I have never worked in the corporate world.

From what I can tell, the money is good but you have to put up with quite a bit of bull-honky in return.

The following story  follows a person who was working in a different country on a long project.

He’d found a few places he liked to eat, and in general, spent less than half of the meal allotment on any given day.

Let’s take a look.

Customer does not want to approve expense report for going less than 1% over when taking a client to dinner, OK then

So I was on an off-site short-term (not really short) project.

Coming from one of the cheapest to live countries in europe and staying for months in Singapore (project location) i had found some places that i could be eating for pretty cheap and the food was good and within my taste palate.

We were getting (lets say a random number) 60$ per day for food expenses, but i was spending somewhere around 25-30$ on average with the highest ever getting to just under 50$.

One day, his boss asked him to wine and dine a client, and approved a meal budget of $200-$250.

Short project going long (drawn over 10 months by the point of the story) and our customer’s client is raising a ton of issues (70% of them not really an issue).

Discussed this a few times with some guys in my company and a manager told me to take the client out for a dinner and some drinks.

He would confirm the extra expense, just be careful to not go too much overboard on the expense.

Specifically asked what that means and he told me try to not go over 200-250$.

They spent a little too much money…

We go out and neither me nor the client really drink much, so we end up having some food and a drink each.

The guys at the restaurant know me well by that point and almost always do some rounding on the bill or bring something extra to the table on the house and with them bringing plenty fingerfood I end up with a bil of 60.68$ (number adjusted to the random number above).

But yes about 70 cents above the daily limit. Way below the 200+ allowance for that.

End of month I send the report in and put a special note for that day/night.

His customer refused to pay it.

Expense report goes through my company with no problems, but the customer (our company’s customer) flags that receipt up as not acceptable and not to be covered.

They put me in direct communication with customer and Ι explain. Nope. Not accepted – not covered.

Talk again with my company and tell them the situation and that manager X advised me to do so as well as mentioned he would confirm, but unfortunately the guy is out sick (covid + flu) and not to return for at least 2 weeks.

The customer ‘must’ have this settled by the 15th of the month and “he wants to hear specifically from the manager that i was advised to act in such a way and approved by that manager” for him to cover it.

This is getting crazy and out of hand, so my boss (owner of our company), just covers it from his side. The full 60.68$, not just the 0.68$…

He even shouted at the poster about it.

Customer says no receipt that goes over the 60$ limit will be approved. Unfortunately for me the customer is local to Singapore and he randomly drops in at the jobsite…

And i get to see him the day after the “resolution” above and all comments were written (in emails).

Face to face I tell him, you do realise that i spent on average less than 27$/day from the allowed 60$/day. This was laughable to be denied.

He probably was offended and he yells at me again the “No receipts over 60$ will be covered”.

In the end, he got his revenge – and the people waiting on him got a nice fat bonus while he remained in country.

Well cue MC, at all three places that i eat everyday for the past 10 months, they agree to print 60$ receipts everytime i eat at their place.

They even agree to split in half the remaining value between me and a tip to the server.

I had requested for the entire amounts to go to the servers as tips as i just cared for the petty revenge, but apparently all of them felt a 100% tip every day is uncomfortable for them.

Next month expense report is sent out and the customer calls me directly seething and asks why every single daily receipt is at 60$ from a specific date onwards.

I just reply with “No receipts over 60$ will be covered, so I have to fit my meals within the allowance.”

He called to complain to my company, but the relevant person told him that they didn’t understand and to please explain what agreement was broken.

He never came back as far as i know.

I continued charging the max for the remaining 2 months there netting me a cool 700$ and even better service, food and chef experiments that were otherwise only internal to the staffs of the restaurants.

TBH i had to “pay” in having to deal with the idiot customer even more after that, but he was a handful before it as well… ( I can say that that project took at least a year off of my life with all the stress and nerves…).

Karma, right?

Cheeky is one word for it.

If it brings you joy…

People had secondhand satisfaction.

Why is this such a common thing?

Others are worried about this guy going to jail.

When will people learn treating people like this can come back to bite you?

And honestly, it almost always does.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.