Grey Poupon

In my managerial existence, this hit my funny bone today.

As I have already vented to a few of you, in addition to having to suspend a 10-year veteran of the organization and fire a 22-year veteran who is old and feisty (gee, can't wait to get the EEOC lawsuit on that one), I also had to reprimand an employee for ordering filet mignon on the company dollar.

I go through peoples' expense reports and while sometimes I feel like I'm only good for a signature, the word "filet" caught my attention. I kicked the ritzy steak off the expense report only to have an outraged manager who claimed I "blindsided" him with this sudden application of a policy we don't have in place yet.

To which I fired back, "Did you not sign a code of ethics when you accepted your employment, promising to uphold our value of Christian Stewardship?" Then I corrected him by reminding him we DO have this policy in place, he's just the one who opened the proverbial can of ethical worms.

He sulked.

Then he said his wife would be mad.

Seriously? It was a $35 steak and I wasn't signing my John Hancock on this guy's sense of reimbursable entitlement. After all, I agreed to send him to Vegas for this conference and arranged the grant dollars to cover the expenses and he should have been grateful he even got the opportunity to travel to Vegas (his mother ship) for a work-sponsored conference. I'm not stupid, I know he visited the Blackjack tables in the evening. I do, however, assign "book reports" to conference attendees so they think twice about bailing from their scheduled sessions.

It sounds stupid, even as I write about this, that I had to kick a steak off of someone's expense report. I always kick alcohol off the reports; I'm not paying you to get tipsy while representing the company. Same goes for steak. And lobster.

It's the principle of the matter.

I have three conferences coming up in October and November and one of them is in the Four Seasons in Chicago. My colleague and I, deciding to stay downtown because of a late-night dinner reception, looked into hotel accommodations. The conference recommended the Four Seasons or the Ritz. Gee, how would that look to the organization and finance people when they see the Ritz Carlton on MY expense report? Not good. I wouldn't be a good steward of our resources, plus, it's just bad PR.

So we are staying across the street, at a smaller hotel that is $200 less PER NIGHT. Perception management!

So yes, I would probably have gotten the filet mignon in Vegas, too. But I wouldn't have expensed it. Business travel affords us tremendous opportunities to see other cities and experience the culture....I just wish others had the same sense of appreciation for the experiences we *do* have.

Okay, rant over. But don't you kind of feel like eating a good steak now?!