But if you have a product or agency that was created to manage private and sensitive data, it is incumbent on YOU to create processes and tools to help users handle that information properly.

West Hollywood has two types of protected leave, each of which follows its own accrual schedule: Uncompensated Leave (what’s the point?) where you can take unpaid time off without getting fired; Compensated Leave that you can take for whatever reason you damned well please. Compensated Leave (CL) can fall under your combined/vacation policy, but it accrues much faster and has a higher limit than state sick time.  Which means that people can accrue up to 4.8 weeks of time off

To state the obvious: When you mess with people’s rights, sh*t gets real. And there are IRL consequences when you get the balance wrong.

If you’ve been trapped in your workplace unable to leave, eating Doritos from the vending machine for dinner and sleeping under your desk, should you be paid for that time?

Here's a rule of thumb: The best states to work in are some of the worst states to work with.

And speaking of equal opportunity, pirates welcomed escaped sailors from marginalized identities, giving them opportunities for advancement that they never would have had in the navy or merchant marines. Lady-pirates could even become captains, like Ching Shih, who led a fleet of 1,200 ships and a workforce the size of Morgan Stanley. You could call it D-E-Aye-aye-matey.

Before you start planning how you’ll spend that “free” paycheck before your finance department re-balances the budget for 2026 you need to know that your payroll provider is probably smart enough to anticipate this. There are two methods that payroll providers use to solve the 27-paycheck problem: Pro rata and pay as usual.

These days, it seems obvious that workers should be able to demand an accurate accounting for their time. But it wasn’t always that way. 

But hang on, what’s the point of making someone find a printer, and a scanner, and a pen, and those little “sign here” stickies anyway? Why, crime, of course!

The most common reason to hold on to employment records is because at some point, someone is going to need them. You may get a zombie tax letter with a five-figure fine from a state where no one’s worked for years. An employee may go through a nasty divorce and need payroll records from several years ago. Someone could file a complaint of systemic bias, and you’ll need complete records going back years to defend yourself. You may want to run a report on long-term trends and n

Here are five examples of mundane breakdowns that I’ve seen lead to payroll errors:

Except that something didn’t add up. They didn’t even have employees for half that time, and one of the people they were assessing violations on wasn’t even in the state. 

People and companies who never admit fault or ignorance don’t inspire confidence. In this situation, the right support response would have been, “I don’t know, but let’s figure it out together.”

Letters from government agencies can be real scary sometimes. Especially when they contain words like "Warrant" and penalties with commas in them. By all means, take these letters seriously. But don't let them scare you.

If more people could see the data, maybe they’d want to renegotiate. But they might also have a better understanding of how their value is measured, and therefore find ways to bring more value to the company.

But what passes for “security” in these agencies is a cruel joke. It is no more realistic for you to expect me to tap Mr. or Ms. Business Owner on the shoulder and hand them the phone than it is for me to demand that you tap the governor on the shoulder and get him/her on the phone. 

The many layers of humans and technology that go into insurance deductions can make it hard to track down where the problem is. And because of the old school systems insurance companies still use, it can be like traveling back in time. 

Nearly everything that happens in the company goes through payroll. And the person managing it needs to have the skills of an accountant, IT, lawyer, insurance agent, and operations manager, all rolled into one.

You run a draft payroll the regular way to get the numbers, enter the gross pay into an off-cycle payroll, and it spits out a number that’s off by 17¢ from what regular payroll said.  Why? Whyyyyy?

It drives me crazy when people treat a company’s FEIN (Federal Employer Identification Number) like it’s a big secret. FEINs are public information.