Wednesday, July 27, 2005

The Mother of Invention

The world is full of people who can't drive. Typically, those people include everyone in between you and your destination. So how can a person tell when the drivers around them can't drive? Paintball cannons. That's right, paintball cannons.

I think all cars should come equipped with a paintball cannon mounted on the hood or grill. A trigger would be placed on the steering wheel, and the driver would be allowed by law to fire the cannon at any driver who cut them off, changed lanes without signaling, or who drove more than 10 MPH below the speed limit. The worse someone drove, the more times they would be shot by paintballs. Thus, the really bad drivers could be determined by the amount of paintball splotches on their car, and they could be avoided.

Friday, July 22, 2005

The Wisdom of Accounting

I love accountants. Not in the romantic sense, unless of course they're beautiful and female. No, I love accountants in the sarcastic sense. Nothing throws off an accountant more than not following a process to the letter.

Last month, I had to go to a work meeting at our Houston location. In my opinion, it just as easily could have been done with a conference call, but hey, they reimburse for the mileage, so I went. A few days after I got back, I filled out the electronic expense report for the mileage reimbursement, had it approved by my manager, and sent it off electronically to the bean counters in accounting. A month later, I received an e-mail from accounting saying they couldn't process my request because I hadn't sent in my receipts. I was confused (how odd), because there were no receipts to send in.

I asked my manager who I needed to contact over there, but instead he explained to me what I had done wrong. When sending in the electronic expense report (you know, so that we can save paper), I had to print out a receipt report which stated that I had no receipts, and then I had to send that to the accounting department in our Houston office. After all, it's not like the accounting department couldn't have printed that report themselves, thus saving the time of waiting for me to send them via "real" mail. No, that would be too easy. And of course, it makes perfect sense to require printed reports for "paperless" processes.

Oh well, I'm sure I'll get another e-mail in a week or so telling me something else I forgot to do. I might get that money in time for my birthday this fall. (Oct. 7th: Shop early, shop often.)


P.S. Wow, I started the birthday reminders early this year.
:)