Dreaded Diem
Being my first post I thought I’d make this a good one.

Reading from Express_Bob’s post at being thrifty and mentioning per “per diem” I would like to add some point to the subject in question.
Being a Network Engineer by profession I know that phase very well.

Some background: I have worked for a massive Korean electronics giants’ networking arm and giant ISP from Japan – both employed the per Diem angle. They saw the per diem as a replacement for pay on the business trips as overtime wasn’t payable on those trips due to contract conditions – so normal working hours applied, anything over that or if your task involved working over the weekend - tough shit.

Most of the business trips involved working very long hours to get the job done. If that happened you would be working for only for the “diem” of about 40quid. So the motive to get the job done as soon as possible was very strong and hit bars to burn the money. The electronics’ giant der Diem was paid in dollars just to piss everyone off – so if you had a strong pound you had less money to live off.

So, eating as much as possible in the morning was a must. My fellow Korean engineers were completely used to this piss taking by the bosses and had the ability to cram-in vast quantities of food – even when pissed up from the night before. However, for me I took a little to get used too. Watching these guys eating talking to each other (while still eating) is a sight in itself.

The only ever time I became better off, was when I stayed in Hotel in Hungry who did an excellent breakfast together with lunch and dinner at the factory. And Israel where I got taken out every day for 2 weeks was completely lashed most days. However, these times were very rare – I think all in all I did about 20 biz trips per year.

So spare a thought for those poor sods going on Biz-trips on there own in airports – most don’t have company cards and are on the dreaded Diem.
(tech_junky, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 10:05, 4 replies)

do you mean
Danish Institute of Electronic Music?
( turb0t, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 10:23, closed)

You could have claimed an income tax rebate.
HMRC have scale rate payments for both the UK and overseas, whereby you are entitled to be reimbursed by your employer of the cost of meals over the course of your trip. Even if your stingy employer won't reimburse you, you could have claimed the dispensations as allowable deductions to your income and avoided paying icome tax on that amount of your earnings.
(Greencloud Wanted to go fishing on, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 11:49, closed)

but you only get back circa 25% of your losses
and its a real arse pain to claim if you don't already fill in an annual tax return form.
( turb0t, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 12:23, closed)

Never knew
I thought that was for self employed persons??? never knew it account for us perms too. Do you know the title of the form or form number for future reference?
(tech_junky, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 14:10, closed)