Wunch of Bankers
A few years back I was working for one of the large banks on a fairly big IT project, costing in excess of £4 million. After 18 months of the usual infighting, cockups, and hard work that accompanies things of this nature, we get to the implementation weekend, which I end up managing on the basis of those that can, do.

We kick off at 16:00 on Friday in Birmingham, having had a normal working week in London, and I finish up about 2 am Monday morning, before getting up at 6am to ensure everything goes live as it should, which it did.

Now the expenses policy was that you were allowed to claim for a hotel breakfast, £14 at the place they put me up in, or a maximum of £5 from anywhere else. I was out of the hotel before the restaurant started serving, so hit Costa for a coffee and food on the way into the site.

The following week I submitted an expense claim for over £900 which included hotel accommodation and meals for myself and a couple of contractors, all totally legitimate and receipted.

A few days later I got a call from someone in our expense processing team, which had recently been outsourced to Mumbai to save a couple of UK salaries (seriously, the cost savings worked out to be fairly minor once all the management to ensure the outsourcing was running OK was taken into account), challenging my expense claim.

I had failed to follow policy, and had submitted a claim for a breakfast that amounted to £5.25.

They denied me 25 pence on an legit expense claim for 900 quid on a 4 million pound project which I'd slogged my guts out on, by calling me from India. If I'd had the hotel breakfast for 14 quid they'd have paid without question. Tight bastards.

May the tax payers have much pleasure putting the old nag out to pasture.
(Scooby Don't, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 13:42, 3 replies)

Does the name of the company...
start with a C perchance?
(Wallilay has been bored of this shit since, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 13:44, closed)

No, an L.
There was a clue in a reference to 'Old Nag' ;)
(Scooby Don't, Tue 28 Oct 2008, 14:03, closed)

I work for them and I can well believe it.
Tight-fisted fuds.
(Reverend Fister "a disciplined fuckwit", Tue 28 Oct 2008, 14:05, closed)