Author: Sanjay Sabarwal

As I rummaged through my library, sorting which books to keep and which ones to donate (a majority of them), I couldn’t help feeling a bit nostalgic about the thousands of pages surrounding me. Each book meant something at some point, but it hit me now they just represented a past that was no longer there. I held on to books rather than passing that story on to someone else, for it to live in someone else’s imagination.

It hit me that I kept the book to look and feel smarter, that I had a library and that meant I was well read. It held up an image in my head which didn’t need to be there. Who was I trying to impress?  Don’t get me wrong,  I am holding on to some titles (mostly graphic novels and my collection of  South Asian authors) but still it was harder than I expected to let go of decades of reading material. Yet I knew I would never read them ago, and ultimately I could not justify being selfish any longer.

I’d rather share than hoard. Let others experience the same emotions I did rather than keep it locked away. Still, it’s not easy. A part of me wants to hold on to everything, but the reality is that it is time to part ways.

Recently I have helped several former employees who were laid off but were not given their final wages which included the hours they had worked just before being laid off, earned Paid Time Off, and commissions.  Many employers do not realize that waiting time penalties attach daily up to 30 days if wages are owed after the final pay.

If you terminate an employee or lay him/her off with no specific return date within the normal pay period, all wages and accrued vacation earned but unpaid are due and payable immediately. It is not acceptable to ask or require an employee to wait until the next regular payday for his/her final wages. You cannot withhold a final paycheck. It is illegal to withhold a final paycheck to induce the former employee to:

• Return tools, uniforms, mobile devices, laptop computers, keys or any other items belonging to you.
• Pay back money that he/she owes to you.
• Turn in expense reimbursement forms.

Payment Due at Time of Discharge

The California Labor Code requires that employees receive all earned and unpaid wages at the time of termination from employment. If they do not, you can be assessed waiting time penalties. In Smith v. The Superior Court of Los Angeles County, the California Supreme Court ruled that neither length of employment nor reason for termination changes this requirement.

A beautiful Sunday afternoon. I sit in my library and gaze out the bay window people watching while Bella sits right outside the library as if respecting my wishes to write alone. The blinking cursor on my short story beckons. 4000 words in, and it feels as if it will never end. Each word I spit out feels dirty, untrue, and unworthy. Yet I am determined to finish. No more revising until I have a complete story even one I have begun to hate and feel like a third grader would write.

Each day, I continue to write 300 words, and some days those words seem to taunt me with their  silliness. They are just plain wrong, but I keep going because I have to keep the end in mind. I can no longer write half way. No longer tell myself, I will get to the ending later (because I never do). Writers write. So if I dare call myself a writer, I get to keep pounding words, nouns, verbs, adjectives, sentences, and as I get near the end, more stuff pops and I begin to wonder if I will ever finish. Then doubts. I am writing wrong! This is wrong, wrong, wrong!  And I sit with that feeling, take it in. Then I breathe it out, and keep going.

The end is near, and all that matters is that I finish the story. Good or bad. It is mine.

As the summer comes to an end, it amazes me that 2016 is halfway done. So much has already happened, but really what’s exciting is what the future is bringing due to the seeds I planted at the beginning of the year. There is also some sadness as things I counted on for a long time now have to be let go in order to make room for new things.

Change isn’t always easy even when I have strived for it for the past five years. Getting comfortable being uncomfortable was not a motto I thought I would adopt but the universe planned it otherwise. If all this sounds vague, it’s because I find it hard to put into words how much my life has changed due to my actions, some good and some bad. Yet the faith that the universe as the best in mind for me has moved me to this point in the present.

The end of things is not always bad, but it is necessary. I acknowledge that now. As I prepare for the upcoming wedding of my brother-in-law, and relish all the amazing celebrations in July, it comes to me that end of things does not mean they are finished, it just means to get ready for a new beginning.