The Tyranny of Expense Reporting
Can anyone out there say that their employer offers a straightforward way of expense reporting and reimbursement? I swear to God that employers use the most complicated systems to intentionally but subtly discourage employees from seeking reimbursement. It was so bad at Level (3) that I pretty much just gave up and ate the costs. It just wasn't worth the 15 pages of paperwork and 20 phone calls required to get my money back none of which involved my supervisors or any type of approval. If one item was incorrectly categorized, mis-spelled or out of sequence, I had to do the entire report over and the six week clock reset. And this was with a company issued Amex (we had to pay it out of pocket and then submit for reimbursement because otherwise, every bill would be late every month).
At my newest gig, we aren't issued credit cards but expense reimbursement is supposed to be easy since we're so small. Unfortunately, that is not the case. I consider myself a relatively smart guy but I could not, for the life of me figure out the proper way to send an expense report via our outsourced system. The site's validation tools kept saying that I wasn't itemizing though my itemized totals matched my report totals. I resolved this by simply not itemizing even though it's required for anything north of $100 (it validated however). Then I selected the "sales tax" category for the amount of sales tax I had paid. This earned my an instant dialogue box saying sales tax was not valid and not eligible for reimbursement. WTF? I wouldn't have incurred the sales tax if I hadn't made this purchase on behalf of my company so I don't see how that's correct. Someone told me that was because I didn't itemize but as I said before, I couldn't get the report to validate with itemization.
So I took some time out of my day to watch the site's tour and read the instruction manual (in complete and utter disregard for my constitution). But there were no clues for my problems. I refused to call HR for help (in line with my values) since after all, I work in Engineering and am supposed to just figure out this stuff. I guess I'm eating the sales tax which ultimately becomes a tax on my pride and stubbornness.
But then I got to thinking how expense reporting has never been even remotely easy. If it's easy for me to whip out my credit card and loan my employer money, it should be just as easy for me to recoup it.
The Toughest Decision
You can see more pictures of Ellie HERE.
The Ellie problem that I've written about before (here, here and here has not been resolved despite our serious efforts and it's time to let Ellie go to a better home. For whatever reason, Ellie doesn't like Bentley and Gracie and they don't like her. We had given Ellie her own bedroom with a great window looking down on the street but she needs more than that. The thing is, she LOVES people. When someone is around, she loves to climb on your lap, meow and roll around. She comes to you when her name is called. When she's outside her room (only when Amy or I'm home), she can't make a move unless she wants to get tackled by Beavis or Gracie so she just stays hunkered down behind one of us. When we lock Bentley and Grace in the master bedroom, she almost instantly perks up and has the best time.
So we need to find her a good home. I won't let her go to just anyone, it's going to have to be a friend or family who is responsible and doesn't have any other pets. She's an incredibly awesome cat and deserves a great life. Ellie is hands down the best and sweetest animal I've ever known. In fact it tears me up inside that she has to go since I always pull for the underdogs in life. She's letterbox trained, never scratches furniture and likes to cuddle when you want to. But she needs a better life and us keeping her in a home like this is incredibly unfair to her. I'm not sure how I will handle the first night she doesn't sleep behind my head on her little pillow.
If you're a reader in the Seattle area and know of a good home for Ellie, please drop me an e-mail so I can meet them and check out their place.
Thanks for reading.
Puget Sound From 13,000 Feet
My friend Jeff, a pilot for a large airline and for whom I host some websites, sent me this pic snapped from the cockpit Thursday night:
(click on the image to see the full size picture)
Burned Out
Ok, so the first three days in the new building haven't gone so well. Though we only have 1/3 of our staff here, the brief internal network outages have us chasing our tails and we're all (the Engineering Team) just on the verge of cracking. I mean seriously cracking.
Because of the glitches, we're breaking this weekend's group up in thirds and spreading them out over the next two weeks. That basically means another solid two weeks about 18 hour days.
I'm not complaining here, just letting everyone know why I'm not posting. Another reason has to do with self confidence. It's TMI I'm sure but I've found that when I'm feeling confident, I post more. When I'm not, I reason that nobody what's to hear my insignificant thoughts on anything. I'm sure the low feeling comes from all the mistakes I've been making the past two weeks even though I know it's not because I suck but because there's just so much stuff and nobody could possibly be perfect. I'm fully aware that nobody likes to read depressing posts like these and for that I apologize....
