He Took The Train To Avoid A Long Commute To Work, But His Company Refused To Reimburse His Amtrak Expenses
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Imagine working for a company where you’re reimbursed for parking in the parking garage, but if you choose to take public transportation, your train or bus fare is not reimbursed.
Would that policy motivate you to drive to work, or would you still choose to take public transportation?
In this story, one employee is in this situation, and his commute is so long that he’s not willing to drive. However, he also thinks it’s only fair for him to be reimbursed.
Keep reading to see what he decides to do.
Company will only reimburse parking, not transit? alright then.
A few years ago, I was working in Downtown Los Angeles, but living in San Diego.
For those of you who don’t know, that’s over 175-mile per day commute.
I wasn’t about to put my car through that, and so I took the train every morning to Union Station, then backtracked via Subway to the jobsite.
The cost of the Amtrak weekly pass was basically the same price of gas, but I thought I’d try to get that extra $3.50/d from the subway covered since I wasn’t using the “parking reimbursement” in my contract. The $17.50 per week wasn’t going to bankrupt me, but I figured I’d try.
Let’s see what the boss had to say…
Came to the boss and asked, basically, “Since I’m not driving to work and getting reimbursed for parking at $10, could I submit my subway receipts at $3.50 and get that covered?”
And was told to pound sand.
Now, the way the reimbursement worked was that you pulled a parking slip when you got to work and paid it at the end of the day. Then, on mondays, you would submit all 5 parking slips from the previous week, and the $50 would be added to your paycheck (untaxed, obviously).
But OP ended up getting reimbursed and then some!
So, every day from then on, when I took the train into work, I just walked into the parking structure and pulled a ticket.
I didn’t have a vehicle and so I didn’t need to worry about paying for the ticket to leave, but the contractor didn’t know that.
They didn’t have access to the system (which is why they didn’t validate everyone’s parking and skip the middle man) and as far as they knew, I was just driving in like everyone else.
First of all, that commute is insane!
Second, good for him!
Let’s see how Reddit responded.
Apparently, the employer was breaking the law.
This person points out how carpooling could be beneficial.
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Another person comments on the commute.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a tech support worker who told a manager a computer needed replaced, only to be told no thanks.
This person did the math on the commute.
That is a truly awful commute. I know I couldn’t handle it day after day. It would get to the point where I would either need to move or look for a job closer to home.
But, OP did a great job getting reimbursed even though he wasn’t driving to work.
That worked out well!
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