
Pig Slop? My One Move Crushed Them
Chapter 4
"Thirdly, all reimbursements require an official receipt from a food establishment. The receipts must bear the restaurant's full name, and the item purchased must be a food item or a meal expense. Handwritten receipts will not be accepted," I said.
"On the 25th of every month, the receipts for that month will be submitted to the admin department. The receipts must be approved by the admin department, the finance department, and finally, me.
"Once all reimbursements have been approved, the total amount will be paid out along with the following month's salary."
After my mini-speech, the entire conference room was dead silent.
Every employee who had been ecstatically rejoicing earlier was now staring at me in horror and disbelief.
I looked at their amusing facial expressions and felt nothing.
After the meeting was over, Dustin was the first person to rush into my office.
"You're crazy, Rachel Summers!" Dustin exclaimed. His eyes were red with anger as he pointed a finger in my face. "20 dollars per day? Do you know that the burger set meal downstairs costs more than that? You're doing this on purpose as revenge!"
I said nothing. Instead, I connected my phone screen to the display behind me and showed him a screenshot of the comment under the video I had taken earlier last night. Dustin's name and profile picture revealed that he was in the list of people who had liked it, and it was as clear as day.
"Weren't you the one who wanted me to go along with the public opinion?" I said. "That's exactly what I'm doing now. You also said that it wouldn't be good for the company if this got out of hand and affected the company's finances. You told me to do something about it.
"With the system now like this, I'm helping the company save millions of dollars in expenses every year. I'm sure that our investors would be very happy with this decision."
Dustin's face went pale almost immediately.
He looked at the screenshot of his like on the comment. His eyes flashed, but he couldn't think of anything to say.
In the end, he walked out of my office like a deflated balloon.
On the first day of the new system's implementation, something hilarious happened during lunchtime.
Every fast food restaurant below our company was filled to the brim with my employees. They pointed at the menu hanging over their heads, and they quickly calculated the best way to get their money's worth.
Alas, the cheapest burrito there cost them 25 dollars after tax and tips.
Some of them tried their best to stay below the 20-dollar threshold and bought a plain ham sandwich from a sandwich place instead, not even daring to get the one with extra cheese. Some others ended up not eating at all during lunch, opting to just drink plain water to suppress their hunger.
Meanwhile, Lilian's wishful thinking got her nowhere.
She thought of bringing her own food from home to save money, but if she brought her own food, then she wouldn't have an official receipt. And if she didn't have an official receipt, then it meant she wasn't getting a single penny from the lunch reimbursement plans.
I watched from the surveillance cameras in the washroom and saw how Lilian threw her mop to the floor in anger.
The other young employees who used to be in great favor of her pushing for the change now turned on her instead, blaming her for everything.
"It's all your fault, Lilian! Look at us now! We've lost not just the 100-dollar hotel-quality lunch spread—we can't even afford the 25-dollar burrito next door anymore!"
"Exactly! I just had a single bun for lunch! I'm so hungry I'm gonna die from hunger."
"I'll never listen to you again!"
Lilian was verbally attacked left and right, and her face immediately turned beet red. She couldn't even find the words to defend herself anymore.
Several people got ahead of themselves and thought of faking their receipts instead. However, when they brought the doctored receipts to the finance department, the experienced finance officers saw through their ploy at once.
Later that day, an email with the topic "Notice of Condemnation Regarding the Forgery of Reimbursement Receipts" was sent out to everyone at the company, and the employees who were caught faking their receipts had their names all bolded in the email.
Soon, the tide began to turn on our company's anonymous forum.
"This is the first time I'm actually missing the hotel lunches we used to have. I miss it so much."
"I was wrong! I won't complain about the five-cheese lasagna being too greasy anymore! Please come back!"
"What am I supposed to eat in the city center with only 20 dollars a day? Fresh air and sunshine?"