Payroll puzzle plays out productively.

A little time ago, in an installation of Whee! & Suck! I lamented that Payroll seemed to have it out for me, that as soon as they'd paid me my unused vacation time, they told me they were going to dock me because of my altered pay-rate. I caviled and kvetched, railing against the injustice of it all and certain that I was being screwed out of hard-earned cash.

Of course, this school being possessed of a bureaucracy of tremendous magnitude and truly impressive momentum, I wasn't given the complete story.

Employee status: I was being paid X per hour.

Graduate employee status: I am being paid Y per hour.

To my great surprise, Y > X. My unused vacation time was paid out at the rate of Y, not X.

How could this be? I'm a grad student. I WISH I were being paid that well as a graduate student-cum-employee slave.

Ah-HA. As an employee, I was working on a 40-hour-weekly appointment. As a grad student, I'm actually only being being paid on a 20.5-hour-weekly appointment. Sum total of X * 40 hours >> Y * 20.5 hours.

So... yeah. I got overpaid. By a little bit. I can accept that.

Still wish I were being paid at Y for a 40-hour-weekly, but, hey, I'm a grad student...