Give Me Mileage or Give Me Death

There you are, in a one-on-one meeting with your mentally challenged Liberal Arts major of a boss and he’s droning on and on about the importance of “covering all points of the compass out the box with the low hanging fruit” and “win-win solutions that push the envelope paradigm” when he suddenly start asking about what “your schedule looks like” in the middle of a work week two months from now.

Who cares what they are? Given them away and you’ll be more popular than that loose intern in Accounting.

And that’s when mentions, almost as if it’s another conversation, that there’s “this conference” coming up and he’d really like some “eyes on the ground to represent our best interests” there.

He’s sending you to a conference – for work.

It’s clearly not one of those fun, booze-filled and entertainment-packed sales conferences held in some high-end hotel or spa along the coast with the prefix “Le” in the name. This is one of those conferences held at the local Best Western that’s about “two miles down the road from the Denny’s on Route 31.” Oh, and it’s in Iowa. Or South Dakota. Or South Iowa. Or some other god forsaken place that’s 400 miles away from anything.

But you’re a professional. You know this is a good thing. You can use this to make some extra cash.

First, find the most expensive flight from your town to the conference. Print it out.

Second, go to your boss and “volunteer” to save the company some money by driving if they just reimburse you for the mileage. Use Jedi powers and wave around that $1,000 round trip flight plan.

Now you drive. Yourself. In your car. At the current rate of 50 cents-per mile.

Do the math: 400 miles x $.50 = $200. Now figure you can do 60 miles in an hour (conservative estimate)- that means you end up making $50/hour just by sitting in your car, cranking the tunes and cruising down the highway. Sounds pretty nice, especially when you consider that a one hour flight easily involves more than four hours of travel time these days and doesn’t merit you a single dime in compensation.

Want to pad out that $200 a little bit? Take the long way. Or, better yet, map out a short way and long way on Google Maps (it’s fun, just yank the line around in the middle) and submit the longer route. You were trying to avoid traffic and make the best use of your time.

There are lots of additional sources of income while you’re at the conference (it’s a good time to arrange interviews with your company’s competitors), but one of the easiest ways to give yourself a mini-bonus is to get creative with your food expenses.

If you have to submit receipts, then try buying most of your food at at places that don’t have a lot of details. Go to independent diners, farmer’s markets or anywhere else that still relies on hand-written receipts if you can. That way you can buy groceries and even supplies for home without anyone knowing. All your HR department will see is “Greenville Podunk Farmer’s Market – $15. They don’t have to know that you bought a bushel of tomatoes and a couple of nudie mags from the kid running the stand.

If your company simply gives you a flat allowance of, say $30 for the day for food you just pocket that cash, fill up a cooler with your groceries from home for your trip and use that company money for the really important stuff like cigs for the car ride or beer from the Best Western’s “Starlight Lounge” on that Tuesday night.

For added points you can actually attend the conference and stock up on freebies, no matter how stupid or useless they are. Pencils, pens, Post-It notes, beer can Koozies and all those other logo-branded pieces of plastic and paper that clog landfills are perfect “gifts” to bring back to the office.

Upon returning to your little cubicled slice of hell, be sure to distribute said gifts like Santa Claus to office allies and foes alike while regaling them with your tale of hardships and personal sacrifices that you made for the company by driving yourself to attend this “amazingly insightful” conference.

Everyone will thank you and gush over your thoughtfulness and generosity, you made a personal sacrifice to save the company loads of money during an economic downturn and you end up with a paycheck that’s $440 thicker for sitting on your ass and pushing the pedal to the metal for four hours in both directions.

Good job!