Do you deal with money or budgeting for your job? Are you ever struck by the contrast in how you deal with personal finance and company finance? Many people are probably forced to be more frugal with their employer's money than with their own... though in some cases, it is probably the opposite. Also, the scale is so different, unless you work for the tiniest of small businesses.
For me, it just seems funny sometimes to say "oh, that will only cost them a few extra hundred dollars a month, it's no big deal," or "we budgeted sales of 50,000 copies of Book Z this month," which amounts to revenue of almost 7 times what I make in a year... and then later that day I'll see a dime on the sidewalk and be all happy when I pick it up.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Work vs. Life
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9 comments:
Yeah, at my work right now I am unable to enter data for one of my studies because they broke the database, and if the data is more than 90 days old I can't enter it.. and each person's data is effectively worth about $500. The database has been broken for months now so we have lost probably over $10,000, and the department is pretty blase about this. If I lost $10k in four months, blase is not the adjective I would use.
I drive my boss nuts because I treat the companies money like my own. I work for a large corporation and go on business trips on a semi-regular basis. When I submit my expense reports, I don't include my glass of wine with dinner, I won't pay for room service coffee (even though he told me to), and I don't submit for lunches (since I would generally buy them anyway at home). I am probably the only person in the world who has had an expense report rejected for not having requested enough money!
I am not high enough on the ladder to really have any dealings with company money. But in a previous job, the accountant was extremely meticulous in her job and on top of everything. But her purse and wallet was a mess - couldn't find her ATM card and things like that. Her excuse: I am neat at work, I don't need to be neat and organized at home too.
i am careful with company money and should be a little more careful with my own, but by most people's standards i am careful with my own. i hate to see employees be wasteful (on business trips or in the office, etc) since there is no reason for it.
i learned more about pf with my current position than any before since a % of my job is all aspects of our co.'s accounting and one of my bosses is REALLY good with $ -- i learned from him mostly, stuff which i applied to my own situation. he also caretakes his family's fortune/business (which is separate), so he is mucho frugal. one of those rich guys who don't look rich (ex: his clothing is developing holes. other things are more important to him than his clothing, vehicles, etc.etc)... he has no idea what i've learned from his habits at work (& noticing the personal ones).
i got to witness how to handle different difficult situations due to the company almost going under (which was not at all his fault).
ib
I work for a small technology company - but you'd be surprised by how many policies we have for corporate travel. I think most were intended to simply things, but in practice they make life more difficult.
So instead of worry about the dozens of rules that we have, my personal policy for corporate travel… scratch that… my personal policy for everything is "don't be stupid." So that glass of wine - I leave it off the expense report; unless I am with a client... then it stays on.
I admit to being less frugal with company money than with my own. I order $30 dinners at work though if I were to pay for it myself, I wouldn't go over $15 for a meal I have to have at my desk. But then I wouldn't be eating at my desk. Truth is, as a big firm lawyer, $30 is only a few minutes of my billing time and my perspective gets rather skewed.
I wish I could handle my personal finances the same as corporate. I'm retired now, but in my previous job I needed $4MM annually. Typically, I got about 3.5MM. Now, I was considered successful if I could keep my overage to below half a million. It was actually a fun challenge to see how I could manage that.
Now, in real life, I wish I could spend that much more than I make and have someone else cover the deficit!
I used to work for a marketing division that routinely spent $60K to $100K for each ad, every week. It used to bother me that the company could throw money around like that and yet quibble over a few thousand dollars when I wanted a raise.
It is necessary to live happily and to not put work on the foreground. Certainly the main thing to do all moderately and all will be good!
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