[cwilkes]

And if they are touchy about it probably also means that they won't pay it out if you leave ... that's the law in California but not in other states like Washington.

I was shocked to hear that, apparently it is somewhat common in retail jobs not to get paid out. Happened to me at a company that claimed to be more of a technology company. Maybe they don't think word gets around. Or that smarter employees will just take a lot of time off before quitting, which does a lot more harm to the company than if they just paid out the time owed to the employee.