Finance Capped Reimbursements at $300, $68 Million Project Failed

On the company messaging app, a group message from Madison Lambert in Finance landed in my inbox.

Due to an unstable pregnancy that requires bed-rest, and in order to reduce my workload, effective immediately all salaries will be paid at base only, with performance bonuses deferred.

All reimbursements are capped at $300 maximum. Anything over that will not be reimbursed. Please manage your spending accordingly.

I messaged her right away.

Supervisor Lambert, there's a $68 million project bid in two days. The flight to Harborview alone is 0-0,200. $300 doesn't even cover lodging.

It took Madison a long time to reply, and there was nothing polite about it.

Judy Dickerson, do you not understand plain language? I told you reimbursements are approved up to $300. No one else has a problem with it, so why are you so special?

Don't you have a salary? Won't your performance bonus from winning the bid cover your travel costs?

My head started buzzing.

Base pay was only 0-0,800, and with the bonus deferred, after $800 monthly rent and $800 for utilities and transportation, the $200 left over wasn't even enough to eat on.

I explained the situation to her, and she sent back a voice message, furious, like I was the worst criminal alive.

Judy, which matters more, your project or my pregnancy? Figure out how to cut your costs yourself. If this affects my bed-rest, it's entirely on you!

I had no choice but to take the slowest hard-seat coach train there.

By the time I arrived, the bidding was already over. The $68 million project was gone.

The boss demanded accountability, and every pair of eyes turned to me.

I stood up, unhurried.

"Mr. Gilbert, Harborview is twelve hundred miles away. The flight is 0-0,200, and Finance would only approve $300. Was I supposed to grow wings and fly there myself?"

01

"Supervisor Lambert, $300 really isn't enough. The cheapest flight to Harborview is still 0-0,200. Could you make an exception this once?"

Madison sipped her iced coffee listlessly and shot me a careless glance.

"Judy, do you ever quit? I told you I'm on bed-rest. Stop adding to my workload. Even the boss fronts his own money when he travels abroad. What makes you so special?"

The boss was worth over a hundred million. He wouldn't blink at flying to the moon. I was a wage-earner on 0-0,800 base. How was I supposed to compare to him?

Before I could get a word out, she rolled her eyes at me.

"Doesn't the company pay you a salary? 0-0,800 isn't enough for your trip? The project bonus is yours, and you're still trying to squeeze reimbursements out of the company. Young people these days, always looking to get something for free."

I almost laughed out of sheer anger.

Making me cover reimbursements out of my base pay, and asking who was mooching off whom?

I swallowed my temper and tried to reason with her.

"Supervisor Lambert, on 0-0,800 base, I pay $800 rent, $800 for utilities and transportation, which leaves me $200. That's not even enough to eat. I genuinely can't make it to the bid."

"How is that not enough? You can take a hard-seat coach. I checked. The ticket's only $285. You'd still have 0-05 left over."

I couldn't believe my ears.

"Supervisor Lambert, that hard-seat coach is eighteen hours. The bid opens at ten. There's no time."

"How is there no time? You can leave a day early."

"But the bid is the day after tomorrow, and the rules say a company representative has to hand in the bid documents in person before ten."

"Why not leave earlier?"

"The client only just notified us. I came to you to request this the moment I got the notice."

She stirred the pearls in her iced coffee with the straw, unhurried. "That's your Engineering Department's problem. I just follow the rules."

I lowered my voice and pleaded with her. "Supervisor Lambert, please, help me out. This project is critical. If we lose the bid over this, none of us can carry that blame."

"Slam!"

She set the iced coffee cup down hard on the desk and looked at me coldly out of the corner of her eye.

"Judy, don't you threaten me with your project. You think you're the only one at this company with something on the line? Let me tell you, rules are rules. Not even God himself could change them. If the project falls through, that's on you too. It has nothing to do with me!"

However mild-tempered I was, I couldn't hold it in any longer, and my tone hardened.

"Supervisor Lambert, the company's reimbursement policy is in black and white. Travel expenses are reimbursed as filed. You can't just change that on your own over a personal matter, can you?"

Her expression flipped in an instant.

Not anger. Hurt.

Her eyes went red on cue.

"Judy, how can you be like this? Do you have any idea how hard it is to carry a child? Are you determined to work me until I miscarry?"

"No, Supervisor Lambert, it's just approving a reimbursement. A flick of your finger. It can't be that serious, can it?"

"How is it not serious?"

Her voice shot up, and the tears started dropping.

"You come at me today, someone else comes tomorrow, and everyone says it's no trouble at all. Do you think I can handle all of it?"

"Don't you know computer radiation is bad for the baby? I take all that medication every day just to hold on to this child. And here you are, over a few hundred dollars of reimbursement, forcing me to approve it. Are you trying to make me lose the baby?"

Her sudden crying caught me completely off guard.

Theo from Admin rushed to hand her a tissue, and Matthew from HR rubbed her back.

Another one from Finance, Louis, looked at me with displeasure.

"Judy, Vice President Delgado already signed off on this. What are you making a scene about?"

Theo chimed in at once. "Right, she's in this state and you're still pushing her. Have you got no heart?"

Matthew gave me a cold glance. "We're all women here. You'll go through this too when you're pregnant someday. Can't you put yourself in her shoes?"

Coworkers from the office next door were craning their necks to look over, whispering.

"What's going on? Didn't Madison send out that notice? Why is she still giving someone a hard time?"

"Madison's husband is so anxious about this baby he even told her to quit. Vice President Delgado talked her into staying. Judy really can't read the room."

"Right, it's a few hundred dollars. Does it warrant a scene like this? If she actually stresses Madison into a miscarriage, can she answer for that?"

I stood there like some monster driving a pregnant woman to her death.

Every fact, every policy, every rule, in that moment, had turned into me making trouble for no reason.

And her tears and her belly were the only truth in that office.

I said nothing, turned, and went back to my desk.

The moment I sat down, Nathan Woodward came over, his voice low.

"They didn't approve it?"

I shook my head. "No."

Nathan sighed. "That's just how Madison is. Give her an inch and she acts like she runs the place. Gets herself knocked up and suddenly the whole company's supposed to bow to her. Damn it, what's three hundred bucks supposed to cover?"

"So we all sit here doing spreadsheets in the office, nobody goes out to see clients, and then we'll see what pays our salaries at the end of the month!"

Ava Whitney breezed in from outside, glowing.

"I'm off to Grandport tomorrow on business. Nathan, keep an eye on my client stuff for me."

Nathan glanced at me, then asked her, "A flight to Grandport's got to be two grand, right? Anything over three hundred doesn't get reimbursed. You paying out of pocket?"

She shot me a look and let out a little scoff.

"Paying out of pocket is what losers do. Finance just approved it. Full reimbursement."

Then she waved her phone with the ticket confirmation and walked off, smiling.

I clenched the reimbursement form in my hand, the paper's edge biting into my palm.

So it wasn't that the rules had changed. The rules just picked and chose.

Madison had done it on purpose, rejecting my request and then approving Ava's right after.

This wasn't playing favorites. She was making an example of me.

She wanted everyone to know that in this company, she could block whoever she wanted and wave through whoever she wanted.

Nathan patted my shoulder and tried to talk me down. "Let it go. Last time Ava came back from a trip she brought Madison some local specialty gifts. Madison eats that stuff up."

I said nothing. I put together a fresh reimbursement request and submitted it a second time.

Madison still didn't approve it.

The third time, I compiled a full set of documents and emailed them straight to the chairman's inbox. Director Foster intercepted it.

He called me into his office, his tone sounding almost fatherly.

"Judy, don't be so stubborn about the reimbursement thing. Just tough it out and take the cheapest way there."

My fingers tightened.

"Mr. Foster, Ava's flight to Grandport got approved. She's traveling the same day I am."

His face darkened slightly.

"Judy, stop watching everyone else. Do your own job well. It's not a good look, a young person always comparing themselves to others."

"Go get ready. Don't hold up the bid."

I said nothing, went back to my desk, opened the ticketing app, and bought the soonest hard-seat coach train ticket I could find.

I sent over the reimbursement request. Madison approved it in seconds.

With a message attached.

See? Wasn't that easy? You're young. Don't get so worked up. You need to figure out who actually calls the shots around here.

I didn't reply.

At three thirty in the afternoon, I boarded the train.

Trevor Foster messaged me.

On the train?

I replied: Yes.

What time do you get in?

Eight thirty tomorrow morning.

He paused. Bidding closes at ten. That's cutting it close. Hurry it up.

Okay. I'll do my best.

He wrote back: Good. Stay safe on the road.

He didn't ask if I had enough time. He didn't ask if I had enough money.

The seat was genuinely hard. Two hours in and my backside had gone numb.

I couldn't straighten my legs, and my lower back ached like it was broken.

At midnight the guy beside me let his head drop onto my shoulder.

I pushed him off fifteen times. I barely slept all night.

The next morning I pulled in at eight thirty-five, five minutes late.

Trevor called.

"You there?"

"Yeah. Five minutes late."

A second of silence on his end. "Hurry. There's still time."

I ran for the subway the second I got off. That train had just pulled away. I waited five minutes and got on the eight forty-five.

I reached my stop at nine fifty-five, rushed out of the subway, and made straight for the bike-share stand.

The bikes had been snatched up in a swarm.

Trevor called again.

"Did you turn in the bid?"

I was breathing hard.

"No. There aren't any bikes left nearby."

"Take a cab."

"I checked the route. A cab's worse with the traffic."

"Then move it. You've got five minutes."

I stared at the route estimate on my phone, panic climbing.

"The nearest bike stand is five minutes away, then fifteen minutes to ride over. There's no way I make it."

Trevor's voice came apart too. "Figure something out."

"I can't fly there. This is already as fast as it gets."

He went quiet again. "Get there anyway. I'll call the client and see what I can do."

I hung up, ran five minutes, found the next stand, scanned a bike, and pedaled hard enough to strike sparks.

At ten twenty I reached the bid site. The client had already sealed the box.

Trevor's call came in.

I could barely get a full sentence out.

"Just got here. They've sealed it."

His voice was frantic.

"The client says no. There are officials from the Department of Housing and Construction here. There's no bending it."

I crouched down outside the doors of the bidding hall, sweat dripping off my chin.

Ten minutes later, Trevor messaged.

The bid failed. No award.

I stared at those words on my screen, and all at once the whole jolting, exhausted, headlong trip felt like a joke.

A sixty-eight-million-dollar project, gone.