I need some help dealing w/ my boss..........

[CrownPrinceBandar]

I know you folks are smart cookies and have seen it all.

A few years and some change ago, I was offered a job as an assistant to the manager of a electronics repair place owned by a dude and his brother, both whom I went to HS with. I was doing alright working at the job I was working, paying my bills, but I wasn't pulling down much cheese. I made clear that I had ZERO management skills, but these guys told me that EVENTUALLY, and after some training, I would have the opportunity to take over as manager and make more $$. These guys knew I had no experience managing, but they offered anyway. So I jumped at the opportunity and quit my other job. BIG MISTAKE. I thought I wouldn't be elevated to manager until I had some extensive training and apprenticeship (at least a year or two) as I have had no experience managing a repair shop. Turns out my training period was two weeks, and I was given very little in the way of warning that the old manager was leaving.

Needless to say, I sucked at the job. My organizational skills were not up to the task and, to make matters worse, I was the only body in the shop (this was a satellite store of a two-location business). I was often overwhelmed by the amount of work I had to accomplish, and repeated appeals to the owners for help went unanswered. So after about a year of this they decided to close the shop I was managing (for reasons independent of my performance - prop taxes were too high) and gave me the choice of doing electronics repair (no experience here either) or hitting the road. The owners were insistent that I could make a bunch of money on the road, and considering the employment situation around here, the choice seemed frightening, but obvious. But then it went bad fast.

Turned out I have to use my own vehicle and pay for my own gas and vehicle maintenance with no alternatives(which has gotten very expensive - I put 3,000 miles on my car one month alone), even though they provide vehicles for technicians other than myself. This is where the problem arises:

I am putting pressure on the owners to help me out w/ a major repair on my vehicle, but I'm getting resistance. I don't travel much on the weekends, so most of the miles I have put on the vehicle has come doing their work, and I know they're collecting mileage for my calls, but none of that is getting rightfully kicked back to me for upkeep, fuel, tires, etc...

My question is this: Do I have any legal ground to stand on to get them to help me out? Remember, this repair job was not the job I was initially hired for.

I appreciate any advice y'all can give.

[Lil Missy]

1. I have no answers, but will kick for you. Good Luck.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

2. That's OK. Thanks for at least checking it out.

[crispini]

3. Ok, so other people get vehicles provided, but not you?

That's not OK. I think you really need to sit down and have a chat with them about it. If you can come up with some external factor necessitating the talk, that might help. For example, "My wife just got a job X miles away and really would like to have the car rather than taking public transport, and the other guys get their cars provided for, so we really need to revisit this issue." Something like that.

If the terms of your employment weren't laid out clearly at the beginning, or when this change was made, then legally you're probably SOL. However, since you've been using your car so much for work, every penny of that mileage is tax deductible, I'm pretty sure about that.