Work expenses are the definition of something that's usually better in theory than in practice. Having your job pay for things should be a thing you can enjoy, or at least trust that they are fulfiling their necessary duty towards you as an employee. However, those who are in a position to claim expenses can all but guarantee that somewhere along the line, there will be some penny-pinching jobsworth out there ready to make things extra difficult. Someone who recently came face to face with such an unpleasant situation was u/newtekie1, who claims for fuel costs at their job due to frequent driving between the different offices of their company. Normally, they would take a slightly longer route to avoid tolls on the shorter journey, but a new bookkeeper recently began to get on their case for claiming the extra gas. In retaliation, they began to change up their route.
You only pay mileage for the shortest possible trip? Ok, then you have to pay my tolls.
The Reaction
The revenge-hungry Redditors of r/MaliciousCompliance were delighted that the penny pincher had swiftly got her comeuppance, even sharing tales of their own petty victories against overzealous accountancy.
Some were convinced that u/newtekie1 should take things even further: “If they ask you to change to your former route, please make sure you demand you will only do it AFTER they reimburse the $5.85 they stole from you”, said u/mybossthinksimworking.
It would seem like dealing with these inefficient busybodies at work is a shared experience for many frustrated employees, so the catharsis of the story was very real. “I was all set to tell you how you need to approach HR, forgot what sub I was on”, said u/3cWizard. “Reading the end of this felt like taking a nice, medical grade tranquilizer”.
While not everybody who faces the tyranny of their accounts team gets the opportunity to give them a taste of their own medicine, it's nice to know that there are at least some out there who do. The only unfortunate thing is that it won't stop others continuing to pull this BS.
