[NOT OC - REPOST]
I promise I am the least petty person you’ll meet, but this “ask” just took me over the edge.
I work for a very large company, make very good money and work long hours often, which up until this point I’ve been totally fine doing. Night meetings until 10pm? Fine. Drive 2 hours to major plant multiple times a week? Alrighty. But this past week we had a global supplier team fly in from Japan. FaceTime at the plant is incredibly important. This means I need to be at the plant every single day for the next 2.5 weeks.
I have two bosses, a direct boss man, and the big boss lady. We’ll call them Joe and Jill. When discussing this trip from our global counterparts (25k each person), Joe and I talked to Jill about spending a couple nights in a local hotel so we could cut back on driving. She said “that’s not necessary, you guys can just drive. I’ll approve 1 night at a hotel so you can do relationship building with the Japan team.”
I might have lost y’all already with the crazy hours and long driving, but I could MAYBE get on board with this, if it wasn’t for Tuesday mornings. Tuesday mornings we have a couple critical global calls at the plant, and with the Japan team in town, we should really be there in person for collaboration. Myself, Joe, and Jill all agree on this. I pushed back on Jill and mentioned the Tuesday morning early calls. No dice.
Y’all, the meetings are at SIX AM. On top of this, we have Monday night meetings till 9:30pm. So I’d have to try to quickly fall asleep after the night meeting, then wake up at 3/3:30 and leave before 4 to be there on time. Driving 2 hours in the dead of night. In January. In Wisconsin. After maybe 5 hours of sleep, if I’m lucky. There are 3 Tuesday mornings with the Japan team in town.
So what did I do? I booked hotels Monday night anyway. Nice ones. Then proceeded to tell EVERYONE that I’d be local on Monday nights for relationship building. “That’s cool the company is helping you cut back on driving!” “Nah, they wouldn’t pay, but that’s fine. I’m just paying out of pocket.” I was honest, professional, but not shy that the company was not paying for this. I knew this would not look good.
The first Monday night my poor Joe was getting ready for the trek home and said “Hey don’t stay to late, it’s a long drive.” And I comfortably said, “Actually I got a local hotel, so I’m 10 mins down the road. But drive safe!”
The longest, pregnantest, pause.
“But, but Jill said we can’t stay local while the Japan team is in town…?” “Nah she said she wouldn’t pay for it, which is fine, I’m just going to pay for it out of my own pocket.”
YALL THE PAUSE GOT LONGER 404 DOES NOT COMPUTE
“Are you visiting a local friend or something?” “Nope, just for work. I just found it to be a SAFETY CONCERN to drive at night after just a few hours of sleep, so I paid for it out of pocket. Oh and I told the Japan team we can get dinner a few nights on Monday since I’ll be local.”
WTF IS HAPPENING, BUT BUT BUT JILL SAID NO
“Well… I can talk to Jill and see if we can cover it under company expenses since it work related. Have you booked yet?”
“Whatever you think is right. And yep, it’s booked and non-refundable.”
The next day I got an email from Jill informing me that if I felt so strongly that it was a safety concern to stay local on Mondays, to expense the 3 hotel days through the system retroactively. The same way I would if I forgot to pay with my company card. I 100% knew they wouldn’t make me pay (what should be) a company expense or punish me for making a good safety choice. Joe gets to stay local for the next 2 Mondays too!
The sugar on top? Every time I drive to and from the plant, they pay me about $120 in miles.
They could’ve literally booked me a cheap hotel for the same price. Instead they’ll be paying for my $220 a night in hotels of my choice which I specifically picked in a fun area and upgraded to get a shitton of rewards points.
Don’t cheap out on your invaluable employees.