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isn't the noodles story a classic? sad that we can't post that one, it's so absurd
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Apr 18, 2024 19:00
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Anderson Koopa posted:That's within striking distance of me. I could go for some BBQ. It's good. Get the cornbread with the honey butter.
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Apr 18, 2024 19:01
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From Ask A Manager, a saga:quote:……I went to a conference in another country. My colleague from work was there too. He had been at a different conference before so we didn’t fly there from the same city but we were flying home from the same city. The flight home was a different airline than my flight there. The airline home made me take 2 seats because of my weight. He got bumped from his seat. I’m senior to him and I went home first. (Ask A Manager is sympathetic, as are commenters) quote:I was the one in charge of our tickets being that I was the senior person, not him. So the company is lying it at my feet for not using a company approved airline. He has no say. (Ask A Manager and commenters are outraged at the company) quote:I had his work phone that we had been loaned for the trip. Our travel plans have to be approved by HR but I changed it afterwords. I’m at the level I can book my own travel and travel for those junior to me. You are correct that we get an allotment of money for the trip and I book a cheaper unapproved airline against policy. He didn’t have money to make any calls and the company doesn’t accept collect calls. Bottom line is I should have told the company and our boss when I got back, but I didn’t and I’m ashamed if it. Thank you for the support. An AAM commenter posted:You left your junior coworker in a foreign airport. You took his ticket, the petty cash, and his phone with you. You knew he had no money or credit card with him and no way to book a new ticket. You didn’t tell your employer that he was stranded, but abandoned him completely. And the reason this whole debacle kicked off was because you took approved travel reservations, and switched them to unapproved reservations without your employer’s permission and against policy.
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Apr 18, 2024 19:02
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Big Bowie Bonanza posted:isn't the noodles story a classic? sad that we can't post that one, it's so absurd The mystery of the Noodle Incident was always part of what makes it good and I'm glad Bill Watterson refused to expand on the lore.
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Apr 18, 2024 19:03
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Big Bowie Bonanza posted:isn't the noodles story a classic? sad that we can't post that one, it's so absurd I was surprised to see that, I always enjoy remembering the homeopathic spaghetti but I had no recollection of any potential skeeviness alongside it 
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Apr 18, 2024 19:04
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Arsenic Lupin posted:From Ask A Manager, a saga: It sounds close to embezzlement but I guess if the company provides a fixed amount that's supposed to cover the estimated amount for transportation and other expenses, rather than reimbursing the actual amount, maybe it's not actually? mystes fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 19:11
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AITA for buying lower grade steaks when my in-laws visit and serving my mom and dad Wagyuquote:My wife and I live far away from both of our sets of parents. We visit them a couple of times a year and they visit us about the same. Update - 1 year later quote:A year ago a bunch of people gave me crap for buying cheap meat for my in-laws and getting high quality meat for myself and my family. Redditor posted:Did they enjoy the expensive, well done steak OOP posted:He burned his Traeger and almost caught his deck on fire so I am going to say no.
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Apr 18, 2024 19:12
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Lemniscate Blue posted:AITA for buying lower grade steaks when my in-laws visit and serving my mom and dad Wagyu
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Apr 18, 2024 19:18
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Thats what you get for treating a boomer like an adult
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Apr 18, 2024 19:18
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mystes posted:That's really confusing, but I guess mainly because the OP intentionally described the situation poorly in the first post? Yeah, having a hard time figuring out what would lead the manager to do this in the first place, because I can't see the benefit in it unless they were pocketing the money they saved by using an unapproved airline. Instead they completely hosed over their subordinate, left them stranded, and then didn't tell anybody what happened because they were "embarrassed." Don't know how you keep your job after that.
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Apr 18, 2024 19:19
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house of the dad posted:Yeah, having a hard time figuring out what would lead the manager to do this in the first place, because I can't see the benefit in it unless they were pocketing the money they saved by using an unapproved airline. Instead they completely hosed over their subordinate, left them stranded, and then didn't tell anybody what happened because they were "embarrassed." Don't know how you keep your job after that. Yeah, I can't see why (Ask A Manager and commenters are outraged at the company). OP is 100% the rear end in a top hat there.
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Apr 18, 2024 19:24
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mystes posted:I think it might have been slightly smarter of OP to agree with their wife to spend the equivalent cost to the wagyu on some other food that her parents are more in a position to enjoy $400 Applebees gift card
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Apr 18, 2024 19:27
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house of the dad posted:Yeah, having a hard time figuring out what would lead the manager to do this in the first place, because I can't see the benefit in it unless they were pocketing the money they saved by using an unapproved airline. Instead they completely hosed over their subordinate, left them stranded, and then didn't tell anybody what happened because they were "embarrassed." Don't know how you keep your job after that. Could've been the same type of bootlicker as this guy: 
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Apr 18, 2024 19:28
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He was pocketing the money:quote:I also shouldn’t have bought a cheaper airline ticket so I could have more petty cash for the trip. I guess he was given x amount for the entire trip, including flight, hotel, food, etc. He booked the cheaper flight so that he'd have more money for other stuff. He then proceeded to take his coworker's ticket, phone and the rest of the money that was left over and fly home.
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Apr 18, 2024 19:32
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house of the dad posted:Yeah, having a hard time figuring out what would lead the manager to do this in the first place, because I can't see the benefit in it unless they were pocketing the money they saved by using an unapproved airline.
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Apr 18, 2024 19:32
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It's not embezzlement to spend less than your company's per diem and pocket the difference. But that's usually for food and toiletries and stuff. I still don't understand how his company's policy works. It's normal to have a set budget for the trip. But IME flights and hotels are either purchased with company funds, or immediately reimbursed. I don't know how they have a policy where he can book a cheaper flight, pocket the difference in cash, and add it to his "petty cash" for traveling expenses. Setting aside that the specific airline wasn't approved, it sounds like a lovely policy.
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Apr 18, 2024 19:32
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mystes posted:That's really confusing, but I guess mainly because the OP intentionally described the situation poorly in the first post? It’s maybe technically not quite fraud but I’m pretty sure that if I pulled the same kind of thing (directly using company funds on a non-approved, cheaper service when a company-approved service was available) in any of my professional workplaces I’d have been walked out the door the day after, let alone doing any of the other stuff he did. He’s lucky he still has a job, period
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Apr 18, 2024 19:35
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Halloween Jack posted:But IME flights and hotels are either purchased with company funds, or immediately reimbursed. I don't know how they have a policy where he can book a cheaper flight, pocket the difference in cash, and add it to his "petty cash" for traveling expenses. Setting aside that the specific airline wasn't approved, it sounds like a lovely policy. I'm guessing something like: 1. Buys fully refundable tickets from approved airline for $4000 with own money. 2. Submits receipt and gets reimbursement from employer for $4000. 3. Refunds tickets for $4000. 4. Buys tickets from unapproved budget airline for $3000 and pockets the difference. In which case, yeah, it's embezzlement.
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Apr 18, 2024 19:41
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Oh, it's absolutely fraud. Booking flights is fundamentally no different than purchasing physical goods. If they were working construction, and intentionally bought sub-par cement so they could pocket the extra money, they'd be not only fired but facing criminal charges. Anyway, have a weird one: AITA When I ask my partner to let me know what they are ordering? quote:Hello everyone. This is silly but it's a recurring argument so I wanted to get some unbiased opinions rather than asking my friends. Throwaway account because my partner knows my username. Top commenter posted:I don't know if this is so petty that I don't get it, so I can't believe that's the issue he has. OP posted:Wow, you explained it much more clearly than I did - thank you!
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Apr 18, 2024 19:43
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Shanghaied posted:I'm guessing something like: Tobermory posted:AITA When I ask my partner to let me know what they are ordering? mystes fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 19:44
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mystes posted:If that's how it worked I can't understand how they weren't fired already They may very well have been. The original posts were from 2018, and were all posted in the space of one day. The day before that the OP was speaking with HR and received a warning, and was sent home for the day. Maybe the employer was just the t's and dotting the i's before firing their embezzling rear end.
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Apr 18, 2024 19:52
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Shanghaied posted:I'm guessing something like: quote:I got written up for not telling him which I know I deserve. I have so much so shame. He is telling everyone what happened and our boss, his boss and HR say he can’t get in trouble for telling people about an actual situation that happened to him. I know there is gossip about me and my weight. I’m ashamed I made such a dumb decision and that my weight has gotten so bad. I also shouldn’t have bought a cheaper airline ticket so I could have more petty cash for the trip. If I stayed with the original company approved airline none of this would have happened. I took a sick day today because I couldn’t face anyone st work but there is a meeting Monday I need to be there for and can’t miss. I’m so embarrassed. Even writing this here was hard and I couldn’t use my name. quote:My coworker did not accept my apology and per HR I’m no longer allowed to talk to him or “meddle” in the situation. He said he will come after me for the ticket because the company won’t pay him since I knowingly broke the company policy. I am ashamed at how I acted.
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Apr 18, 2024 19:53
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Halloween Jack posted:
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Apr 18, 2024 20:00
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Runcible Cat posted:Yeah, I can't see why (Ask A Manager and commenters are outraged at the company). OP is 100% the rear end in a top hat there. Ask a Manager commenters share a lot of brain bugs, I think the reason the commenters were so outraged is that the OP is a person fat enough to need two seats on an airline. So they took the original badly written story as something like "Airline shamed OP as a fat person by making them take two seats , Company is being cruel and unusual to the fat person who's the real victim and nice to the meanie who was mildly inconvenienced" when the real story is "OP was pulling some kind of scheme with the company's expense money, ended up stranding the Coworker in a foreign country with no cell phone and no functional credit card or pre-paid hotel, and OP took the cash Coworker could have had for themselves, and none of this would have happened if OP hadn't broken policy to change Coworker's flight". One thing to remember in reading AAM is that Allison hasn't actually been a manager in over a decade. She's likely to side with her commenters when you'd think someone with a couple of decades of manager experience wouldn't, because I'm pretty sure she's been writing "Ask a Manager" as her sole job longer than she actually worked as a manager.
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Apr 18, 2024 20:06
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Halloween Jack posted:Oh, that makes perfect sense. And yeah, it's embezzlement, no argument there. According to OP, the fact that the airline was unapproved is how the company is officially blaming them for everything. But it was a massively unprofessional firing offense regardless. Yeah, it definitely sounds like the OP tried to report the junior colleague for telling people about the experience, which jfc, gently caress you. And I guess the company is framing it like the junior employee gave their ticket to the OP voluntarily, which is extremely lovely for what must be a trivial amount of money. I get a certain amount of money from my uni each year for academic conferences and poo poo. We have an officially approved travel agency for that, but when I just started we could also book travel and hotels privately and get reimbursed. That was stopped a few years ago with a very sternly worded email to the entire university ("absolutely no reimbursement under any circumstance"). People have been bitching about it ever since, since the travel agency prices are expensive as hell, our travelling money is capped, and it's all taxpayer money. But yeah, I can see people pulling this poo poo.
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Apr 18, 2024 20:11
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I've definitely worked with companies where the policy was "You get <x> amount of petty cash per diem per day - spend it how you wish." and I would know some people that would starve themselves or just eat ramen in their hotel rooms so they could pocket and extra $20 a day.
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Apr 18, 2024 20:15
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I actually just hosted a guest speaker from a government agency that doesn't allow the host to reimburse their employees, and it makes the basic ethics around business travel a pain in the rear end. We have to take them to and from the airport because we can't reimburse them for a taxi, we have to host them for every meal because we can't reimburse them for meals, etc. A weird thing about state/federal per diem rates is that domestic rates top out around $80 a day, but you get more for international travel. It's much cheaper to eat and drink in Milan or Florence than in NYC. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 20:15
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Mordiceius posted:I've definitely worked with companies where the policy was "You get <x> amount of petty cash per diem per day - spend it how you wish." and I would know some people that would starve themselves or just eat ramen in their hotel rooms so they could pocket and extra $20 a day. a company i worked for let us pocket the hotel per diem difference and that lead to some dudes sleeping in their cars until gm caught one of the dudes and freaked out on the managers
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Apr 18, 2024 20:24
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Mordiceius posted:I've definitely worked with companies where the policy was "You get <x> amount of petty cash per diem per day - spend it how you wish." and I would know some people that would starve themselves or just eat ramen in their hotel rooms so they could pocket and extra $20 a day. In terms of per-diem for meals and incidentals, that’s common. Your employer has a set reimbursement rate per day for meals and incidentals (likely based on the official IRS rate) and they just hand you that much money to split up however you see fit - a light breakfast and big dinner if you wish or three decent sized meals or maybe a $5 coffee and a bunch of small meals or whatever. The purpose is to avoid wasting time on a bunch of small receipts for every little thing and wasting time arguing over a $2 coca-cola from the vending machine where you didn’t get a receipt. I have NEVER heard of that applying to airline ticket reimbursement though. That sounds like straight up embezzlement to me.
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Apr 18, 2024 20:34
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Mordiceius posted:I've definitely worked with companies where the policy was "You get <x> amount of petty cash per diem per day - spend it how you wish." and I would know some people that would starve themselves or just eat ramen in their hotel rooms so they could pocket and extra $20 a day. One of the bizarre sights in Beijing was the huge number of people just milling about in front of the main train station, mumbling "fa'piao" ("invoice") to any passer-by. Seriously, from the station entrance to the subway is like 100-150 metres, and you'd encounter at least a dozen of these people along the way. There must have been at least a hundred of these guys in front of the station at any one time. Anyway, a Chinese acquaintance explained to me that these people are buying and selling invoices. You'll always get a receipt for buying something, but most larger businesses will also write an invoice, with watermarks and stamps, if you ask them to. Most Chinese employers require invoices for reimbursements. So the people travelling on business can buy invoices to bilk their employers for reimbursements, and others can sell their invoices to recoup part of their travelling expenses. They were particularly common in Beijing because lots of people travel to the capital for work. Kinda blew my mind. Shanghaied fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 20:40
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Shanghaied posted:And I guess the company is framing it like the junior employee gave their ticket to the OP voluntarily, Pantaloon Pontiff posted:I think the reason the commenters were so outraged is that the OP is a person fat enough to need two seats on an airline. So they took the original badly written story as something like "Airline shamed OP as a fat person by making them take two seats , Company is being cruel and unusual to the fat person who's the real victim and nice to the meanie who was mildly inconvenienced" I guess my point is that even if OP had managed to keep the other guy from "getting bumped" it still would've been a miserable flight home for him. All which could've been avoided with company approved travel--they'd just pay for his two seats and it would be illegal to shame or otherwise reprimand him for needing to do so, and result in a better flying experience for everyone involved. ExcessBLarg! fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 20:49
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ExcessBLarg! posted:I thought if an airline won't seat a passenger because they're too heavy for a single-seat ticket, the airline tells that passenger they have to rebook. Of course, conveniently OP did purchase the ticket for the adjacent seat, it just has some other guy's name on it. So now I'm curious if the "you're too heavy for one seat" conversation happened at the gate, or during boarding, and how exactly the other guy "got bumped", not that it really matters in the final story. But you had first choice of the cookies and I bet if you asked nice you could even get extra drinks
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Apr 18, 2024 20:51
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idiotsavant posted:It’s maybe technically not quite fraud but I’m pretty sure that if I pulled the same kind of thing (directly using company funds on a non-approved, cheaper service when a company-approved service was available) in any of my professional workplaces I’d have been walked out the door the day after, let alone doing any of the other stuff he did. He’s lucky he still has a job, period I was working for a government agency and my training group of new hires were issued government travel cards prior to being sent to centralized training. One of my co-workers immediately used the card to withdraw the total of the expected per diem to hit a local casino, prior to even getting on a plane. Anyway, they're in management now.
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Apr 18, 2024 21:29
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cult_hero posted:Anyway, they're in management now. All I can think of is Idiocracy, when he goes to the doctor. I'd repeat it but I think there are too many SA-unfriendly words in that dialog that might get me banned.
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Apr 18, 2024 21:47
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ExcessBLarg! posted:I thought if an airline won't seat a passenger because they're too heavy for a single-seat ticket, the airline tells that passenger they have to rebook. Of course, conveniently OP did purchase the ticket for the adjacent seat, it just has some other guy's name on it. I think we can read between the lines of what the OP says: "The flight home was a different airline than my flight there. The airline home made me take 2 seats because of my weight. He got bumped from his seat. I’m senior to him and I went home first." On first glance it sounds like the airline bumped Coworker, but I don't think that's correct. I think the airline for the flight home told OP he'd need to take two seats because of his weight, and OP volunteered Coworker's seat for the second spot, and OP justified it to himself as "I'm senior so I should go home first". That is, Coworker didn't "got bumped" by the airline, he got bumped by OP's deliberate choice. quote:I guess my point is that even if OP had managed to keep the other guy from "getting bumped" it still would've been a miserable flight home for him. All which could've been avoided with company approved travel--they'd just pay for his two seats and it would be illegal to shame or otherwise reprimand him for needing to do so, and result in a better flying experience for everyone involved. Probably not as miserable as spending 2 days starving in a foreign airport with nothing to eat and no luggage.
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Apr 18, 2024 21:53
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Scathach posted:All I can think of is Idiocracy, when he goes to the doctor. I'd repeat it but I think there are too many SA-unfriendly words in that dialog that might get me banned. "She's a pilot now."
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Apr 18, 2024 21:54
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cult_hero posted:I was working for a government agency and my training group of new hires were issued government travel cards prior to being sent to centralized training. One of my co-workers immediately used the card to withdraw the total of the expected per diem to hit a local casino, prior to even getting on a plane. That is management level thinking, yes
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Apr 18, 2024 21:54
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Modal Auxiliary posted:"She's a pilot now." Exactly!
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Apr 18, 2024 22:31
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Ominous Jazz posted:a company i worked for let us pocket the hotel per diem difference and that lead to some dudes sleeping in their cars until gm caught one of the dudes and freaked out on the managers These are the guys that shop at Dan Flashes.
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Apr 18, 2024 22:32
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AITA for telling my wife that yes my job is more important than hers since without my job we couldn’t afford this lifequote:My wife works at a college housing, she is the person you get in touch if you have dorm issues and stuff like that. Overall she doenst make much and due to this she only pays for our groceries. We would actually be saving money if she was SAHM instead of putting our youngest in daycare.
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Apr 18, 2024 22:38
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