Trousers.

A great story relayed to me by a friend, from the early I.T days.

A computer technician was sent to the server room to perform an upgrade of one of the machines. The 10 minute job was performed successfully, but as he left the server room he caught his trousers on one of the racks, tearing them.

The trousers where ruined.

So, at the end of the month the technician put in his expense claim, it looked something like this:

Date	Description	Amount
14-4-1996	Mileage to client site	20.00
15-4-1996	Mileage to client site	20.00
16-4-1996	Mileage to client site	20.00
14-4-1996	Lunch	10.00
15-4-1996	Lunch	10.00
16-4-1996	Lunch	10.00
16-4-1996	One pair Replacement trousers,torn on server rack	19.99

The computer technicians’ manager signed off the expenses and sent it through to finance.

Now, the man in finance was a bit old school. He took one look at the line “replacement trousers” and drew a line through it, leaving our technician £19,99 worse off.

Undeterred at the end of the following month he submitted his expenses: Mileage, subsistence and ‘one pair replacement Trousers, torn on Server rack, £19,99’ explained the problem to his manager who signed them off.
The Accountant returned the expenses with a line through the claim for new trousers and a brief note explaining how this kind of thing could not be reimbursed due to company policy etc.

So the following month, the technician submitted his expenses : mileage, lunch, dinner everything was perfect, had them signed off by his manager and sent them to the finance department.

The accountant looked over the expenses, everything was in order – all reciepts present and correct.

At the very bottom was a hand written note.

Dear Finance,

The trousers are in there somewhere.

Regards,

Dave

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