Company Tells Employee Groceries Cost Too Much, Must Eat Every Meal At Fancy Restaurants

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Eric Lund
Feb 24, 2022 1:00 PM EST

This might come as a surprise, but corporate isn't very good with money. Basically anyone who's worked at a company with a lot of money at the top has witnessed some absurd waste in their career. Sometimes it's flying the whole board and their families to one location in order to conduct a 5 minute meeting that could have just been an email. Sometimes it looks like an entire nacho bar that just sits there while you wonder why your insurance benefits haven't kicked in yet. And sometimes it's inadvertently finding out how much your boss makes and then thinking back to the time you saw them spend two hours at work trying to hang a poster. 

Budgets, per diems and stipends can get messy. Especially when there are special little rules around them that keep you from spending money in a smart way. In this guy's case, he wanted to buy some groceries, but since it cost more than a single dinner, he was reprimanded for going over the limit. Obviously, according to the company, the cheaper way is to spend every single meal at a fancy restaurant. Duh.

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  • 01
    Font - r r/MaliciousCompliance · Posted by u/upaboveitall 3 days ago S 2 4 e9 3 14 I was forced to eat at fancy restaurants for a month $$$ oC M 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.
    via upaboveitall
  • 02
    Font - 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 up to $30-40 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 restaurant
    via upaboveitall
  • 03
    Font - So after the first week or so, I instead went to a grocery store on Monday night. I bought some basics for cereal, sandwiches and 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. And that was it for food costs, with an occasional meal out here or there. I did the same the next four weeks, sub
    via upaboveitall
  • 04
    Font - A lady from accounting called, and refused to reimburse my expenses because $60 is more than $40, the max allowance for a meal purchase. I explained that had covered 5 days of food but was told it didn't matter. I then spent the next month trying all the food in the neighborhood. There really were not any cheap options. I went out to eat a few mornings, lunch whenever I found time, and dinner absolutely every day. I could have bought a few installments of groceries but the once/week shopp
    via upaboveitall
  • 05
    Font - The next month, I got a call from my NYC manager asking how I'd run through more budget every week of the month than the entire month before combined. I explained the grocery situation, and he thanked me and hung up. About 10 minutes later, that same lady from accounting called me to tell be they'd pay my still-not-reimbursed grocery bill and any going forward as long as the daily amount averaged for the week was under the aggregate meal allowance. I happily returned to a more reasonable
    via upaboveitall
  • 06
    Font - Siguard_ · 3 days ago in my line of work, we get paid the max per day allowed. If we use it or not that was up to us. I travelled for almost 3 years straight, so the hotels I stayed in regularly bumped up to the suites with kitchens. I would spend months on the road. When I flew out to assignments, I'd just buy tupperware, plastic knife/forks etc. I ended up getting an additional 300$ a week beacuse id only spend 100 a week on food.
    via upaboveitall
  • 07
    Font - Xanza · 2 days ago 22 My company tried to do the same with fuel. I get a $250/wk allowance. One Sunday morning, after working a 15h night shift from Saturday afternoon, I stopped to get fuel Sunday morning on the way home. I had a day off on Sunday, and was back to work by Monday. They refused to reimburse me for the fuel because I "had Sunday off" and the company will only reimburse for fuel accrued on a day that I've worked. I now submit 2 fuel receipts per day. One from before shift, a
    via upaboveitall
  • 08
    Font - jnewton116 · 3 days ago Company I used to work for had a max dollar amount that could be spent per bottle of wine or booze when entertaining clients. On a night out with a client my coworkers bought magnums instead of regular bottles because it cost less per glass. For once in their lives they were actually trying to be "good stewards of the company dime." Guess how that worked out? The accounting rep berated them on the dealing floor. From that moment onward they spent every moment tryin
    via upaboveitall

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fancy absurd work lol ridiculous story dumb company funny money stupid budget
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