More than a year after leaving my job, I got a letter from them... and I initially thought it was some kind of scam. Why would I think that? Well, because it was a check for about $1k. They had apparently miscalculated overtime/differentials during the height of the pandemic (when I worked myself to the bones in an indescribable, fearful/stressful environment), so they owed money to almost everyone who worked during that time.

~$1k for just me. It was a hospital. In a capital city of the US. I don't even have an estimate of how many of us hourly's were working then... RN's, RT's, CNA's, LPN's, PT, OT, Security, Housekeeping? Let's just imagine an extremely low number of employees for the hospital, like 500.

If $1k was held for 500 employees over a year, you're telling me they got to profit/sit on $500,000 for over a year? What's the interest on that? And I'm low-balling this number to a huge extent.

It's like, "Whoopsies, we didn't pay y'all enough at the time, but it's cool because we recouped most the loss anyway over the past year". They hedged their profits by stealing wages is how it seems to me. "Oopsie daisy, we had an error; But don't worry cause here's your pay a year later". Cool cool cool, no worries friend. Didn't need it anyway

How is there a special category of theft that isn't criminal?