Get Your Priorities Hijacked – Solving the Population Crisis

Let's start out with an unfortunate fact. Seven billion human beings is too many for the earth to support. We have to find a way to decrease the surplus population. You can call me Scrooge if you want, but I am prepared to offer a real suggestion to save our overloaded, under loved planet. I suggest decreasing our population by ridding ourselves of all the people, whose jobs waste other people's time. Let me give you an example of just such a person.

My wife's patience is being sorely tested by an oxygen waster at work. Laura is trying to submit an expense report to her company to be reimbursed for her travel costs using our fine Washington DC metro transit system. She is entitled to receive $120 monthly to defray the costs of using mass transit. Since she is a thorough, due diligence type of gal, she got on her employer's web site and read the instructions for submitting the claim for reimbursement. Her employer's policy requires the submission of either a log detailing the daily commuting expense or metro transit receipts. Laura elected to submit a daily log since the metro system doesn't print a receipt every time you take a trip from Vienna to Foggy Bottom for example.

Laura submitted her expense report, which was promptly rejected by the “expense report auditor”, who exists somewhere deep in the bowels of an office complex in Tennessee. There is something you should know about someone with the exalted title of “expense report auditor.” This person is no more a real auditor than my left big toe is the Pope. My right big toe is the king of England and my nipples are named Jack Ham and Jack Lambert, but those are stories for another time. The expense report auditor is really a lowly accounting clerk with a ridiculous title. Of course, giving someone an exaggerated title is always less expensive than paying a real salary. In the accounting world, this auditor is lower than whale dung on the bottom of the ocean.

Why was Laura's expense report rejected? Ms. Whale Dung decided that she could require receipts in addition to the daily log despite the company's policy of requiring one or the other. You might wonder if there is an IRS rule requiring the receipts and the auditor is just being a good steward of the company's fine reputation. Since I am a bit of an expert in this area, let me research this. I'll be back in a minute........ The answer is that the log is sufficient for the IRS.

Why is this battle of wills between Laura and Ms. Whale Dung important? Because this battle is costing Laura's employer a lot more money than just a $120 travel reimbursement. This battle has tied up hours of otherwise productive, and did I mention yet – billable time. Ms. Whale Dung isn't just wasting her own time. She is wasting Laura's time and the time of a number of other employees, whose jobs are to produce revenue for the company. These employees are all six figure salary types. Their time is just a bit more valuable than Ms. Whale Dung's time. This expense report will end up costing the company five grand or so. Five grand isn't a whole lot of money to a large company, but Ms. Whale Dung is probably a repeat offender. She is a time thief who costs the company money by wasting the time of revenue producers. That wouldn't be her description of her job, but most criminals deny their guilt.

I am not suggesting that the company save money by harpooning Ms. Whale Dung. Well, maybe I am. A more reasonable suggestion would be sterilizing her and any descendants. That would contain the genetic mutation that would make someone desire a job as an expense report auditor and help decrease the population thereby saving planet earth. Quick - somebody call Al Gore. He could make another movie.

If you are looking for real accounting and tax advice, check out the S&K blog at www.skcpas.com. Thanks for reading!