» Tightwads

Tightarse companies and Nazi account ladies.
Adding to pounana's and Scooby Don't's company's antics – together with my own post earlier today.

Also being on the receiving end of the ball busting accounts ladies – up holding the tightarse company policy and saving all the travel budgets for the bosses first class ticket.

I remember having a particularly tough Biz-trip tour. Finland, Norway and Denmark in 5 days installation of said Networking kit and tested. I picked out some Water from the mini-bar in my room as I had just got off the train in turn from the airport – arrived straight from Oslo, Norway. Thought nothing of it. When I got back and claimed my expenses I had query about the water. Basically I hit the roof about this and claimed a basic human need for water. But, they were not moving on this and it should be part of the Diem they told me.
However, they did fail to notice the hard core Scando porn on all my hotel bills. The hotels were kind enough to list this as “Business connection package” or “internet” – which was always extra.

After that moment turb0t’s and my business trips always tried to include “Internet” on our hotel bills whether it was included or not. And getting hotel to list everything in the local language of the said county was a bonus too. This made the lazy accounts lady fuct off – which was a secondary bonus.
(Tue 28th Oct 2008, 15:32, More)

» Tightwads

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.
(Tue 28th Oct 2008, 10:05, More)