What does your place count as an expense?

Well, it's not like this is the only industry where driving is part of the job. What's next, driving from home to the office? Part of this stuff is included in your base salary. Don't want to ever drive? Fine, be a desk editor or work at a call center.

I once knew a guy who expected to be paid for two hours he spent ON A JOB INTERVIEW!! On an interview? For a job you supposedly want? To me, that was ridiculous.

My other pet peeve about expenses is when they tell you that you must complete a series of forms and submit it directly to some corporate black hole in cyberspace. No names, faces, phone number, contact persons, etc. With more and more places not having specific HR departments, this seems to be more and more common.

 

The "normal operating area" for my weekly covers four counties, and the daily has at least five.

 

Damn.

 

My shop (30K daily) reimburses for mileage, food, lodging, parking and in some cases, entertainment while on the road.
We are reimbursed for each mile we drive, even if it's just a mile down the road to the school/event.

 

Does that include hookers?

 

Maybe. As long as you have a receipt.

 

I always made the ME book the room on his corporate credit card, rather than pay for it myself and wait for reimbursement. I had trust issues. Plus, corporate took their sweet time with large reimbursement amounts, too.

 

Worked for big company with people in bureaus, and their policy was no mileage for events in your home market. Pretty damn cheap, since this could mean 40-50 miles each way for which you were not reimbursed. Their stance: It's like going to your office (the bureau people didn't even really have offices). They only paid mileage if you were going to events beyond your metro area.

About the best we could do was get them to bend if you worked six or seven days in a week or happened to go to more than one event/"office" in a day, neither of which bore resemblance to a typical cubicle drone's daily commute.

 

I had a "bureau" type job at my last stop and I got around that by just listing it as "Miscellaneous mileage" it was all legit, but sometimes the more information you give them, sometimes it leads to too many questions...

 

Hotels, mileage, meals, parking, shuttles, taxi, train, air fare. You name and I expense it if it's for work. They don't pay me nearly enough for me to cover expenses to work out of town. Never had a problem getting reimbursed. Alcohol is the only thing they won't cover.

 

I never had a problem getting reimbursed for alcohol. Every place I worked would not pay for pay per view movies on the hotel bill... I once asked a boss, "So, I can go down to the bar and get shitfaced, and the company will pay for it, but if I want to watch a movie, it's on my own dime..." and the answer was yes.

Which is fine. Employers don't need to be paying for entertainment, but I think it's funny how lax some places are about alcohol.

 

Honestly, the stuff I've seen some people do on expense reports makes me shake my head. My rule of thumb was if I wasn't willing to pay for it myself, why should I expect someone else to?

I think various sorts of abuses like that had a bit to do with companies taking a much harder line on any kind of travel.

Do you really need to stay at a $150/night hotel when the $70/night down the street would do just as well? Do you really need a $40 dinner when a $20 would do fine? Common sense. What I would like to see is this: here's a trip allowance that we (company) deems reasonable. Spend it however you want. Cheap hotel, expensive meal. Or vice-versa. Stay with your uncle, eat hot dogs and pocket the difference. Whatever you want. But the dollar amount won't change. That would be fair.

Once, years ago when papers still had company cars, I took one to cover an out-of-town event. Got to the stadium and locked the keys inside the car. Had to call a locksmith in order to get the door opened to go back to the hotel later that night. Around $50 or so, IIRC. Put that on my monthly expense, with receipt and all. Got it thrown back in my face (electronically) with a note saying "don't expect us to pay for your absent-mindedness". Fair enough. They were absolutely right.