Monthly Archives: March 2009

One of the things I am most appallingly tardy about is filing expense claims. I’m really bad about this. Not just in terms of the amount of time it takes me to get to it, but in the actual amounts that need to be claimed. People who are smart about this take less time to file their largest expenses… it is usually the opposite with me. I know people who are essentially doing their expenses as the trip they are on proceeds, and by time they’ve landed back at their home city they are putting the completed forms and bundled receipts into the mail (internal or external) with one hand while still holding their luggage in the other. I on the other hand, find myself forgetting to do it again and again, losing track of what I actually spent and can claim back, and so on and so forth as the trip fades from memory. Yes, I have forgotten to claim for entire trips, in the past, remembering years later that I was supposed to (happily that has not happened too many times). I’m not sure why this is, but it is partly as a result of the immediate re-immersion back into local life after the trip. The trip is done and now I’m back to the everyday routine. Figuring out the expenses becomes a sort of distraction from moving forward. Or it just keeps slipping my mind.

It’s pretty stupid of me, and I acknowledge it every time, but I still end up doing it. Sometimes at great cost. Right now, I have four big trips I have not claimed my […] Click to continue reading this post →