Company Credit Cards
October 18, 2008 Posted by Al Castle
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Categories: Squirrels, TimeWaster, Travel, gnash-teeth
Tags: Browsers, Credit Cards, Hiring, Human Resources, IE bites, Incompetent, Rants
I used to work for a company a long time ago where I’d have to make purchases for travel, taking clients and employees out to lunch, things of that nature. I would use my own credit card then file for reimbursement via a painful and long drawn out process where someone who wasn’t my boss would then have to approve the reimbursements. If I was lucky the accounting department wouldn’t screw up and actually pay the right amount.
This company finally decided that they should get me a company credit card. Okay, that’ll make it easier I think, instead of having to use the reimbursement web interface which only allowed Internet Explorer. Well no and here’s why.
- A company credit card is issued in my name.
- The bills come to me, my house.
- I pay the bills.
- The company gets the points / perks.
- I still have to get reimbursed.
If I’m going to have to pay the bills myself I might as well get the points and perks *my* card provides me, instead of having to keep track of yet another bill for no good reason. I recall calling the department of the company who issued me this card, to ask what exactly the convenience or purpose was supposed to be, to which they had no intelligent answer. The only thing I could think of was if my own personal credit was so awful that I couldn’t get my own credit card then this would be handy. I have great credit, so it’s pointless. So I just continued to use my own credit card and never used their card.
Years and years pass…
Today in the mail I get a letter from the credit card company, for the card this employer setup.
Dear Al Castle:
We received a request from your company to close the above referenced *credit card company* account.
For your protection, we ask that you discontinue the use of your card number, destroy your Card immediately, and ensure that all remaining balances are cleared.
[... It continues on with more credit speak....]
Um… way to stay on top of things.
<rant> This is why, if you’re going to have a human resources department you hire competent people from the start. Otherwise you end up with a snow ball effect of every department in the company being filled with people who should never breed and can’t be trusted with the fry station at a fast food chain either. The other important point is to keep the competent people you may have gotten happy by not surrounding them with incompetent co-workers, policies and procedures that make little sense or hinder them from doing good work. </rant>
Anyways, it was amusing to me.
Comments»
I’m experiencing this now at my place of business. I have to pay for everything–including plane trips, hotel, food, etc.–what could be a thousand plus, then I receive a check weeks later after wading through the red tape and bureaucracy. Even thought they’re essentially taking out a loan from me when I’m purchasing items for a trade show out of my personal bank account. SUCH crap!!
To you bulleted points, I’m dealing with the same shit, too.
I’ll one-up ya. Try keeping up with recurring data plans for sending phones to press. Terrible.
So far, Concur is the only expensing platform that actually makes sense to me.