Didn’t Account For The Stubbornness Of Accounting

Many years ago, I got put on a work assignment for months that required me to travel to New York City and stay every Monday to Friday. I was assisting a company manager with a project and my hotel was near his regular office in the Theater District.

If you are not familiar, the Theater District is heavily built for tourists. Restaurants are generally kind of fancy and expensive. There were really not any quick and cheap options for dining in that area. The company had a generous meal policy of $30 to $40 a meal for travel expenses. I did use that for a bit, but the food got to feeling too indulgent and kind of ridiculous given it was an extended assignment. Also, I was working really long hours and did not want to go sit in restaurants; I just wanted to go watch TV and sleep in my room.

After the first week or so, I instead went to a grocery store on Monday night. I bought some basics: cereal, sandwiches, snacks, and some frozen meals I could microwave for lunch in the office. It cost about $60. I then took a few cans of soda from my hotel fridge to make room for my weekly food purchase and returned them before checking out at the end of the week. That was it for food costs, with an occasional meal out here or there. I did the same for the next four weeks and submitted my expense report at the end of the month. You know where this is going.

A lady from accounting called and refused to reimburse my expenses.

Accounting: “Sixty is more than forty dollars, the max allowance for a meal purchase.”

Me: “But the sixty dollars covered five days of food.”

Accounting: “That doesn’t matter.”

I then spent the next month trying all the food in the neighborhood. There really were not any cheap options. I went out to eat breakfast for a few mornings, lunch whenever I found time, and dinner absolutely every day. I could have bought a few installments of groceries, but the once-a-week shopping convenience was part of why I’d wanted them. It had also seemed wasteful for me to go out for an expensive meal every night for long-term travel, but now I’d been told that was preferred by accounting over my grocery bills!

The next month, I got a call from my NYC manager asking how I’d run through more budget every week of the month than the entire month before combined. I explained the grocery situation, and he thanked me and hung up.

About ten minutes later, that same lady from accounting called me.

Accounting: “We will pay your grocery bill of $60, and we will cover any grocery bills going forward as long as the daily amount averaged for the week is under the aggregate meal allowance.”

I happily returned to a more reasonable diet.