There can be a lot of red tape when you work for a company that has separate hands doing all of the different departmental jobs that are necessary to keep a place running.

Like, for example, accounting that has to, well, account for every penny spent in a very specific way.

OP was on a long-term out-of-town assignment and was forced to stay in an expensive part of NYC to get it done. His daily meal allowance reflected this.

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.

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 restaurants- I just wanted to go watch tv and sleep in my room.

Knowing he was going to be there awhile and that he would grow weary of always eating out,  though, he grabbed some essentials at a bodega instead.

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, submitted my expense report at the end of the month.

You know where this is going…

The result was that his weekly bill was equal to what he was allowed to spend on one meal, but when he submitted the expense report they refused to reimburse that much at one time.

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.

So, he started eating out for three meals a day, careful that none of the exceeded his allowance.

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 shopping convenience was part of why I’d wanted them.

It had also seemed wasteful for me to go out for an expensive meal every night for long term travel, but now I’d been told that was preferred by accounting to my grocery bills!

When his supervisor questioned how the current month’s expenses were so much more than the previous one OP explained the situation.

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.

His manager quickly cleared it up – and his grocery bill was suddenly covered, too.

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.

Score one for malicious compliance! And I bet Reddit is chuckling, too.

This person says there are usually ways to work meal allowances out in your favor.

Things are different in small companies.

It’s the beans versus the soup.

Might as well take that second day.

This person had their own method of dealing with it, too.

This could just as easily have gone the other way.

Some accounting departments are absolutely not allowed to use common sense if it conflicts with official policy.