For almost everyone, the biggest reason for going to work is to get a paycheck.

When you’re not getting paid as much as others, it can make you upset, but there can be legitimate reasons for the discrepancy.

In this story, the employee was so concerned about how much her co-workers were making that she opened their paychecks to find out.

Read on to find out what happened (and why she regretted getting a raise!).

It doesn’t pay to snoop then accuse the boss…

First some background: I own a tanning salon, and it is open from 9am to 9pm every day.

There are usually 5-6 girls working part-time there, and the pay is 12 dollars an hour plus cash commissions on the things they sell (packages, lotions).

It’s worth noting that it’s a small non-chain business in a college town.

All of the paychecks are kept in a drawer, in individual envelopes with the employees names on them taped shut.

They pick up their envelope on pay day, and it has worked well EXCEPT for one instance.

Wow. This employee is violating everyone’s trust.

One employee decided to open everyone’s envelopes to see their pay, and she was LIVID that one girl was getting paid $2 more an hour.

Instead of just asking me about it, she decided to blast the employee group chat and accuse me of ripping them off etc.

Before you think the same thing, it’s worth noting again that this is a college town with all college age workers. Which for my particular salon it has meant it’s VERY hard to consistently have someone who wants to close weekends.

They are all usually going home, have plans, want to study, etc. I try to be super accommodating, and I work around everyone’s schedules to the best of my ability.

This business owner seems very reasonable, but the employee is never satisfied I guess.

If someone says they cannot work, I do not ask questions I just accept it and plan accordingly.

So, the reason this girl made a little “extra” was because she offered to close both days every weekend because she didn’t mind.

She didn’t want as many week hours so I offered to pay her a little extra because it was so difficult a lot of the times to schedule that. Plus those two days can be a little slow, so commissions are usually not as good.

I guess the girl who snooped never bothered to look at the schedule to see if there was MAYBE a reason that girl made a little more (even though she really didn’t because she worked so few hours).

Cue malicious compliance.

I think I would have fired the snooper, but this reaction might be even better.

I explained the situation to all of the girls. I told the snooper that since she was right, totally a rip off, I would make sure to fix it.

I started scheduling both the snooper and my weekend closer every weekend night for the next 3 weeks.

I really only needed one person working, but I had done a terrible wrong that needed to be made right! (At the extra pay for the snooper of course).

I would’ve done it longer, but she apologized and said she was totally fine going back to how it was because she wanted her weekends back and the extra pay wasn’t worth it!

I guess we could’ve decided that together if she had just talked to me in the first place instead of jumping to conclusions.

Sounds like this employee finally learned her lesson.

Let’s hear what Reddit thinks…

Who still prints off paychecks?

I’m all for teaching the employee a lesson, but this action could hurt the existing reliable employee.

I’m not sure about the legality of the issue, but it is a serious violation of trust.

Letting her stay with the company could very well upset the other employees.

Hopefully, they learned their lesson.

It kind of sounds like the consequences should have been more harsh.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.