thelark

pinniped

I would personally not expense a random bottle of water, but I have to admit I'd be pretty annoyed by a travel policy that dictated what time of day I ate. If he'd ordered a legitimate lunch at 3PM because he was in meetings until then, would the company have rejected it?

I try to avoid frivolous tiny expenses on an expense report. The "but they add up" argument doesn't really apply in my case...I literally have one or two of these per trip. A coke out of a coke machine, a random midday coffee, etc. - just seems like a bad look to expense these, even though I'm sure I could without any problems.

Cardboard55

To me, it's a matter of mutual respect between the company and employee. I am lucky enough to work for a company and leaders who respect me enough to trust my judgement (within very reasonable boundaries) on what to expense. If I want to expense a bottle of water, fine, no problem. The company will reimburse without a word. I approve those kinds of expenses for people on my team regularly. Some of them earn much less than I do, others are just very "meticulous" about tracking expenses. Fine, that's their right and I don't mind it one bit. But on the flip side, I also respect the company and tend to not nickel and dime them for small expenses, especially ones that I'd have incurred at home anyway. I figure it's not worth my time or my boss's time to keep track of and approve those little things. They pay me enough that covering a few bucks of incidentals isn't going to hurt me.

I appreciate working for a company that treats us like adults, and accepts that different people have different stances on this stuff. The cost to the company of allowing these kinds of expenses is not remotely material as long as people don't abuse it, and my experience is that people are less likely to abuse it or look for loopholes if you treat them with respect in the first place. Of course there is always one person who will do something to jeopardize it for everyone else, but I prefer to handle those on a one-off basis than punish the entire team with draconian policies.

COSPILOT

A quick follow up/end to this. I officially accepted the position. I leave Sunday and officially start Monday morning. Already spent time on the phone with colleagues this morning, with incredible support and excitement with me joining the team. The more I speak with people in the company, the more I realize I made a good choice.

Fraser

So....are they sending a G-V to come and pick you up or are you going to enjoy Spirit Airlines Buzzballz on Sunday night?

COSPILOT

I wish! Spirit and Frontier are blacklisted from the company, will be SW, UA, or DL. On a different note, a very good friend of mine travels via his companies G500 for some domestic travel. Lucky guy

Fraser

Indeed, I used to work in the banking sector too At my (former) employer there was a fleet of aircraft right up to G-V. If a certain number of you were making the same trip then you could request use of that aircraft. The larger the aircraft the higher up the person signing off on the trip needed to be.

My first trip was from VA to St Louis and I was initially booked on a non-stop AA flight. When the group grew we were eligible for one of the company aircraft so I cancelled the AA flight and we left within 5mins of the AA aircraft and landed right after it I was rather spoiled at the age of 23 with my first business trip being flown privately and staying at the Four Seasons with a per day diem so high I couldn't possible touch it regardless of how reckless I was!

COSPILOT

Don't think I will ever have the privilege of flying in a private jet. The days of traveling in my 182 are likely the best I will ever have.

At best I will get back to 1K, of which I'm fine with.