Worker receives final payday in oily coins dumped on his driveway

The oily coins at the bottom of the driveway. Photo / Supplied

A man in the US state of Georgia who was having trouble getting the last pay cheque from his employer was shocked to discover its equivalent in coins dumped in his driveway earlier this month. Atop the pile was an envelope with Flaten's final paystub and an explicit parting message.

Andreas Flaten said he left his job at Peachtree City's A OK Walker Autoworks in November but had trouble receiving the final cheque he was owed from his boss Miles Walker.

Flaten had given his two weeks' notice, writing a letter of resignation to Walker who reportedly promised Flaten's final US$915 cheque would be paid to him in January. But, come January, the money never arrived and Flaten said his former boss accused him of damages. He even called Georgia's Department of Labour for assistance in the matter, without much luck.

In mid-March, Flaten said as he left his house with his girlfriend he noticed the pile at the end of his driveway and that the coins were covered with some sort of oily substance. The coins weigh more than 225kg in total, according to Fox 5 Atlanta, breaking the wheels of Flaten's wheelbarrow.

Dismayed by the incident, Flaten's girlfriend, Olivia Oxley, took to social media with videos of the scene, writing on Facebook that "no one like that deserves to have [a] successful business".

Flaten called the move "childish" and noted that cleaning the pennies was "going to be a lot of work" for money he had already earned. His nightly routine of cleaning the pennies takes about an hour and a half.

The weight of the coins broke Flaten's wheelbarrow. Photo / Twitter

"I think that's going to be a lot of work for money I've already worked for," he said. "It's definitely not fair at all."

Walker spoke with WGCL-TV briefly, stating he didn't know if he did or didn't drop the pennies off at Flaten's house. "I don't really remember," Walker told the TV station. "It doesn't matter, he got paid, that's all that matters." Walker went on to call Flaten a "weenie".

The explicit message placed atop the pile of coins. Photo / Twitter

Oxley said she hopes her boyfriend's story sheds light on how people "are treated so poorly by their employers".

She said the pair have stopped being angry and are looking at the petty act in a positive light.

"With that many pennies, we're bound to find a few treasures. I've already found one from 1937," Oxley said. "After the first shovel full, all we could do was laugh because this poor miserable man took so much time to be vindictive and cruel. We absolutely refused to let him ruin a single moment of ours."

Additional reporting News.com.au