What does your place count as an expense?

Does anyone here get reimbursed for travel to home games, as in games within city limits?

 

For mileage, yes. Get reimbursed for mileage from the office to the stadium and back.

 

We get mileage, but just from the office to the stadium and back. Same with our normal running around during the week. It's rarely more than 20-30 miles a day (often less), but it does add up. We have to keep track of it via odometer readings and turn it in at the end of the pay period. I do it every other pay period so it adds up a little more, usually a couple hundred miles per month.

 

This might be a dumb question, but here goes. For hourly employees (which I think includes most of us at smaller shops), how much time do you get to claim for overnight trips?
I've always put down whenever I'm "on the clock," from the time I leave the hotel to the time I get back or finish writing. Even though you're there on company business, you don't get to claim 24 hours a day, do you? Or if you're flying or traveling a long distance, do you get to claim the travel time? Is it something to discuss with the higher ups before leaving, or a universal policy most places?

I did have one ME who always told us driving time was not work time, because it was included in the mileage rate. I wanted to punch her one time when I rented a car to save the company money and, when I asked if that meant I could claim the six hours in the car driving each way -- on a holiday weekend, no less -- she laughed in my face.

 

Apparently, my place does that, but I never even considered asking about it.

 

My former shop had a unique (to me, at least) way of handling driving time, sent down via corporate, I believe.

It basically said if you were physically driving the car and were hourly, you were on the clock. If you were flying or riding in a car driven by someone else, you were off the clock. So if a writer was going to an event with the columnist (who was on salary), they made sure the columnist always was doing the driving so they didn't have to pay the hourly guy for that time.

 

The theory was that something like that could just as well have happened in the office parking lot. It wasn't a necessary expense that was strictly due to my being forced to travel in order to do the job. I didn't fuss over it. I put it down once, didn't hit the jackpot and resubmitted. Life went on just fine.

 

The bigger point, to me, is that places have changed the way they handle expenses. Back 15-20 years ago, it seemed like just about anything --- well, short of hookers --- was fair game. Now, it seems like places take a lot closer look at things. Even to the point of disallowing travel at all.

I understand that. Money is a lot tighter than it used to be. Stuff costs more than it used to. I've cut back on plenty of things in my own life. Is it really unreasonable that corporations would do the same?

I'm curious what the policy is in other industries.

 

My shop considers travel within city limits still travel (as all should). If they didn't our photographers would be screwed. One of our photogs can easily put 100 miles on their car a day and never leave the city limits.
And yes, at least here travel time is on the clock. And the way we do overnight is basically how you described. On the clock traveling to the hotel from the office, off the clock once you get there. On the clock traveling to hotel to event to the point where your story is filed.

 

Yessir. Been reimbursed like that at several stops.

 

abosofreakinglutely.

 

Not being on the clock for travel time is ridiculous. If I'm heading out to a state tournament three hours away, then yes, getting there is part of my hours for the week. That's a no-brainer. I'd pick up the phone and do a call-in report before donating six hours of my personal time driving a car up and down the freeway.