Clayton Lambert & Paul Ahumada, Owners
Alpine Motorworks - 1394 North 4th Street, San Jose CA 95112
(PERMANENTLY CLOSED FOR BUSINESS)

Date: April 16, 2003

REASON FOR BLACKLISTING: $2,920 in unpaid wages over a 4 month period of time, then refusal to pay

Complaint: Yes, Alpine Motorworks. The same place where I worked part time and the same place where I did my 2.8i conversion.

I’ve been employed by Alpine since December 2001, originally to do small jobs like answering telephones, oil changes, cleanup, etc. But my role at the shop quickly expanded to much larger repairs/projects and I eventually became the shop’s manager, service writer/estimator, parts manager, and in charge of special projects (like conversions and aftermarket performance parts installation).

I quickly became good friends with Paul, as we worked together everyday and were the only two employees running the shop. Clay Lambert was an absentee owner living in a fantasy dot-com world. He had one of those bullshit executive-vice president-of-janitorial-service positions at Exodus that paid a few hundred grand a year for him to sit in a chair and wack off all day. Alpine was his hobby shop and he only came by once every two months for half an hour just to yell at everyone and make sure that he was the boss. Then he would leave and not come back for another month or two. I never took him seriously.

Paul, on the other hand, was a good guy and worked hard. But he also had a serious alcohol problem that he often brought to work. At first I didn’t notice it, but his droopy eyes, slurred speech, quick mood swings, and inability to perform simple repairs became the signature signs of his drunkenness. It eventually became so bad that he would pass out on the floor (in front of customers), run into things while test driving cars, or not show up to work for several days at a time. Since I was also a full-time college student, this put a lot of stress in my life as well, and as most alcoholics, he refused to admit that he had a problem.

I believe much of Paul’s drinking was related to Alpine’s income (or lack thereof). In fact, the shop never made that much money, and because I knew how little profit the shop made, I agreed to defer money that the shop owed to me until later (for instance, if Alpine owed me $500 for a 2-week time Paul would only pay me $250). I was dumb enough to agree because I wanted to help out the shop, but later I realized that there was no way the shop could ever pay me back in full. To make matters worse, Alpine’s hack accountant (Kimberly Walker, who is Paul’s girlfriend) never gave me any paycheck stubs or any copies of my time cards, so I had no way of proving exactly how much the shop owed me in backpay. She was also sneaky enough to base my 2002 yearly income (on the IRS W2 form) on hours worked, not amount paid (which is what a W2 is supposed to reflect). So if I worked, say, 1000 hours but was only paid for 100, she lied on the W2 that I was paid for 1000 hours instead of the 100 hours that I was actually paid, so in essence, according to the 2002 books all my wages were paid in full.

Finally in February of 2003, Alpine’s debt grew tremendously and Paul’s drinking problem grew accordingly. He finally checked himself into rehab for a month long program, leaving the shop with no full-time mechanic. At this time, Clay (who by now lost his dot-com job and had foolishly spent all his money), took over the shop’s day-to-day operations and managed to screw up everything by scaring away what little customers were left with his hardball tactics. Since Clay didn’t know how to fix cars, he hired Alpine’s independent contractor mechanic Simon Juhasz to work full time. Neither Simon nor I were paid for the entire month of February or March, but both Clay and Paul showed little concern.

At this point, things were starting to hit the fan. Alpine was now 3 months backdue in rent, and the property owner threatened to have the county sheriff lock the shop and seize its assets by April 15th if the rent wasn’t paid in full by then. With no foreseeable income in the near future, Paul began to take his tools from the shop to his house to prevent them from being seized.

For some strange reason, Simon blamed this on me. He reported to Clay that I allowed Paul to take all the shop’s tools and equipment (Alpine’s only asset remaining), so the shop now had no way to make money. Clay was intending to sell everything off, but because Paul took most of the tools from the shop this was now impossible. Clay believed Simon and promptly fired me, nullifying the $2,920 in backwages that I was owed. He even had the audacity to inform me that I was lucky that Alpine isn't going to sue me for $8,000 in lost revenue, then told me to "get the fuck out." Paul didn't seem to care so long as he could keep his tools.

Alpine Motorworks finally closed its doors on April 15, 2003. Good riddence.





California Labor Code section 201 states that "If an employer discharges an employee, the wages earned and unpaid at the time of discharge are due and payable immediately ...such that a reasonable time shall not exceed 72 hours."

Furthermore, California Labor Code section section 203 states, "If an employer fails to pay, without abatement or reduction, in accordance to Sections 201, 201.5, 202, and 205.5, any wages of an employee who is discharged or who quits, the wages of the employee shall continue as a penalty from the due date thereof at the same rate until paid or an action therefore is commenced; but the wages shall not continue for more than 30 days. Suit may be filed for these penalties at any time before the statute of limitations on an action for the wages from which the penalties arise."

So what does all this mean? Small-claims court. In California, any civil suit under $5,000 goes to small claims court so that is where I filed my claim. Unfortunately, things kept going downhill from there, as you can see in Case 5...