Strict company policies don’t always lead to cost savings.

In fact, sometimes, they do the opposite.

What would you do if your employer insisted on a new rule that actually made them lose money?

Would you try to explain the flaw in their logic?

Or would you take full advantage of the situation while it lasted?

In today’s story, one employee finds themselves in this exact predicament.

Here’s what they did.

I have to claim mileage from the office, not home? Okay….

I used to be sent out on training a few times a year, and I could claim mileage at a set rate per mile.

At the time, most people working at this place lived in a town 5 miles North of the office, and training tended to be in a large city about 60 miles south of the office.

At the time, I lived halfway between the office and the city—30 miles South of the office and 30 miles North of the city where training was.

Therefore, I was only claiming 60 miles of expenses for every trip (home-city-home) rather than 120 miles (office-city-office).

So finance went on a cost-saving drive and announced that we had to claim mileage office-city-office.

Their reasoning being that the majority of staff who lived 5 miles North would have been paying for their own fuel to get to the office so they shouldn’t be claiming those extra 5 miles x 2 on a training day.

So much for saving the company money.

I understood the reasoning behind it but assumed that as I was so far South, they’d still accept the 60-mile claim from me.

Boy, was I wrong, and I was completely reamed out the next time I put in a claim.

Despite pointing out I was saving them money, I was accused of trying to defraud the company.

I was told to redo my claim sheet and that they wouldn’t put a formal warning on my employee file this time.

So instead of taking it higher – I mean I was now being paid double in mileage AND saving 60 miles of fuel on not driving to the office on training days – I complied.

When the main boss found out, he was mad.

A few months later, my boss wasn’t in, so I had to get her boss to sign my travel expenses.

He asked why I was claiming office-city-office when I lived so much closer.

I explained what had happened, and he was mad but signed it and told me he’d take it to finance for me as he was heading that way.

A policy amendment was emailed out to all staff later that day, stating that on training days we were to claim either home-city-home or office-city-office – whichever was the shorter.

Ah well. The extra money was nice when I got it!

Hopefully, he put the extra cash to good use.

Let’s see what the readers over at Reddit have to say about mileage and reimbursement policies.

As this person explains, the cost of public transport can add up.

This person dealt with the same experience.

That would’ve been nice.

A similar policy also worked in this person’s favor.

What a way to waste company money!

This should just be common sense!

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