Or: Every Developer gets an Amex
How often does this happen where you work:
- Developer begs, pleads with boss to go to technical conference
- Boss negotiates with developer on getting a cheaper hotel. (It’s only $69 a night! Clean sheets optional. 30 minute bus ride from conference. What a steal!)
- Boss orders developer to get cheaper, three stop flight instead of more expensive non-stop
- Developer attends conference
- Developer returns from conference with a pile of low value receipts ($20 for lunch, $40 for cab to airport)
- Developer spends two hours painstakingly scanning each receipt and constructs a spreadsheet with itemized list of charges
- Boss approves charges without even looking at them
- goto 1
How brain-dead is this? Here you have a highly-paid software developer doing super-low value data entry. It probably cost you $200 to have them enter all this junk.
What does this tell the developer?
- I don’t trust you
- Scanning receipts is more valuable than writing awesome code
- Your time is not particularly valuable
- I don’t trust you
Give the developer a corp Amex, ask them to be a responsible adult, and be done with it. Have them forward receipts (where applicable) to a specific email address to satisfy potential IRS complications. The end.
Anything else is over-optimization of a low-probability event (being audited and needing to justify a latte at the airport).
