Annalisa12

No... Sydney to Bathurst. Through icy roads on the blue mountains.

Annalisa12

Sydney to Bathurst.

stifle

I don't know about anywhere else, but my experience is that here in the UK it would be odd to share a room with a coworker, even if there were separate beds. Not absolutely unheard of like sharing a bed.
I respectfully disagree. It can be useful if you have an interest-paying current (checking) account and are paying your credit card in full every month. For example, with direct debit/withdrawal, the card company will take the funds on the last possible day to meet the due date, whereas if you schedule the payment yourself you have to build in another 3-5 business days in case something gets screwed up and you end up with a late fee.

My own recent experience is that my employer quoted an expenses-inclusive price for a job to a client. The people doing the negotiation are in a different office (office A) which is near the client, but one colleague and I based at office B in a different country would be travelling and staying in a hotel. Our policy is a maximum of $X a night, and office A booked us a bargain-basement "apartment hotel" at one-quarter of X per night with tiny rooms serviced weekly, dismal breakfast, and no facility to serve hot food. The rate they got was based on continuous occupation so they even booked through the weekends "and you're welcome to bring over your spouse and stay there too", selling it as a benefit.

Thankfully, one of the higher-ups from office B was visiting this week, took one look at the hotel, and had strong words with his counterparts in office A. We calculated that paying for 3 nights a week at a Crowne Plaza or Hilton would cost only around 10-15% more than paying every night at the crappy one, agreed to work from office B once a week, and will save on incidentals too due to my elite statuses.

nd2010

I have a friend who works at a non profit. There's a bit of travel involved.
They make her take an intercity bus if it's cheap.
They make her sleep on someone's couch in another city. If there are too many employees and not enough space by a host, then they make her share a hotel room.
If there are employees from other cities in town, they strongly encourage her to host them in her apartment.
I don't think it gets any worse than this.
Oh, and they work 60-80 (closer to 80) hours a week, for effectively less than minimum wage.
They have a budget around $600000 a year, and about 10 employees (in this particular office). So they could afford to treat the employees better.
And they wonder why their employee retention is so low. On the bright side, the few that stick around are extremely loyal to the company.

mandolino

Yes, it depends on the level of trust you have with the CC company and of course, your confidence that you'll be able to cover it. All business works on trust to some degree.

I spent many years working on "blue-collar" jobs that involved shared bunkrooms or bedrooms. Private rooms were a luxury that we seldom experienced.

chgoeditor

Assuming your numbers are right, they're operating on very thin margins, with a lot of money going to administrative expenses. Let's say each employee has a $25,000 annual salary. Once the employer's share of taxes, benefits, workers' comp, etc. is factored in, let's say each employee costs them $32,000 annually, or $320,000 of their annual budget.

Now, they're a non-profit, right? So they should also have expenses related to mission-oriented work. Some of the staff time may fall into that bucket, as might property costs, but the rule of thumb is that 80% or more of a non-profit's annual budget should be spent on mission-oriented work, but about $480,000 of their expenses should be mission-oriented. The remaining 20% ($120,000) can be spent on administrative expenses and fundraising expenses.

After salaries, the company has $280,000 of budget money remaining. That would pay for:
* Mission-oriented work
* Property costs, including rent/mortgage, utilities and maintenance
* Insurance, including D&O, property, liability, etc.
* Technology
* Staff travel
* Training
* Marketing
* Fundraising/development
* Lawyers and auditors

Clearly you have a beef with how this non-profit is treating your friend, because you've posted about it in a couple places, but from this post I suspect you don't have a strong understanding of for-profit or non-profit budgets, and how money is allocated.

I just glanced through the budget for the non-profit that I work closely with. (For the record, the last time I traveled on their behalf--albeit as a volunteer--I shared a hotel room with the president of the organization. Fortunately we were traveling to a conference 1800 miles away, so we flew. The time before that I rented a car and shared a hotel room with another volunteer.) Our staff travels infrequently, but our $1 million budget has $2500 allocated for staff travel. (ETA: We have a staff of five. Only one staff member is likely to travel and probably only 1 or 2 trips a year. But that line item would include cabs or mileage reimbursement for staff who need to travel to other sites around the city.)

callum9999

Unless you're wearing a tin-hat, it doesn't really rely on a particular level of trust. If they're a legitimate business then unless there is some catastrophic error somewhere they'll take the right amount and the right amount only.

I must have made well over 1000 Direct Debit payments in the last decade and not one single one of them has been incorrect. And if it ever was incorrect you are entitled to a "full and immediate" refund.

You are right that you need to ensure you can always cover it though.

mascarak

And think the money THAT would save the company! I know, I know. Don't cloud the situation with relevant facts.

The wholesale rejection of my expenses by people who don't even know what my contracts say is a big pet peeve of mine. Second only to them rejecting an expense for using a stupid and overly complicated method for a particular expense that is expensed that way due to....their direction and policy!

Loren Pechtel

Exactly. I have no concerns about a big company doing direct debits. They perfectly well know that if they went evil they would end up paying it back along with legal costs.

Now, a local company that might not have a solid business--there I would never authorize a direct debit. If a company is on the rocks anyway they might not behave properly.

stut

I can't comment for everywhere else, but certainly the Direct Debit scheme in the UK guarantees a full and immediate refund from the bank on request from the account holder. This is done as standard for any query.

As such, I have no qualms in signing up for a Direct Debit for any company I have a relationship with. And yes, I have had to reverse them on more than one occasion - it took a <5min phonecall each time.

mandolino

Yes of course - these are all things we take on trust, based on our perception of the business. We don't conduct an audit every time. The scale of trust runs all the way from "tin hat" to being 100% confident they're a legitimate business and things will be done as we expect.

WHBM

Indeed, Direct Debits in the UK are heavily patrolled by the retail banks, whose agreement with the companies is that they will withdraw the facility if they in any way abuse it leading to complaints. I once had the monthly transaction taken twice, so did others apparently, I hadn't even had my statement before I started receiving a string of about 5 letters from the bank and 10 from the company apologising, saying it had been reversed, apologising again, confirming it had been reversed, etc.

FlyerTalker68098

It is very normal in the UK to pay by direct debit and allow a company of any size to take money from your account. You can cancel it with the company or directly with your bank (including your online account) without any requirement to proof you can/should cancel it.

I had a credit card company take two large payments. I closed the account and paid the outstanding balance on the understanding the direct debit wouldn't then still take payment. It did anyway but a called my bank told them and it was back in my account straight away.

m3red

The uk scheme is guaranteed, the new one in the UAE is not...

WHBM

Ah, the UAE moving on to Direct Debit at last.

When we started working there 2 years ago we came across this remarkable concept called "post dated cheques", where cheques are written out with a date in the future, which you then hold on to and bank on the appropriate date. Businesses seemed to have whole filing systems in their safe to manage these. For example, we rented an apartment which required 1 years rent guaranteed, and rather than a 12-month direct debit/standing order we wrote out for the landlord's agent 12 cheques, dated the 1st of each month for the year ahead. We had to get a modification to our accounting system to handle these.