Company policies can be a point of contention in the workplace.

Imagine submitting an expense report to HR and having it denied. When you find out the policies have changed, would you keep doing what you’ve always done, or would you find a way to make the new policies work to your advantage?

Read what happens when one Redditor’s denied reimbursement gets them thinking strategically to earn more.

See the story below for all the details.

No per diem without an overnight stay, well ok then.

Background:

Worked for this company over 20 years, all of it in a senior IT position. It’s a manufacturing company, our products are shown in a trade show twice a year.

Due to our using lots of tech toys to demo the products, IT has to go to the show-space days early to setup, fine tune, etc. And after the customer part of the show is over, about 4 days of that, we have to stay behind and take it all apart, etc.

A senior member of IT, (me), has to go early each day to open up the space, turn on all the techy stuff, make coffee and in general get everything ready for the sales teams to come in for their 7 A.M. meetings.

This can add up to a lot of hours.

This also means staying in the space until every one has left and shut it all down and lock up.

The trade show is within driving distance of my house, (important for later) but due to having to be there at dawn to open up for sales to have meetings at 7 A.M. I have to get up hours earlier than I normally would (again important).

But that’s all good because of the company policy for reimbursement.

Company policy:

(Almost verbatim here)

“If you have to travel outside of your normal territory and leave your house more than one hour before your normal time and arrive back home more than an hour after your normal time, then you are allowed a meal per diem”.

So for 20 years, twice a year, I have been turning in my milage and daily per diem for meals for 7 or 8 days, and getting reimbursed without a word being said.

Until 2 years ago.

Except for one particular day when the OP got denied.

Two days after I turn in my expenses I get a call, “Sorry but have to deny all your meals because you didn’t have an overnight stay.”

What? I’ve been doing this for 20 years and never had a problem, when did this change and why wasn’t I told in advance?

“Sorry, just doing what the VP of HR told me.”

OK…

And what’s HR’s reasoning?

So, I head over to HR and ask what’s this about. “Well, it should have been this way all along. Some managers were doing it, others not, so now it’s the same for everyone.”

Me: “Shouldn’t we have gotten a notice beforehand? Or a written addendum to the policy manual, since that is not what the policy says?”

“Well, it’s the policy now!” she says all angry and red-faced. (It’s been over 3 years now and still not in the written policy that is being handed out to new hires.)

Well, alrighty then, cue the MC music.

That’s when the OP wised up.

Our travel coordinator is not an employee, but a contractor that gets paid on commission so spending more means more money for her.

AND she does not talk to the HR other than to get what the rules are. She also approves our expenses based on what the rules are. As long as we are within the rules, automatic approval and I get the reimbursement by direct deposit within a few days.

This is where things change completely.

A month later, I have to visit a customer’s location, a two-hour drive from my house. I have about four hours of work to do. I used to do all this in a single eight-hour day easy.

Not anymore.

I let the travel agent know what customer I’m going to, and I will need a room for two nights. A day to travel there, a second day to work, and the 3rd day travel home.

So I travel there, do the work then drive home. I do not stay overnight, don’t even check into the room. But, since I didn’t cancel I get charged anyway.

Instead of just mileage and one-day per diem, it’s now mileage, three days’ per diem and two hotel nights. What would have cost the company about $100 now costs over $400.

Oh, but it doesn’t end there!

And the next trade show, you guessed it, hotel room for seven nights of which I actually stayed in two nights and only then because I went out with a customer for dinner and and a few beers. The rest of the time I went home.

I do this for all my travel now, especially if it’s within driving distance of home. My travel expenses have gone up by 3 or 4 times what they used to be.

Has the company caught on? Absolutely not!

Did anyone even notice?

NOPE, no one has said a single word, not one.

HELLLO anyone home? Apparently not, I’ve even been given a decent raise.

I should have slowed down and spent more of the company’s money sooner. I might be CEO by now if I had. Lol.

Is this ethical? What does Reddit think? Let’s read the comments below to get an idea.

One Redditor had great advice.

Another noted that this is how CEOs are made.

And finally, one reader highlighted that good management matters.

This worker definitely found a profitable hack!

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