By Tim Binnall
A Georgia man awaiting a final paycheck from his former job at an automotive shop was not too thrilled when he finally received the $915 payment in the form of 91,500 grease-covered pennies. According to a local media report, Andreas Flaten left his position at A OK Walker Autoworks under contentious circumstances back in November. Attempts to collect on the last bit of work he had done proved futile and, frustrated by this turn of events, the man even went so far as to file a complaint Georgia Department of Labor. Whether by way of that report or simply via his persistence, Flaten ultimately received the compensation a few weeks ago in a manner that he undoubtedly did not expect and most certainly did not appreciate.
On his way out to the store earlier this month, Flaten exited his home and discovered a massive pile of greasy pennies sitting at the end of his driveway. The origin of the change was no mystery as atop the mound of coins was an envelope sporting an explicit message and containing his final pay stub from A OK Walker Autoworks. Calling the stunt by his former employers a "childish thing to do," Flaten proceeded to scoop up all of the pennies and put them in a wheelbarrow which is now in his garage. The weight of coins, which he believes to be around 500 pounds total, was so significant that it actually caused the tires of the cart to deflate.
Since receiving the unorthodox and very slimy payment, Flaten has spent hours scrubbing each individual coin using a special cleaning solution. The process, as one might imagine, is laborious and takes the man approximately 90 minutes just to refurbish a few hundred of the pennies or, "a lot of work for money I’ve already worked for," as he so aptly put it. Unfortunately for Flaten, his former employer's audacious method of payment was perfectly legal, leaving him with little recourse but to keep cleaning the coins. To that end, when asked about the situation by a local TV station, owner Miles Walker declared "he got paid, that's all that matters" and, in the kind of mature response one might expect from someone who pays a $915 tab in pennies, called Felton a "weenie" for complaining.