Workplace cost-cutting always sounds smart — until it starts creating brand-new problems.

A breakfast cook at a major hotel chain bought his own egg pan to keep service running smoothly, only to be told HR wouldn’t reimburse it.

That small decision cracked open a much bigger mess.

Keep reading for the full story!

Don’t want to reimburse me? Ok!

I work as a breakfast cook for the largest hotel chain in the world at a four-star, single-lettered hotel in the largest French-speaking province in Canada.

Each cook is given a stipend of $200 to buy personal equipment (peelers, rasps, knives, etc.).

So this cook tried to take advantage of this perk.

I bought a 7-inch nonstick, ceramic frying pan for myself. They already have 7-inch Teflon pans here, but due to people not taking care of them, they are mostly scratched.

It is worth noting that our current chef was brought in to lower the costs of the kitchen, so the quality of our food has gone down drastically.

During the holiday break, while I was off, they bought new egg pans, but they were 8 inches instead of our traditional 7.

Only to eventually be told by HR that it wouldn’t work.

When I filed my receipt, I was told by HR that the pan I bought wouldn’t be reimbursed (I paid $35 for it). They told me that the hotel is supposed to cover the cost of pans, so too bad, so sad.

Ok, fine then. I will use your larger pans for omelettes.

This compliance ended up leading to much higher costs.

Now, our omelettes are too big for the plates, and I have to use more inventory to make the omelettes look like we aren’t skimping on our product.

Good thing you guys wouldn’t pay me back for the pan that costs half the price of what you bought the new pans for, at a larger size and cost.

And now I have a nice egg pan for at home!

Whatever!

It looks like there was a silver lining to this story after all.

What did Reddit have to say?

This commenter has quite the punny response.

Why not give HR a hard time from here on out?

This user tries to cut a deal.

Maybe this isn’t even something worth complaining about — at least for the customer.

HR may have won on paper, but this cook won in real life!

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.