I'm in Houston now. It's humid, especially compared to the high desert weather of Farmington. A confirmation e-mail stating that the event was not cancelled was sent when I was already at the Denver airport en route to Houston. Amusing.
The format for the week is that I (and various others here for the same purpose) present tomorrow and then meet with personnel managers at the end of the day. Then we eat at some steak place that is sure to involve more food and alcohol than strictly necessary. Wednesday is a bizarre free day. I assume they expected more people and the presentations to spill over into Wednesday, but such is life. On Thursday, we're slated to tour some of the in-house manufacturing and research centers. I expect that to be the most interesting day.
They're putting us up at a rather nice Marriott. My biggest beef with Marriott in general, or at least at the three that I can remember staying at, is that there is no complimentary breakfast. Maybe they assume business travelers can expense away everything, but a spread of cereals and muffins isn't exactly the most complicated feat to pull off. I did stay at a fourth Marriott when I first hired on. And we did get free breakfast, but that was because we were given meal coupons to get into the breakfast area so that doesn't count. Still no complimentary cereal and muffin spread. Some fresh fruit would be nice too.
4 comments:
Sorry, Marriott is not listening. But some Marriotts have a breakfast buffet; good if you're hungry, otherwise it is too much.
Many companies do not book hotels with breakfast for their business-traveling employees. They either give their employees a per diem or reimburse for the actual cost of meals but not to exceed certain limit. Many have a limit of $10 for breakfast, $15 for lunch and $25 for dinner. These are very reasonable. The employees would file an expense report and charge to the limit without receipt for each meal (not required if it’s under $25) attached to the expense report.
Then there’s the high-end meal for your elected officials with the 3 martinis lunch and fancy banquet dinner along with the champagnes and fine wines, it could be $$$$$ and charge it as business expense. The perks are good, especially it is paid by the taxpayers.
One can tell if the employees have been with the company for a long time or fairly new just by looking at their meal expenses. The green ones, would have receipts and always spend way under the limit. Most eat at cheap places. The old pros just file to the limit regardless what they actually spent. They probably eat at the cheap places too and pocket the difference. No one knows.
Did your company hand out the granolar bars and tell you to drink water with the bars and call it breakfast?
Microsoft put us up at a "Courtyard Marriott" when Chris was first hired. It had continental breakfast, but the regular Marriott next door didn't. It was like the La Jolla Marriott with a restaurant and bar in house. If you ordered room service at the Courtyard Marriott, it came from the regular Marriott restaurant. The restaurant was overpriced, but Microsoft reimbursed us for meals there, so we ate there often that weekend.
Taxpayers foot VTA chief's hotel bill
PERK WAS NOT DISCLOSED TO PUBLIC UPON HIRING
Full detail is at
http://tinyurl.com/2m6q6g
You may have to sign in to read the article as guest.
It may not be Marriott, Holiday Inn is not shabby either. I bet the breakfast is included or get charged to the tax payers.
In less than 2 years, the county trasit board already put in more than $43,000 of our hard earned tax $$ into two retirement accts. on top of the big pay check for this guy.
His pay is $290,000 plus $9,000 for car allowance. I bet he get free rides on the buses if he ever takes buses. He's getting 3.5% of his salary added into his retirement acct. every year pending other pay increases.
The transit system in our county is terrible. It doesn't go where we want to go. Most of the buses are empty. It's a big joke. No bus comes to our neighborhood and then they wonder why the buses are empty.
This is not SF or LA county. We do not have a very elaborate transit system here.
Post a Comment