They Slashed My Pay. I Objected & Was Fired

Hi, I'm John, and I'm fundraising here because if I don't, I may end up losing my home and more, as well as not being able to pay my taxes. I'm sorry in advance for asking. Here's the situation:

I have (now, had) been working as office manager for a Bay Area company I will not name here for, as of this February, 3 years, part of which was during the pandemic. I had stayed with this company even though I had a very mean boss, because I needed the money badly, and for a while I managed to make my life stable for myself and my three 9-year-old cats(seen here). Last January was my 55th birthday.

And the company hit a dry spell with no new customers for a couple of months, so my boss decided she was going to slash my pay in half. Not my hours, which remained still full-time: just my pay. Which brought it down to far less than California's minimum wage, I realized. Besides that this is illegal, she also gave me no definite metrics of when she would reinstate my normal pay, just her whim, apparently. Meanwhile my rent remains almost 2 grand a month(and in northern CA it's not really possible to find much that's cheaper) regardless. On my normal wage this was just manageable. On this lesser wage, not at all.

This after 3 solid years of putting up with her yelling and insults.

I need to not lose my home and to be able to feed myself and the three 9-year-old kitties you see above(Roscoe, Chester and Marnie). I spent a long time, over a decade, stubbornly trying to at least make my life here stable, if not (at all) cushy. Life has not been kind to me since I moved here a decade ago. So stable is enough for me.

Just the same, I tried to discuss this with them and was fired.

So I ask you for your help to get me through what are really some very difficult months, especially because they took out no taxes AND IT'S NOW TAX TIME. I was GOING to use this Feb-April to save up the money for that, but no..

By the way, I'm also selling a bunch of stuff--including my own artwork(some of you may also know me as an indie cartoonist, but one whose work is not all that commercial) and lots of items from my collection--as part of this effort. Please click and bid if you see something you like:

https://www.ebay.com/usr/jlroberson

Thank you for your time and your attention. I appreciate your help. Please also share this if you can.