"'Wait...why is it so far over budget?' my boss asks": Update! Stingy bookkeeper Karen faces annual review, gets unwelcome surprise from management

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Feb 4, 2023 3:00 PM EST

Get ready for this incredibly satisfying update from one person who cashed in some malicious compliance at their workplace. 

As u/newtekie1 shared in 2022, they had to drive between two workplaces in their personal car, meaning that they relied on the company to reimburse any travel costs. But when Karen arrived at this workplace, she was determined to make budget cuts that made her look good, while inconveniencing basically every employee. She was such a penny pincher that she demanded the OP take the shortest drive between offices, even though the OOP tried to explain that that would add costly tolls each journey. 

Now, six months later, this Redditor is back with a wild update. It's finally time for Karen to get her comeuppance! And luckily for the OOP, they were able to catch the attention of upper management, who could actually do something about this Karen's role in the business. 

Speaking of Karens, one woman shared these tales about her mother's oddball antics in restaurants, and wondered if maybe, just maybe, her mom was a Karen.

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  • 01
    Motor vehicle - 25000 'The room was silent for what seems like forever. Then the owners of the company asked everyone except Karen to step out of the room for a few minutes'
    via aranprime on Unsplash.com
  • 02
    Font - r/r/BestofRedditorUpdates Posted by u/NakedMuffinTime 1 day ago OOP's job forces OOP to take a shorter route to save $ on milage reimbursement. OOP maliciously complies and costs the company thousands.
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  • 03
    Font - You only pay milage for the shortest possible trip? Ok, then you have to pay my tolls. - June 22, 2022 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.
    via r/BestofRedditorUpdates
  • 04
    Cheezburger Image 9731853824
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  • 05
    Font - Well, she eventually decided to target me. I submit my report for 2 weeks, and a few days later 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. She will only pay mileage for the shorter route from now on. "And I'm lucky she doesn't go back and take back all the extra from the past year."
    via r/BestofRedditorUpdates
  • 06
    Font - I say Ok, but to please send me that per her I must take the shorter route and that this is company policy and leave her office. Before I even made it to my desk I had the email from her confirming what she said. 2 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 6 months and I'm still "taking the shorter route" costing the company an extra $130.15 every 2 weeks.
    via r/BestofRedditorUpdates

    The Redditor left it there for about six months before coming back to give us the update we all needed in our lives. 

  • 07
    Font - You only pay mileage for the shortest possible trip? Ok, then you have to pay my tolls. An Update. - January 24, 2023 First, I want to apologize for not getting this update to you all sooner. December and January are my busiest times and I just haven't had the time to sit down and write it out. Well on to the update.
    via r/BestofRedditorUpdates
  • 08
    Font - This extra cost to the company went on all last year. By my estimates it cost the company about an extra $3,500 last year. So the 3rd week of December we have our annual budget review with all the department heads. It's usually just a quick chit chat about how things went over the year, then we all get a nice catered lunch. This year went a little different. First, Karen bookkeeper asked that we have a projector set up in the conference room so she could give a presentation on how much sh
    via r/BestofRedditorUpdates
  • 09
    Font - She starts off the meeting going over each department, going over the changes she has made to save money. Her big cherry on top of her savings was how much she has saved by cracking down on excess expense reimbursements. Now, I should say here, that she is not liked by any of the department heads. Most of the employees have complained to their department heads about her bull, and they've been forced to just take the complaints with no power to do anything about it. I, on the other hand, a
    via r/BestofRedditorUpdates
  • 10
    Font - Then we start going over each departments budgets. Everything is going normally until they get to my budget. "Wait...why is it so far over budget?"; my boss asks. And this is when my short powerpoint gets played. I bring up the first slide. It's the slightly longer route I was taking between offices. I explained this was the route I was taking and what the mileage reimbursement was. The next slide was the new shorter route. I explained that Karen forced me to take this route because the m
    via r/BestofRedditorUpdates
  • 11
    Font - Then I showed them the next slight of Karen's email included in that email is a part about this being final and there will be no further discussion on the matter. The final slide was all the toll reimbursements I was paid over the year, including the appproximate total YTD that was a result of this new shorter route. I explained that had I been able to discuss the matter with Karen, I could have explained that the shorter route had these extra tolls. And I said that's the reason I'm so ov
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  • 12
    Font - The room was silent for what seems like forever. Then the owners of the company asked everyone except Karen to step out of the room for a few minutes. When the door opened back up, Karen walked out silent, went to her desk and started packing up her things. That was the end of Karen.
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  • 13
    Font - adorablegadget - 23 hr. ago I guess it depends on the size of the company but even with all the penny pinching, saving 3500 doesn't seem like a lot. Like she made everyone hate her and that's the best she could do?
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  • 14
    Font - SquirrelGirlVA · 23 hr. ago please sir, can I have some more? Especially if she's getting or essentially forcing others to get the cheapest items. Some of those may be hidden bargains, but it's also very likely that the item is of shoddy quality. In an ideal situation the item will work fine but just break without any further damage, making it necessary to be replaced sooner than it would with a more expensive item. In a less ideal situation the item would result in shoddy work - and also
    via r/BestofRedditorUpdates
  • 15
    Font - lucasj· 22 hr. ago A company big enough to have multiple departments should have been ready to fire her over wasting 30 minutes talking about saving $300 a month. Good chance a half hour of everyone's time costs the company more in salary than $300.
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  • 16
    Font - jonathanrdt 21 hr. ago It's nothing. It's two laptops. That's the total impact of a year of irresponsible penny pinching. It makes the story seem fabricated because it's so hard to believe that anyone would consider that savings meaningful.
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  • 17
    Font - letstrythisagain30 - 21 hr. ago I help run the family business. Less than 10 employees including me. $3500 a year is less than we get for rewards on our business credit card. If someone managed to save $3500 a year we'd give them a pat on the back and maybe buy them lunch, but $3500 a year is not much at all in the grand scheme of things. We wouldn't even be too worried about a $3500 increase in spending overall from one year to the next. If they got multiple locations, budget meetings wi
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  • 18
    Font - mellow_cellow 22 hr. ago Plus she clearly has no attention to detail. She's talking up her ability to save money but an extra 130$ every two weeks was missed by her? Clearly it was mix of power play and her believing she was always right without ever doing any level of digging. Unsurprised she lost her job for that alone, it'd be an obvious sign she doesn't actually take the job seriously and was looking for easy ways to make herself look good while leaving the actual work on other people
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  • 19
    Font - ZannX 19 hr. ago This story sounds at least half fabricated. Their catered lunch ate into those 'big savings'. 430 Reply Share sunjester 18 hr. ago Because this story didn't happen. She's nitpicky enough to care about saving $6 but doesn't notice the extra $130? OOP somehow costs them exactly what she saved? And OOP made no attempt to communicate the tolls to the Karen for half a year and didn't get reprimanded at all while she got fired? The whole thing reeks of BS.
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  • 20
    Font - storm_paladin_150 21 hr. ago you will be surprised at how little people need to go on a powertrip
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  • 21

    Some people in the comments called BS, and listen, just let us have this one.

    Font - swankycelery 22 hr. ago. edited 21 hr. ago • Wait... How did this bookkeeper noticed approximately $6 difference in mileage between routes but didn't spot that OOP was costing the company $130 after she started taking the shorter route? This doesn't make much any sense to me, unless I'm missing something...? 2.4k Reply Share Elephantparrot - 21 hr. ago Not to mention OOP apparently never says a word to his supervisor about this at all for 6 months until the dramatic reveal when his slides
    via r/BestofRedditorUpdates

    This story better be real! It's great to see Karens getting what they deserve for their poor behavior. 

  • 22
    Font - Aries2397 21 hr. ago more on that that OP sounds like a major a e here, no where does she bring up the tolls to the Karen? Like the fault goes both ways here, if I was the manager dat Karen for the i'd be pl major f deliberately costing the company 3500 USD just to spite off one person. up, but also at OP for
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  • 23

    Some commenters rightly pointed out that for most companies, even small ones, an amount that size is just drops in the bucket of how much is spent each year.

    Font - A7xWicked 22 hr. ago Gotta Read'Em All $3500 is laughable for a company of that size. She was a joke, which is why she got fired
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  • 24
    Font - AJFurnival 22 hr. ago If she alienates even one employee and causes them to quit the costs of that are 10 times higher than $3500.
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  • 25
    Font - Ok_Computer Science 21 hr. ago I'm really frugal and the feedback I got was if you think big, you have to spend the money. Most orgs I have been at $3k is a team / department dinner. I don't even think I had to submit receipts if the meals for the day were under the per diem of $75.
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  • 26
    Font - JumpinJackHTML5 - 21 hr. ago . Like she made everyone hate her and that's the best she could do? Even worse, she made everyone hate their employer. From the sound of it, there's no way people weren't complaining to the owners about her, but she was allowed to keep on doing what she was doing. I'm betting she was specifically hired to lower expenses and the owners expected that to be a little unpopular, but for it to be unpopular and ineffective is a big net less for the company. Also, sho
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  • 27
    Font - Destroyer2118 · 20 hr. ago I've seen this a lot, CPA that still does a decent amount of bookkeeping because I enjoy it. There are 2 possibilities: 1. She missed it. Mileage is given to employees as per diem, meaning they didn't have to actually, physically fork over cash for anything. The company just pays for for using your own vehicle. Tolls on the other hand, those are cash paid by the employee and are directly reimbursed. So per diem mileage would be an expense item entirely separate
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  • 28
    Font - 2. She did realize it, but also realized that would make her wrong, so she kept her mouth shut and hoped no one would notice and OOP wouldn't say anything. And for an entire year, he didn't. Only when questioned about being over budget, which she couldn't have predicted, did the issue ever come up again. My money is on 2.
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  • 29
    Font - runfatgirlrun88 - 22 hr. ago TBH I doubt her attitude factored into her firing - the directors would have tolerated it if she was saving them significantly. Ultimately though she would have been costing them a five figure salary for only a $3.5K saving. Png off the dept heads would have only been the icing on the cake.
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  • 30
    Font - thesbaine 22 hr. ago I've been in the workforce long enough to know that these people 100% exist Same. I posted a bit from a call center years ago in a comment below, but there are absolutely people that will go "above and beyond" at shooting themselves in the foot. It's like they have 0 sense of awareness outside of the task that's been assigned to them.
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  • 31
    Font - Eeyores_Prozac · 21 hr. ago My partner has one of these creatures in charge of expense reports right now. Every single thing gets contested. f She denied a physical gas station receipt because it didn't have the gas station name on it. It was a Sunoco up the street. The address was on the receipt. She argues down to the quarter mile on gas rebate. She will argue anything. Except. She won't fight Uber meal fees for traveling employees. That's the only thing. You know there's a story there.
    via r/BestofRedditorUpdates
  • 32
    Font - N1TROGUE 19 hr. ago So the company is not blaming him for not telling the bookkeeper that the shorter route has tolls? Reply Share 17 Funandgeeky 19 hr. ago Tree Law Connoisseur ... Nope. He has the CYA email that clearly explains it was by her direct order that he take the shorter route.
    via r/BestofRedditorUpdates
  • 33
    Font - DrRexMorman 21 hr. ago In a real workplace op would have been reprimanded for not communicating with Karen. Reply Share 75 jerslan 19 hr. ago Yeah, OOP should have mentioned "but there are tolls on that shorter route that make it more expensive, so this longer route actually saves money" in that initial conversation. If Karen's response was "well, I don't care" after that, then OOP should still take that "no further discussion" email to their manager/supervisor/superior instead of just ra
    via r/BestofRedditorUpdates

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