My Boss Stole From Me And Then Terminated Me

Hi everyone, this is my first Reddit post so forgive me if I'm in the wrong group. To give you a little bit of context, I'm a marketing manager for a company that has multiple locations in Georgia. There are seven individual brands under this one umbrella company. I did the marketing, graphic design, web design, social media management, content capture, video editing, so on so forth. It's just me, no one else. I recently hit my one year at the company and I've brought a lot of success on the social media side. 1.2 billion views across platforms, thousands of followers over the last year of my employment is still on and so forth. There was a printing error that I made where I sent some menus to print and the design file had some issues so we had to reprint that cost was a total of $387.42 and it was taken out of my direct deposit without me being notified prior to. Upon me asking my CEO why I wasn't notified, he didn't answer that question directly and the next morning, which was a Saturday morning, I was removed from having access to all of the accounts and emailed a termination letter.

Now Georgia is an at Will State so no real reason was given and regarding business, I have to understand that no matter if I disagree. But my issue is, why was I not notified before the money was taken from me, I have a great report amongst the company and coworkers, not combative or defensive or problematic. No I'm not perfect, but my job performance was not an issue and I would not have argued if they came to me and said that I was going to have to eat the cost of those menus.

In the termination letter/email the CEO offered me two weeks of severance pay, but did not specify the exact amount upon me returning any current or outstanding design files. My husband thinks I should get a lawyer and take legal action because coincidentally on August 28 of this year, I requested a one year review from my CEO with the intentions of asking for a title change and a raise. I put together all of my numbers and a complete spreadsheet to back up my request in the event that it was needed . He agreed to the title change, but gave me some excuse about having to redo the budget in order to give my position an increase. So to me it looks as if because I asked for more money and the title change, the CEO got scared, and that was the moment he decided that I was going to be out the door. Company is trying to expand to a new location so they have a couple of different things out, so of course they are moving money and eliminating positions.

Back in 2017 my employer, at that time was also taking money out of my paycheck without me knowing, I added up the amount and figured it out. Confronted him, he denied it, I put in my two weeks and I took him to court and I won. That company was much smaller than this one so I just wanted a little legal advice. Sometimes I make decisions based off of emotions and I do not want to do that here. I've been an entrepreneur for the last eight years so we get this company is my first time really being in the corporate world being an adult.

Location: Georgia