[jcgrillo]

> provided you are following the clear rules and aren't willfully scamming the system

That's genuinely interesting. I'd probably be so much happier in general if I was ever able to trust an employer's intentions that much. Experience has (repeatedly) taught me otherwise, though, so I fear that's not possible barring major changes in U.S. employment laws.

[s1artibartfast]

What is your bad experience with expenses?

There are lots of areas where I dont trust employers, but following published expense policies is not one I lose sleep over.

I have never once had a problem, or heard of anyone else having a problem in real life. I have used corporate expenses for decades, and know tons of people doing the same across dozens of companies.

That said, I don't overtly steal from the company. I'm smart enough to realize people are touchy about that.

[jcgrillo]

I have never had a bad experience with expenses! That's part of what stands out so strongly about this incident. In a culture of blameless postmortems--where an operator can screw up a command causing millions of dollars of damage and the question is "how did this process fail", not "who should we pin it on"--to see my employer suddenly fire a bunch of people for something their process should have detected and corrected would be shocking. It would make me question their motives. I would probably conclude they're looking for even the smallest excuse to fire literally anyone they can get their claws into.

We've had broadly the same experience but drawn very different conclusions here. This is very interesting and I'll definitely think long and hard about it.

EDIT: I have had (accidentally) improperly reported expenses rejected before. That's normal procedure. It would be quite shocking if my employer instead just fired me... Albeit given U.S. employment law it would not be surprising

[s1artibartfast]

Why do you think this is a process problem? How much should the process prevent willful lying, cheating, and stealing by process users?

Is periodically firing employees not part of the process too?

If these people are habitually and willfully lying and stealing from the company for $20, what could that mean for the rest of their work and interactions.

Several thousand dollars of stolen meals is a bargain to identify these individuals and get them out of the company. Who knows what else they are stealing and lying about. opportunities about

[jcgrillo]

> Why do you think this is a process problem?

Because if the employees were using some kind of non-monetary compensation that was allowed to be accepted in an uncontrolled manner that's a process problem. When they swiped their decoder ring or what the fuck ever it should have errored out.

> habitually and willfully lying and stealing

Prove it beyond a reasonable doubt and i'll listen.

[s1artibartfast]

Firing the employees is a feature, not a bug.

24/70,000 employees seemed to have a problem with theft. The process worked for 99.97% of employees who weren't thieves abusing the system.

>Prove it beyond a reasonable doubt and i'll listen.

Not even the fired employees are contesting what they did. They are just saying they didnt think it was a big deal

[s1artibartfast]

>EDIT: I have had (accidentally) improperly reported expenses rejected before. That's normal procedure. It would be quite shocking if my employer instead just fired me... Albeit given U.S. employment law it would not be surprising

This makes perfect sense. There is a difference between a good faith mistake, and intentional theft. I imagine your employer would be less forgiving if you fabricated your report or try to fly under the radar with personal purchases