Well, this is certainly confusing…

You want me to do what?!?!

Okay, whatever you say…

The person who wrote this story on Reddit said that they flew a lot for their job.

You want me to fly 12 hours earlier because it’s cheaper?

“I (56M in the UK) was working in Africa as an operations manager for a large global security company from 2009 to 2014.

The country I was working in had been through a long civil war and was very under-developed (Think no paved roads, people living a very traditional African lifestyle). At the time I’d been working there on a 10 weeks in country, 2 weeks at home rotation for about 4 years.

They were so experienced that they had this trip down pat.

I’d flown to and from work so often that I had the journey down to the bare minimum travel time, and it worked out the cheapest option for the company because travel days were paid from when I left home. The shorter my journey the cheaper it worked out for the company.

But someone had to ruin a good thing…

Someone in the head office had looked at cutting down on travel costs, probably to make themselves look good and get promoted.

As a result i got an email after a week at home saying they had changed my normal flight which was 5pm on Sunday from my nearest UK airport, via Amsterdam, then on to Nairobi, connecting with a 9am flight to the war torn country on Monday morning.

The change was from the from a 5pm departure to a 5am departure the same day, same route, and saving about £80.

To clarify, the 9am flight from Nairobi was the first flight to war torn country because the destination airport was the only surfaced runway in the country. It had had no runway lights or radar so all flights had to be in daylight.

They agreed but it caused a lot of inconvenience.

Anyway, I agreed to the flight time change, but they had to move it to the Monday so I don’t lose a day at home, (All will become clear) they agreed because still saved £80 on the ticket, no skin off their nose.

Once I got the flight confirmation I contacted the travel desk asking for hotel and taxi bookings, when they asked why I need these I explained that to make a a 5 am departure required a check in at 3 am, so I needed a hotel at the airport on Sunday night because no trains were running to get me the 3 hours to the airport from home for that time of the morning.

The flights they booked would get me into Nairobi for 7pm – after dark – so I’d need a Hotel there and a taxi each way to and from the hotel to get me onto the 9am flight on Tuesday – the same flight I would have been on if I’d left at 5pm but a day later.

A couple of days go by and I got a phone call from the company travel desk telling me the travel plan was confirmed. I was on the 5am flight with a hotel reservation at my UK airport the night before, a hotel in Nairobi after landing and the taxi would collect me in Nairobi and drop me at the airport for my final connection.

I asked about the cost saving, they said £80. I then asked about the hotels and taxis… They replied, oh, they don’t come out of our budget, that’s the operations budget so you’re fine.

It all worked out for them, though!

But their boss wasn’t too happy about it…

I was happy, I was arriving back at work a day later, still paid the same amount with a night out in Nairobi to sweeten the deal. My Boss on the other hand went nuts! Nobody had told him of the changes.

My deputy flew out on the plane I flew in on, meaning I didn’t get a hand over of the work that was going on. On top of that the cost for hotels, taxis and extra day’s pay had all come out of my Boss’s operational budget. I think the total amount added was almost £1000, but hey, they save £80 on the flight cost!”

Check out what Reddit users had to say.

This reader really nailed it.

Another individual said this is nothing new.

One Reddit user said this sounds familiar…

Another reader shared a really dumb example of this kind of stuff.

And this Reddit user shared their thoughts on why things like this happen…

It makes you shake your head, doesn’t it?

How ridiculous!