So, the husband switched employers this year, from one he's been with 14 years, to one we hadn't previously heard of. In civil construction, so employers are often out of state (as this one is). Although the employer must have upwards of a couple dozen employees, I was very surprised to receive a paper paycheck, sent through the mail, hand-signed by the CFO.
In the 3-1/2 months he's been employed by them, the checks "usually" arrive on Saturdays, once on a Friday (which is what we were initially told would be the day they'd arrive), and frequently on a Monday. Once or twice on a Tuesday. Last week's paycheck never arrived, and they are re-issuing it.
The old employer switched to dd like, well over a decade ago. Even my HRBlock franchise job last tax season (with a whopping 10 employees) used dd. I was a little worried about the new employer just based on the paper checks.
Combined with the fluctuations in paydays (the checks are mailed out on different days, I'm watching the postmarks, so it's not USPS issues), should I be worried about their solvency? In my previous life, I did accounting and was a CFO, and even in small businesses, I only ever saw variations in paydates when there were cash flow issues. There's a couple of other little blips on my radar with the company that make me worry about financial decisions (bidding a multi-million contract when they don't have, for example, a proper crane or sufficient other heavy equipment to get it done, yet the owner has his own private plane, a little one, that he uses to fly key personnel back to the home state from out-of-state jobsites on weekends, etc.). Husband keeps saying he thinks they're fine, but husband honestly, only has experience with the old employer and now this one. And he was initially shocked by the lack of equipment, but since he's the superintendent he is figuring out other ways to do it, and is proud of that, so he doesn't want to talk much about it anymore. Plus I think he's sick of hearing me express my doubts about them.
Basically, I am afraid this is a little company, in over their heads on this job, and I'm worried. It's within the realm of possibility that this paycheck got stolen out of our mailbox (husband had it coming to the house address, I've now corrected that to the PO Box), but we live so far out, that it seems very unlikely someone would drive this far to try and steal mail from maybe 10 mailboxes out here.
What is your experience? Employers still printing their own paychecks and hand-signing them? Varying mailing dates for paychecks? Am I being paranoid?