Behind the Ironic Column

One of my writing groups recently had a discussion about truisms that aren’t really true – or things that seem like they “should” be true but are sometime false.  Happiness may indeed connect directly to a warm puppy (per the Peanuts comic strip) but it doesn’t always connect to a warm expense account or a pile of cold cash. 

This is certainly not to dispute the fact that having money can buy a better class of unhappiness.  On the whole, I’d rather be unhappy with money than unhappy with no money. As the “Money” song in Cabaret says, if something bad happens when you have money, you can always take a cab and begin to recover on your 14 carat yacht.  

Expense accounts aren’t much in fashion these days – at least not for people in mid-level jobs in Portland, Oregon.  As I understand it, they’re not even that expansive in east coast cities.  One of the places I worked back in the mid-eighties provided all professional staff with expense accounts.  Those of us at junior levels didn’t have as much leeway as senior staff but, looking at it with the benefit of hindsight,  I can see that there were loopholes.  I’ve always been pretty much a rule follower and this was no different.  We had guidelines and had to show  receipts and I didn’t stray far outside the norm.  Since I was a researcher, one of my responsibilities was to review published media – which meant I had full permission to spend time at magazine stands and bookstores and buy any copies we wanted.  We subscribed to dozens of publications and reading services but sometimes we found things by serendipity – I’ve always been a big fan of browsing so this was no hardship to me.  I bought magazines and books and they reimbursed me.  It didn’t occur to me to buy things that I personally wanted – that wouldn’t have been right.  Later on I discovered that some staff had been considerably more liberal in their interpretation of what was covered.  And if they worked for a manager who didn’t pay close attention to the receipts, nothing was ever said about it.  

My manager wasn’t too interested in the details but I was happy enough with the way things were and didn’t need to go out on any limbs.  If fact, the most dubious things I  expensed were meals with her.   If she wanted to discuss something over lunch (a very common process in our office), we went out to a restaurant and I put it on my expense account.  She signed off on it and that was that.  This being a lobbying firm in D.C., those meals almost always included drinks as well as food.  We didn’t go to the most expensive restaurants (unless a senior staff person was along and picking up the tab) but they weren’t the cheapest either.  When things in the office became rocky, one of my co-workers and I would go to lunch to escape the lunacy and take turns writing it off.  Nobody ever questioned our lunch meetings – and we did a lot of work so it probably averaged out in the company’s favor. 

The reason all this is on my mind, some 20 years later, is that I’ve been clearing out old papers and ran across a summary of expense vouchers from one of those years.  As I look at those statements I have the somewhat depressing realization that I earned more (comparatively speaking)  in those days than I have in any job since.  We had good salaries and benefits, expense accounts, encouragement to go to professional meetings – almost anything you could want.  They paid for my American Express account – and I was nowhere near being a vice president or department manager.  We worked hard, of course, but I’ve worked just as hard in other jobs for much less in the way of tangible rewards. 

Of course, the downside was the sadistic, Jekyll & Hyde, senior manager.  The fact that I decided to consult a psychotherapist during my last year there was largely due to the effects of his cat and mouse games.  He enjoyed keeping people off balance and worked his way around the office.  I’d been too far down the ladder when I was new, so he hardly noticed me.  But I heard stories and eventually he got to me as well.  A  couple of my friends left before I did – moving on to perhaps less green but definitely saner pastures. 

So cash is good but sanity is better.  Now if I could just get the combination to work out…

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