Your Mileage May Vary

At my job, every day I have to travel between two offices. I start at my main office, then have to travel to the second office, then back to my main office. Because I’m using my personal vehicle for this travel, the company pays me mileage.

Well, there are basically two routes you can take between the two offices. One is about a mile round-trip shorter, but has tolls. So I always took the one-mile-longer route and avoided the tolls. I did it this way for a year.

Well, in comes the new bookkeeper, and she is h***bent on saving the company money. And where does she think all this wasteful money is going? Expense reports, obviously. So she starts nitpicking every report. Like if someone is out and has to buy some pens for work, she goes online and finds the cheapest price possible for those pens, and only reimburses for that cheaper price. It, obviously, has pissed several people off.

Well, she eventually decided to target me. I submit my report for two weeks, and a few days later, I get the reimbursement payment. Well, it’s $5.85 short. I ask her about it, and she says I’ve been ripping off the company for the past year by taking the longer route between the offices.

Bookkeeper: “I will only pay mileage for the shorter route from now on. And you’re lucky I don’t go back and take back all the extra from the past year.”

Me: “Okay, but please send me that in writing, that per you, I must take the shorter route, and that this is company policy.”

Before I even made it to my desk, I had the email from her confirming what she said.

Two weeks later, I submit my expense report. I reported the shorter route, so the company saved $5.85. But tolls added up to $136. A net loss for the company of $130.15.

It’s been six months, and I’m still “taking the shorter route,” costing the company an extra $130.15 every two weeks.