A contractor for a large tech company was sent out near Seattle to evaluate and improve a process at the Boeing plant in Everett, Washington.
With the weather usually rainy, he packed his umbrella, and sure enough, when he drove out there from the airport, it was raining.
He parked the car in the visitor area, and walked into the factory with the umbrella, and stashed it into a corner to dry out. Around noon he came back to go get some lunch and found that the umbrella had been run over by a forklift or some other machine at the plant. He put his coat over his head, ducked out to his car, got lunch and also picked up a new $10.00 umbrella at the local discount store.
He was a bit more cautious where he put it the rest of the week, and when he got back to his office on the next Monday he filled out his expense report. He put down, “One Umbrella, $10.00, receipt attached” .
Well, on Wednesday, payroll approved everything but the $10.00 for the umbrella. He called them and asked, “Why Not? It was at the Boeing Plant outside of Seattle. It rained every day. My original umbrella got ran over by a forklift. I wasn’t about to charge THEM for the umbrella. They would think I was being petty and may even cancel our contract worth hundredsthousands of dollars. It wasn’t my fault. I put it where I thought it was safe. It was consumed on the job, and it’s only $10.00. “
But they said, “It’s a personal item. You can’t get reimbursed for personal items.”
So, the next time he was sent out to the plant a few weeks later, he filled out the expense report, and at the bottom he put in bold letters.
“FIND THE DAMN UMBRELLA!”
Someplace in that expense report was an extra $10.00. He got them to pay for it one way or the other.
When you’re working extra for the company where you’re at, and can’t get compensated for it in any normal way, just
‘Remember The Damn Umbrella!”. Get your ‘payback’ somehow, in extra pay or somehow else, or extra time off for free, or somehow. Just
‘Remember the Damn Umbrella!’.
