In July I wrote a column about bad bosses and referenced a bad boss that I worked for years ago. I wish I had more examples of bad bosses to write about because not only is it cathartic, it\u2019s amusing too. But even somewhat competent bosses say and do amusing things and that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to share with you today.<\/p>\n
While you\u2019re reading this, I\u2019m in Dublin, Ireland, beginning my first day of a nine-day vacation. This story dates back to a business trip I took in 1987 during my early days as a trade magazine editor for the office technology business when I was still a novice in the ways of business and business travel. I was attending a National Postal Forum conference in Washington D.C. Back then we used to have loads of editorial and advertisers related to mailing so this was a must-attend conference for us. As an FYI, prior to my first editorial position at a cable TV magazine I spent a few years working in and then running the mailroom at a community college so I know what it\u2019s like starting out in the mailroom.<\/p>\n
Our daily meal allowance when traveling for business was $33 a day. That was doable if you were like me and had a light breakfast or if the press room was stocked with pastries at breakfast, and on the rare occasion, sandwiches for lunch. Plus as a member of the press, there were the vendors and PR people who\u2019d invite you out for a meal, which went a long way towards stretching that meal allowance out. I was still flying under the radar of a lot of these folks at the time so I wasn\u2019t getting that many invitations yet, especially at the National Postal Forum conference. I don\u2019t remember if there were pastries in the press room, but I wasn\u2019t much of a breakfast eater then. As for lunch, you were on your own.<\/p>\n
There were a lot of companies exhibiting back then, not nearly as much and as much variety as you\u2019d see at NOMDA, but enough to keep a young editor busy all day long. And usually keep me too busy to go off site and find something for lunch. The best option was the coffee shop in the hotel. That\u2019s what I\u2019d do, and that\u2019s what got me into trouble.<\/p>\n
A couple of weeks after returning from the conference and submitting my expenses, I\u2019m sitting in my cubicle banging away on my electric typewriter when I hear the publisher shouting to me from his office, \u201cHey Cullen, cut out the high living; just because you get $33 a day doesn\u2019t mean you have to spend all of it!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou spent $15 for lunch on Sept. 23.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll I had was an iced tea, a sandwich, and a piece of pie at the coffee shop in the hotel. It was $15 with tip.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNext time just get a hot dog.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later I went back and checked and discovered I\u2019d only spent $30 of my $33 meal allowance on my three meals that day, including the $15 lunch.<\/p>\n
Sometimes you can\u2019t make this stuff up.<\/p>\n
In the interest of full disclosure, on my first business trip to Washington D.C. the year before I went to dinner by myself at a fancy restaurant and ordered pheasant under glass and ended up exceeding my budget for the day. He never said anything about that.<\/p>\n
Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In July I wrote a column about bad bosses and referenced a bad boss that I worked for years ago. I wish I had more examples of bad bosses to write about because not only is it cathartic, it\u2019s amusing too. But even somewhat competent bosses say and do amusing things and that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to share with you today. While you\u2019re reading this, I\u2019m in Dublin, Ireland, beginning my first day of a nine-day vacation. This story dates back to a business trip I took in 1987 during my early days as a trade magazine editor for the office technology business when I was still a novice in the ways of business and business travel. I was attending a National Postal Forum conference in Washington D.C. Back then we used to have loads of editorial and advertisers related to mailing so this was a must-attend conference for us. As an FYI, prior to my first editorial position at a cable TV magazine I spent a few years working in and then running the mailroom at a community college so I know what it\u2019s like starting out in the mailroom. Our daily meal allowance when traveling for business was $33 a day. That was doable if you were like me and had a light breakfast or if the press room was stocked with pastries at breakfast, and on the rare occasion, sandwiches for lunch. Plus as a member of the press, there were the vendors and PR people who\u2019d invite you out for a meal, which went a long way towards stretching that meal allowance out. I was still flying under the radar of a lot of these folks at the time so I wasn\u2019t getting that many invitations yet, especially at the National Postal Forum conference. I don\u2019t remember if there were pastries in the press room, but I wasn\u2019t much of a breakfast eater then. As for lunch, you were on your own. There were a lot of companies exhibiting back then, not nearly as much and as much variety as you\u2019d see at NOMDA, but enough to keep a young editor busy all day long. And usually keep me too busy to go off site and find something for lunch. The best option was the coffee shop in the hotel. That\u2019s what I\u2019d do, and that\u2019s what got me into trouble. A couple of weeks after returning from the conference and submitting my expenses, I\u2019m sitting in my cubicle banging away on my electric typewriter when I hear the publisher shouting to me from his office, \u201cHey Cullen, cut out the high living; just because you get $33 a day doesn\u2019t mean you have to spend all of it!\u201d \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d I asked. \u201cYou spent $15 for lunch on Sept. 23.\u201d \u201cAll I had was an iced tea, a sandwich, and a piece of pie at the coffee shop in the hotel. It was $15 with tip.\u201d \u201cNext time just get a hot dog.\u201d Later I went back and checked and discovered I\u2019d only spent $30 of my $33 meal allowance on my three meals that day, including the $15 lunch. Sometimes you can\u2019t make this stuff up. In the interest of full disclosure, on my first business trip to Washington D.C. the year before I went to dinner by myself at a fancy restaurant and ordered pheasant under glass and ended up exceeding my budget for the day. He never said anything about that. Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[80,1638],"tags":[116,2388,328],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14048"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14048"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50780,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14048\/revisions\/50780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}