Driving The Costs Up

Fifteen years ago, I worked at a company that had regular mandatory training courses throughout the year. They always gave us plenty of notice, and we (coworkers) would usually carpool together to make the one-hour drive less boring, and it also saved the company money as they paid for mileage. There would be five employees in one vehicle, which was fine.

But after a few years, the company became really, REALLY concerned with its profit and seemed to no longer care about the employees. So, one day, they decided that employees had a mandatory training, but it was the following day, a Saturday, with not even 24 hours’ notice. They didn’t care that we all had plans and families; the training was mandatory.

So, I went to every employee and shared my concern that the training tomorrow was way too short notice to carpool. I made sure we were all aware that it was too late to arrange a carpool for the one-hour drive. We would all have to drive ourselves.

So, the next day, forty-five employees drove their own vehicles to the training. The parking lot was full, and some had to park in an overflow area or on the street.

The admins were livid on Monday when they got forty-five mileage sheets turned in and found out how expensive a last-minute mandatory training could be.