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Originally Posted by Proudelitist
(Post 29615957)
I have sat across the table from many a person who has abused their cards, conducting an "interview" which is really an interrogation. As with any sort of theft, expense abuse is typically rationalized by the perpetrator so that what they are doing is not theft in their minds.
I have heard what dulciusexasperis has said over and over again. I work late. I am killing it in sales. I missed my son's baseball game to work, my daughter's birthday party, I am never home, I am entitled to perks and benefits as a result. I take that rationalization, draw it out, and use that as an admission of guilt....then I call the police. But even before I get in that room with the employee, I and others have done a full analysis on their expenses and card activity. I look for legitimate expenses that correlate to items on their calendar..so a dinner coinciding with a client meeting on a biz trip is likely fine. A dinner on Christmas day when the employee was on holiday? Another story altogether. I get itemized receipts from retailers where the card was spent....a frozen dinner on a trip? Fine. A carton of cigarettes? Not fine. Grocery charges always get looked at, although even I will buy travel meals at grocery stores sometimes..if that store is within a few miles of their house then it's a different story. Some things are obviously wrong such as Match.com or a church tithe. Other things need context. But what typically emerges is a pattern. Recently I had such a case where the employee had listed a business dinner EVERY SUNDAY. While Sunday dinners involving business sometimes happen at trade shows or with the odd client, a pattern emerged where it was always the same few restaurants all the time, except for when he was on holiday in Europe with his family, where the Sunday dinners were, like the others listed as Business expenses. For anyone who has ever done business in Europe, I promise you nobody leaves the house on Sunday let alone goes on a business dinner. Turns out he was taking his family out every week and listing it as a business dinner. Failures in the reporting chain are usually the cause. Approvers pencil whipping reports, approvers turning a blind eye or not recognizing the indicators of abuse..that sort of thing. However, he, like all the others, claimed he was entitled because he was somehow a victim of his job. He was going to TAKE the perks he thought would compensate him for his hard work. In his mind, it's not fraud (altering/misrepresenting expense codes) or abuse (calling a family dinner a "business meeting"). However, given that it went on for 2 years before he was caught, the value of his fraud and abuse added up. Dinner by dinner, store by store, he ended up racking 10s of thousands of dollars this way. The sad part is it doesn't dawn on them until I give them the totals and the uniforms show up. And it is very hard for us as a company to be made whole again. We also pursue civilly, but recovering that is rare after they declare bankruptcy. Point is, be careful in deciding what you are entitled to. Your sales laurels don't justify as much as you think they do. The semi-quote of what I have written that you highlight, was not about abusing expenses. It was simply an example of why the President of a company might decide to reward a salesperson for a job well done and recognize the personal sacrifices that are often made, by buying that salesperson and his/her partner, dinner. So, would you 'interrogate' that company President over his expense report as to whether or not it was a justifiable business expense? You write, "I take that rationalization, draw it out, and use that as an admission of guilt....then I call the police." Really? So you would then call the police and attempt to have them arrest the company President because he expenses a 'thank you' dinner? I'd love to see how that worked out for you. Or were you just taking what I wrote out of context and then trying to turn it into something it never was? As for your specific real life example of someone abusing expenses, If i were the President of the company this person worked with, I would be looking at the person who approved his expenses for the last 2 years. If it took 2 years 'before he was caught', that person was not doing their job. I'd be firing both of them. I might even be firing the expense approver's boss as well. |
This thread has now reached the 'circular' stage. Time to move on.
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Originally Posted by dulciusexasperis
(Post 29616248)
You take a position and then just repeat it over and over without any attempt to show how you arrived at that position. All you seem to be able to say is, 'you said' even when no one actually said it. You seem to think that if you write, 'you said', that's all you need to do.
No where have I ever said it is 'OK for a salesperson to get anythingthrough expenses.' Why you persist in attempting to say that is the case I don't really know. Perhaps it is because you find it difficult to debate an issue or don't know the difference between debating vs. simply picking a position and just repeating it continuously. The first time you tried to put those words into my mouth, it could have been a misunderstanding of what I had written. I attempted to correct that by explaining the difference between being able to do something and actually doing something. You continue however to ignore that difference and repeat the same words over and over. I am now done responding to your erroneous comments. “If you are in sales and don't know how to get anything you want put through expenses, you are in the wrong job. If you are in some other department, you are in the wrong department. LOL You also have to separate 'small ticket' from 'big ticket' sales. As a National Sales Manager, I told my salespeople the rules were simple. I don't care if all you do at 'work' is play golf 3 days a week and eat caviar with every meal.” Denying, blustering, obfuscating, deflecting don’t help you here. It’s in black and white. You have shot yourself well and truly in the foot. As you won’t be responding, I’ll just leave your words for others to consider, and note that everything you have written comes from the perspective of someone who is no longer employed as a salesman. One can only speculate.... |
Originally Posted by dulciusexasperis
(Post 29616342)
Umm, Qwkynuf, do not be so quick to make statements you may not wish to then have to try and defend. If all that you require is that the 'owner; of the money get a say in how it is spent, then I have no problem with that. The only difference is that you think the company I am working with 'owns' the money. I know that the Customer I am working with actually 'owns' the money. That is where the money comes from after all. All of a company's revenue comes from their Customers. So logically, according to what you are saying, I should ask my Customers to approve my expenses.
As for being able to spend my own money in (virtually) any way I wish, where do you think my own money came from? Uh huh, it came from my Customers too. Every dollar starts at the Customer, not your 'employer'. |
If the president was acting outside of the rules of the company and committing abuses by misrepresenting and miscategorizing expenses that were for their own personal benefit, yes. If the president is allowed to take out whomever he wants as part of employee awards, no. However, being president doesn't protect him by virtue of rank or change the laws in regards to deprivation by deception, particularly if the company is publicly traded on the stock market and shareholders have a stake.
And yes, we usually have a few things to say to the approver as well in expense abuse cases. |
Originally Posted by Qwkynuf
(Post 29617861)
That may well be the dumbest thing I have ever read. And I have read a lot. I actually feel less intelligent for having read it. But at least it wasn't another filibuster, so there's that.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ANE8j5ay_UU |
Originally Posted by dulciusexasperis
(Post 29616398)
This thread has now reached the 'circular' stage. Time to move on.
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Moderator Note: Closing for review.
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