize it…
“Cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American Blind justice, and there wasn’t nothing he could do about it, and the Judge wasn’t going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten color glossy Pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each One explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us.”
:winkgrin:
Laurierace…here’s an idea stop reading this post. You honestly won’t have to be bothered and won’t need me to “shut the hell up”…very classy. Do you kiss your mother with that mouth. Nobody begged you to read this or continue to read it. So please stop intentionally aggravating yourself. Oh and BTW as for your comment about our racing operation being my “boyfriend’s”… After 16 years together you can best believe its absoulutly “ours” . Have yourself a great day happy lady 
That was not me, you may want to reread. I was the one who said you can’t train 9 horses and work full time for someone else which of course was correct.
Laurierace With 2 grooms, a hotwalker, a exercise rider for 5 and my boyfriend getting on the other 4. Yes it most certainty can be done. Quite successfully I might add seeing as we pursed out over $350K for 2017 before coming here for the winter in December. But that isn’t what this discussion was about so ill leave it at that. Telling someone to shut the hell up is extremely rude. I’m sorry you feel its appropriate to behave that way. As I said earlier stop continuing to read or post if your so aggravated when doing so
I think I heard lot of similar story about him.
Denali6298 per your comment about the racing operation I referred to being my BF’s. Seeing as my boyfriend and I have been together for 16 years its most definitely “ours”. Because I choose to work with show horses when we come to Ocala in the winter doesn’t make it any less “ours” . We have more than enough competent help to oversee things in my absense if I choose to gain employment outside our racehorses for the winter months.
For those suggesting the OP file a claim with the Federal or State Department of Labor, this recent article was very eye opening about the amount of wage theft that goes on and the relatively limited lack of enforcement. Florida was explicitly mentioned as having taken no wage enforcement actions for over 4 years, although it was not clear if that has improved more recently.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/18/minimum-wage-not-enforced-investigation-409644
The federal DOL certainly does investigations and since there is a history of a pattern of doing this that OP can provide, they may be interested. Also, most are resolved by notices instead of by enforcement actions (that only happens if the employer still doesn’t pay the back wages after notice). I still think that going to the federal DOL is a good option for a lot of people. However, based on later posts it has become clear that it is useless to pursue this legally – OP has made a giant mess of everything.
Actually, the best step in a normal course of action would be to write a demand letter informing the employee of wages owed and notifying him that if payment is not received by X date, employee will report the issue to the W&H board. That usually resolves the issue if there is no dispute over the alleged amount of wages owed. Even better if it is on attorney letterhead.
Or you can implode all over the Internet, I guess.
The issue of migrant and day workers not getting paid is a very complicated story and that population is very vulnerable/taken advantage of. It is very sad. I wouldn’t consider OP to really be in the same situation. Of course her situation was bad but not nearly as bad as the issues those workers face (including language, lack of home, often vulnerable illegal status so they can’t go to authorities easily without risking deportment…)
I am guessing this is probably actually because the law gives employers some amount of time to resolve a dispute after they are notified and most pay up. It’s not worth the time over $500. They wait to see if the employee knows their rights, if they do they pay and no “enforcement action” is required. Further, there are wage theft laws in some of the largest counties in Florida that provide for a civil conciliation process that does not result in enforcement action even in a civil claim. So there are many reasons for this other than that the state doesn’t care - in fact several counties have very strong wage theft provisions. Marion County is not one of those as far as I am aware.
Also, I believe the OP was the one who was telling people to “stay in [your] lane” and “sit down” so I don’t think her knickers should be in quite so much of a twist over being told to “shut the hell up.”
IMO for someone who stated previously they don’t need the money and have yielded a 6+ figure income in the racing industry, the level of anger and vindictiveness is curious. This is not to say someone should not be paid their due daily wage …absolutely they should but…
Yes, I agree that the OP could have handled this much better. However the article makes clear that filing a claim with DOL is not a guarantee of anything, so I can understand why she explored other options. The one you suggest probably would have been a wiser one. On the other hand, it wouldn’t have informed the community of the pattern of behavior by her employer that she is alleging. While the OP does not seem to be in this situation, there are many workers in the horse industry who are in vulnerable situations (due to language, lack of resources, immigration status) similar to those discussed in the article. If the OP was really treated the way she claims, then I wonder how more vulnerable workers at this barn might be treated.
I think people have a different tone here than the Stormy thread because the OP comes off in her postings as being very young, and isn’t handling this situation with as cool of a head as Stormy. The assumption is that young people are all spoilt brats who need a firm talking to by an adult. It doesn’t mean that she wasn’t done wrong, and I’m sure that some people aren’t as capable of handling an upsetting situation in a level headed manner.
What concerns me are the number of people telling her to “go to college” or that she was in the wrong by “leaving in a huff” and putting a horse person in a bind. Horses do need to be fed, and giving a notice is a standard, but at some point walking out due to abusive behavior has to be the right thing to do. I have no idea if any of what the OP said was true, but I wouldn’t want to force someone to work for an unprofessional employer any longer than necessary. A friend of mine walked off an important job with no notice after her manager called her an “incompetent moron who couldn’t help F ing things up” after she had worked a 15 hour shift.
I think most people here, if not all, don’t fault the OP for leaving in a huff. The OP lost support with her tirades here about other posters. We assumed she was young due to how she types and the fact that she had her BF and Brother call her former employer and got jumped on for that. One poster said the sponsor was right to ask the OP to take down her tirade from their FB page. That poster got told to stay in her lane. No one disagreed with contacting the sponsor, but there are professional ways to handle it.
If the OP is going to claim to be a professional in the industry and talk about how much her horses earn racing then one would hope she would act like a professional. She also, insinuated doubt that another long time poster was even a trainer in the racing industry when questioned about how she could have 9 horses in training and work the winter circuit as a groom.
We we were all in the OPs corner until the OP went all crazy here because we didn’t rubber stamp her every action. So either the OP is pretending to be older and more experienced as a pro in the industry or she’s unprofessional as all get out. I don’t blame her for walking out.
The OP stated that she had been with her boyfriend for 16 years. Lots of people decide not to marry, I don’t think it’s fair to judge her maturity based on her being married or not which several people did as soon as she said boyfriend. Some even reprimanded her for calling the race business theirs since she wasn’t married or told her to go back to school to learn better english.
The response would have been different had she said husband or SO or had she a better command of her writing skills. We have a tendency to not treat people we view as young with respect.
I don’t think anyone should have been calling her ex employer besides her or a lawyer.
I’m not judging her maturity on her marriage status. I’m judging it on her writing style and her actions. I assumed she was young. Clearly I was wrong. If she said her husbands farm and her husband called I still would have the same reaction. She said she had 9 clients in race training, she makes this much. So yeah the question pops up how do you then work the circuit. It’s her BF’s thing cool. If my BF and I had a business I would never write about it as if I was the only one in the business and then jump on people for asking how can one do both.
SO, boyfriend, husband whoever shouldn’t have called. My BF asks me if he wants me to let him handle stuff that gets sticky. I always say no because it’s my thing. That to me, is unprofessional unless we are talking about a kid and the parents having to step in.
I fully support her walkout and her wanting to get paid. I do not support her attitude over assumptions made because we don’t have the whole story and I do not support unprofessional behavior from people claiming to be a professional.
Pretty sure you are way way off base here.
Threatening privately to tell your version of a situation on public media, even if that version is negative, about not being paid for legitimate work is not extortion. Just like threatening to leave negative reviews on contractors that don’t fulfill their contracts isn’t extortion.
Turns out, courts have repeatedly upheld the rights of people to write about their bad experiences on the internet and telling the company you are going to do so has yet to be seen as extortion in a court of law.
The definition of extortion has been supplied on this thread and the reasons why the OP’s posts potentially meet the criteria. I believe they are on the 1st couple of pages. .
I agree with Denali’s post #83 and 85
Some even reprimanded her for calling the race business theirs since she wasn’t married
I brought up the bit about checking her state of residence’s laws about Common Law Marriages and/or business partnership agreement. That was not a reprimand, but advice to the OP. I have no idea what their business or personal arrangement is but it never hurts to have things in writing since they aren’t married and in many situations even in marriage). Many states don’t recognize personal property/ assets as joint without marriage, that’s a simple fact. And quite frankly is good advice for any person entering into a live-in relationship with their partner. I’ve seen women get shafted plenty of times when their relationships have ended - both live-in and in marriages, and sadly a few in death.
