Any stories of cheapskate coworkers?
For the amount that people make in finance, it's surprising how some are so cheap with their spending. I get frugality, but certain things are just a bit too far. A few stories of mine:
- VP who would never pay for lunch (unless firm paid), and just ate snacks from pantry everyday at old BB. Whenever there was extra food from a meeting, he would package it up in containers he brought to take home.
- Sometimes I take a midtown bus, and there's almost always this dude who looks like he's in his 50s wearing a Jefferies vest, who skips paying the fare. He waits to the side of the bus stop and gets on at the middle doors, and quickly sits in the back. Like ??? even if you are working in IT at Jefferies, surely you make at least 200-300k... what are you doing?
The prior companies I worked for were cheap as hell.
-One time my boss chewed me out for spending $16 for dinner at McDonalds while travelling for work (pre-inflation, so $16 was a lot for MCD). Truth is my wife came on the trip (bought separate tickets) and I covered her dinner since it was below my (already pathetic) $35 dinner per-deim. I could have spent the full $35 somewhere else and they wouldn't have cared, but somehow $16 at MCD raised flags.
-No booze allowed on company cards, and no easy way to split dinner costs among employees led to dinners where, I shit you not, 10 of us would all produce two credit cards each for dinner. RIP to the waitress.
-The department Christmas party meant we would get off an hour early, go over to a private room in a local restaurant, get a few free hors d'oeuvers, and two whole drink tickets. Most people would leave at 5 so they could get home in time for dinner since it was not provided. This was for the finance department of a multi-billion dollar F500 company.
-The first location I ever worked in was an 80s style, Office Space tier cubicle farm. Rows and rows of tall felt cubicles, fluorescent lights, no windows. The company took it because the state virtually begged them to and leased it for $1. It was in the worst part of town- shootings regularly happened at the gas station across the street. One day I found the candy in the jar on my desk had been chewed by a mouse. One time the leadership decided to make a "cool, hip game room" where they put a foosball table and a PS4, but the catch was that you couldn't use any of it on company time... so it went totally unused since people preferred to just go home sooner.
-The business units were so stingy about getting you a second monitor to the point where the head of the FLDP I was in used the corporate budget to get us all 2nd monitors and told us to bring them from rotation to rotation.
-Worked really hard and knocked some project out of the park? You might be lucky enough to get a Star! (but it had a cringy corporate-branded name). These were typically worth (gasp) $50 and you could only use them in the internal company store.. Oh, and you had to pay taxes on it. So you'd get $50 worth of company merch you didn't really want, and would get $15 taken out of your paycheck. Yippee.
Now I'm at a different company in a different industry and I feel like a recovering, abused child ("Wait, I can put this beer on my card? are you sure? and I can spend $70 on dinner? No one will chew me out?"). We have a legitimate Christmas party with a nice venue, food, bar, spouses invited, etc. My standards are so low that I feel like I'm in the promised land
I was there during the downfall of Credit Suisse. The Budget for clients, parties and bonus got cut every year, even after a banger performance. From my point of view, the lacking responsability from senior management was fault and thry took everybody with them.
The firm is the firm; some things don't raise red flags, and some things are ridiculously flagged by accounting. But for some of the MDs and EMDs and even a Partner, it's ridiculous.
At one consulting firm, we would have HHs at breweries or dive bars all the time. Nothing extravagant. A couple of the partners would routinely come if it was for a departing employee. they would always pay the bill up to the time they left. Sometimes, for really long tenured employees, they'd tell a back house person to throw it on a company card once they left. Meanwhile, one certain partner wouldn't pay for anything and multiple times would have a drink or two and then would leave prior to the check coming. Usually, a director or a team lead would put it on their card, and people would Zelle or Venmo them their portion. You'd usually get stuck with the Partners tab. This wasn't a random occurrence, happened all the time.
Now at a firm EMD who makes $1.5-3M depending on his sales and profitability, refuses to even approve some expenses since he has an allocated budget for his team. He has had Analysts and Associates who have taken out clients and bought a round and two apps, the total bill was $44, and he wouldn't approve it because it would go to his expense allowance, even though it was his clients. Meanwhile, they fly first class and stay at the Ritz. Same firm and there are a couple of Directors and C-Suite people that are sooooooo generous it makes up for it. Will never let you pay regardless, if they leave a dinner will make sure their direct report puts it on the company card and they'll approve it.
Went out with friends/coworker who all know each other. I split the dinner bill evenly and didn’t itemize everything because, you know, we aren’t 22 years old anymore. VP messaged me on Skype and asked me to Venmo him like 20 bucks because he felt like he was overcharged. My friends and I were also buying rounds of drinks later that night for everyone, guess who never paid for a round? No longer have an interest in being friendly with them. Sheesh…
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