Hello everyone
So, I used to work at a pretty popular shoe store in Tokyo until the end of February. Last December, we were told that if we worked the first three days of the year, we would get a bonus: 10k for January 1st, and 5k each for January 2nd and 3rd. My manager even came to me personally and asked if I could work those days, saying I would be paid that money.
I agreed because I expected to receive the bonus. At the time, nothing seemed off, especially since the same thing had happened the year before. I ended up quitting at the beginning of March because I was graduating and starting a full-time job in April. When my March paycheck came and the bonus was not included, I did not think too much of it because the payment had come pretty late the previous year too. But then April came, and I still had not received anything.
I was employed through a 派遣会社, so I contacted the person in charge of the store I had been assigned to and asked why I had not been paid. He told me that the store had set conditions for receiving the bonus, and one of those conditions was that you had to still be employed at the end of March.
The problem is that nobody at the store was ever told about those conditions. If I had known that staying employed through the end of March was required, I would have never agreed to work those days.
On top of that, in the past, people who had already quit by the time the new years bonus was paid still received it.
I know 20k is not a huge amount, but I honestly feel like I was misled into working those first three days of the year for no reason.
Is there anything I can realistically do about this?
by niooosan