It’s funny how power trips can backfire in the most expensive way possible.

Picture recovering from major spinal surgery, being cleared to travel only if you can lie flat, and asking your company for a single business class ticket so you can safely attend an international work event.

However, instead of support, you’re met with resistance and a boss who thinks flexing authority matters more than your health.

What would you do?

In the following story, one employee deals with this exact situation.

Here’s how it all played out.

Cool, Business class for over a year

I worked at a small US-based startup that was being acquired by an industry giant.

I had a good management role and flew across the globe a lot, but as a startup, we were frugal and kept spending as little as possible.

I had a surgery planned for months before the acquisition.

This was serious, as it was a big spinal surgery involving titanium, etc.

So I have the surgery, all is well, and I am off for 3-4 weeks to recover.

As I am recovering, the merger into the new company is complete, and we have a large company event in China coming up.

So I call my VP and tell him, I would love to come but cannot fly sitting up for 12 hours yet. Lying flat in business class works but will cost 1500$ more.

The CPO was not having it.

The VP says, “That is a no-brainer! We want you there, so book it.”

So I try to book, and here comes the dumb CPO of the new big company. I explain the situation to him and the VP’s pre-approval, and he gives me the “We bought you guys, that is not how things work in this company, mister” speech.

He needs the doctor’s proof of my surgery.

I offer to send him some bloody pictures of my surgery and scars if he doesn’t believe me.

Nope, needs to be a doc signature on it and an explanation why. That is how the procedure works here.

I tell him I was operated on by a top spinal surgeon who doesn’t have the time to write a letter to a tiny nobody CPO.

He ends the call, power-tripping with, “Well, I guess you won’t be going to Shanghai, mister.”

Thankfully, his surgeon fixed him right up.

The following week, I had a planned checkup with my surgeon.

He asked how things were, and I said all was great except Mr CPO making things unnecessarily complicated at work.

The surgeon smiled and said, “Don’t worry. I know the type. We will get him.”

Two days later, I get a letter from him in the mail detailing that any flight over 15 minutes(!) needs to be business class for the next 18 MONTHS to not risk my recovery. 🙂

I submitted the letter to the guy, and he forwarded it to HR & expense approvals, and I racked up more miles that year than I did in 5 years before.

Thanks for the tip, dude! Probably ended up costing them at least 20000$ extra.

Wow! Good for that doctor!

Let’s see what the readers over at Reddit think about this situation.

Yeah.. . he probably didn’t.

This reader seems triggered.

Here’s someone who dealt with something similar.

According to this comment, he should take every accommodation possible.

The CPO really asked for it.

Next time, he’ll just take the VP’s pre-approval and move on.

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