Imagine traveling a lot for work. If you lived closer to the airport than your office, would you go to the airport directly from your home, or would you go to the office before heading to the airport?

The answer might seem obvious, but the person in this story ended up having to do the exact opposite.

Keep reading for all the details.

Won’t pay me my travel time? Ok I will comply.

Was working for a large multinational installing new hardware/software and testing for a large client in San Francisco California.

San Francisco was a 6 hour plane ride from my nearest airport.

I had to be in San Francisco for Monday morning so flew out Sunday morning worked 2 weeks and flew home Saturday. Spent a week at home and repeat cycle.

This went on for 9 months with 3 of us doing on site rotation with 2 people always on site.

OP deserved overtime pay.

Airport limo from my house to airport was $80.

First expense report I claimed 6 hours overtime for the Sunday fly out and 6 hours overtime for Saturday to fly home plus airport limo.

Overtime denied.

Why? I left from my home and not the office. Cue compliance.

Time to do things differently.

As a side note I live closer to the airport than the office was. I lived 30 minutes from airport. Office was 60 minutes from airport.

Come next Sunday I took a taxi from my house to the office. Taxi from my house to office was $80 Took airport limo from office to airport. Airport limo from office to airport was $140.

Since I started my trip from the office my overtime started from then. Time in the airport limo, time sitting in airport etc until I got to the hotel at the other end all accrued.

This is crazy!

Next expense report I submitted taxi and airport limo expenses and billed 12 hours for travel time each way.

All approved.

Did this for 9 months. Approved every single time.

Some company policies really don’t make sense. I’m glad OP was finally able to get the overtime approved, but it’s crazy that the company didn’t realize it was smarter to let employees travel from home instead of the office under certain circumstances (such as living closer to the airport).

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

One person explains the thought process.

Another person doesn’t think it’s malicious.

One commenter offers insight into these travel policies.

Complying does not make it malicious.

Some company travel rules may not make sense, but there may be good reasons they exist.

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