When working for a large corporation, there are a lot of people and moving parts, which often means a lot of wasted time and money.

What would you do if you had an idea to save huge amounts of money, but your boss kept ignoring you?

That is what happened to the woman in this story, so she finally took it above his head and got it implemented successfully.

Check it out.

No show to a corporate meeting? We’ll see about that. . .

The cast (note that none of these names are real, they’re all pseudonyms):

Brooke – My sister
Angie – Accounting Girl
Mark – Milquetoast Boss
Victor – Vice President of Operations

This story is about my sister’s first job after graduating from college with a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management back in the middle ’70s.

She was hired by that recording tape company who’s advertising tag line was “is it real, or is it?”

Anyway, her job was the travel coordinator for both the sales and tech support teams.

They were out in the field but would come to the corporate offices periodically for various types of meetings or training, depending on the field employee’s specialty.

Brooke’s responsibilities included booking airline flights, hotels, rental cars, approving per diems, and other travel-related upfront arrangements.

They are too important for things like training.

It didn’t take her long to figure out that there were a lot of no-shows, particularly from the sales staff.

They always seemed to have some valid excuse not to make it to the meeting, and often with last minute cancellations.

You know, the “I’ve just booked this golf game with my most important client this week, so can you reschedule me?” type of reasons.

Seeing how these cancellations were costing the company big bucks, Brooke hatched a plan that created class rosters for each class.

This would, just like a teacher, make notes as to who showed up and who didn’t.

After the class was over, she would calculate how much those who didn’t show up had cost the company in terms of cancellation fees, missed flights, etc., and present them to Mark.

If only he would do his job.

His reaction, typical of a middle manager protecting his little fiefdom, would take her report, tell her “I’ll look into it,” throw it into his in box and then promptly forget about it.

My sister has a tremendous amount of patience, unless you’re being stupid, which, in this case, Mark was, as far as she was concerned.

Fast forward a couple of months, the reports are still stacked on top of each other in Mark’s In box.

Brooke’s getting real frustrated because these field guys are abusing the time and effort she’s putting in while attempting to get them in for their required classes.

So one day, Brooke’s having lunch in the company cafeteria along with a gal from corporate accounting.

Finally, something is going to get fixed.

They get to talking, and Angie mentions that she’s noticed the travel department’s expenses are really high, percentage-wise, compared to others, and asks if Brooke has any idea why.

Well, that was all it took.

My sister unloaded her frustration with all the cancellations with no repercussions thus sending the travel department’s budget off the charts.

Not to mention the fact she wasn’t getting any support from Mark towards reducing the numbers.

Brooke tells Angie she’s got an idea to put an end to the waste, but she want’s to get approval from somebody higher up the food chain in order to implement her idea, because she doubts Mark’s ability to comprehend, let alone implement.

Angie tells Brooke that she thinks she knows exactly who Brooke needs to talk to, and within a couple of days Brooke and Angie are sitting in a plush corner office talking to the Vice President of Operations, Victor, explaining the situation.

He knows a good idea when he hears it.

It only took Victor a couple of minutes to make a decision after Brooke described what was going on, plus her idea on how to correct it.

He told Angie that Brooke’s idea was brilliant, and that the policy change would become effective on the first of month – 10 days later – which he followed up with a memorandum sent to all employees shortly after their meeting was over.

Paydays were the 5th and the 20th.

Those in the field who had expense accounts had to complete and turn them in to Accounting by the 5th to be processed and paid along with regular wages, bonuses and commissions on the 20th.

Brooke’s policy change idea, with the Victor’s blessing, was to charge back against the offender’s expense account the costs associated with getting him to his corporate meeting when he didn’t show up (airline fares, hotel rooms, rental cars, etc.).

I bet they were angry.

Sis told me that the first month the policy went into effect, the howls of protest could be heard all over Silicon Valley, as several ended up with minuscule paychecks after the charge backs.

But the policy had exactly the results Brooke wanted – within three months, everyone showed up to their meetings on time as scheduled and virtually without any more no-shows.

The amount of wasted money at large companies like this is astounding.

Let’s read on to see what other people had to say about it.

Yup, quick and easy.

I bet the sales staff hated her.

This is another way to get people to meet their obligations.

Here is someone who doesn’t like what she did.

Getting people to complete training is hard.

She saved that company a ton of money.

Even if some people think she was the one in the wrong.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.