Q
Queen Peon
Guest
Our company is struggling financially, like most companies these days. We are a small company of about 5 employees trying to stay afloat. I work closely with my manager, who is the Corporate Secretary, Controller, and Bookkeeper. I assist with her with all corporate filings, sensitive documents, and A/P & A/R records. I constantly come across things that are just plain wrong. She uses the company credit cards to purchase things that are for her personal use, such as Groupons, gifts, and shipping packages overnight to her family across the country.
Normally, I would shrug this off and try to ignore it. But, every one at our company is making drastic cuts to keep our company afloat. We are all in the office every day, working hard, while she works from home, Skypes and Facebooks all day, and charges 2 tanks of gas per week onto the company credit card for her mileage expense to sit at home and call me all day on how to post things on eBay and Craigslist.
Since she "works" from home, she modifies her hours to gain personal time off. It is not uncommon for her to claim that she is working from 6am til 10pm when I have physically been at her house watching her not working. Normally, this wouldn't bother me either, except that she logs the "extra" hours as vacation time, and she has taken at least a 1 week vacation every month this entire year... I say at least because on some occasions it is 2 weeks a month. This is stealing money from the company in salary expenses she is paid to actually work!
In addition to the petty theft and vacation time (which from what I have calculated is well over $20,000 a year), she keeps company benefits for her own personal use. Things like free hotel, air, and rental cars that our company earns for sending our employees on business trips, which are supposed to be used for future purchases / business trip expenses. These are benefits that we could be using to save money to help keep us in business.
The President / Owner of the company oversees her position, though he does not review or audit any of the financial records and bookkeeping. He trusts her completely on the bookkeeping records as they have been friends for over 40 years. If he does hear of her using the company card for personal spending, she uses the excuse that she "accidentally" used the company card instead of her own, but that she repaid the company for that expense.... which I know does not happen. I almost feel sometimes that the President knows about these things, but that he doesn't do anything (out of sight - out of mind). Or, maybe he doesn't know anything about it, and would be upset if he knew? It's hard to tell.
I know that their friendship is strong, and having only been with the company 10 years, I'm not sure that I have the clout to stand up to their 40 year history.
I don't want to risk losing my job, but I also fear that our company will go under if we do not watch our spending. I also know that because I am the receptionist / secretary of the company, that my position will be the first to be let go if serious cuts need to be made. And now I am very upset that her spending (which is getting worse), could possibly cost me my job.
I'm not sure if I should mention her personal spending to the owner. He has always told me that we are like family and I can tell him anything. But, from experience, I know that his side is almost always with her.
Should I approach her? I don't feel like it would be a good idea to do that though, only because I know her. She is very defensive, and would retaliate immediately.
Continuing to let it go is getting very difficult and is like a brick in my chest, and is becoming so hard to focus on work. I wish I could just ignore it and let it go... But I'm also scared I will lose my job if our company goes under due to her personal spending, and so I feel like I should stand up and say something.
Any advice on what I should do is greatly appreciated.
Normally, I would shrug this off and try to ignore it. But, every one at our company is making drastic cuts to keep our company afloat. We are all in the office every day, working hard, while she works from home, Skypes and Facebooks all day, and charges 2 tanks of gas per week onto the company credit card for her mileage expense to sit at home and call me all day on how to post things on eBay and Craigslist.
Since she "works" from home, she modifies her hours to gain personal time off. It is not uncommon for her to claim that she is working from 6am til 10pm when I have physically been at her house watching her not working. Normally, this wouldn't bother me either, except that she logs the "extra" hours as vacation time, and she has taken at least a 1 week vacation every month this entire year... I say at least because on some occasions it is 2 weeks a month. This is stealing money from the company in salary expenses she is paid to actually work!
In addition to the petty theft and vacation time (which from what I have calculated is well over $20,000 a year), she keeps company benefits for her own personal use. Things like free hotel, air, and rental cars that our company earns for sending our employees on business trips, which are supposed to be used for future purchases / business trip expenses. These are benefits that we could be using to save money to help keep us in business.
The President / Owner of the company oversees her position, though he does not review or audit any of the financial records and bookkeeping. He trusts her completely on the bookkeeping records as they have been friends for over 40 years. If he does hear of her using the company card for personal spending, she uses the excuse that she "accidentally" used the company card instead of her own, but that she repaid the company for that expense.... which I know does not happen. I almost feel sometimes that the President knows about these things, but that he doesn't do anything (out of sight - out of mind). Or, maybe he doesn't know anything about it, and would be upset if he knew? It's hard to tell.
I know that their friendship is strong, and having only been with the company 10 years, I'm not sure that I have the clout to stand up to their 40 year history.
I don't want to risk losing my job, but I also fear that our company will go under if we do not watch our spending. I also know that because I am the receptionist / secretary of the company, that my position will be the first to be let go if serious cuts need to be made. And now I am very upset that her spending (which is getting worse), could possibly cost me my job.
I'm not sure if I should mention her personal spending to the owner. He has always told me that we are like family and I can tell him anything. But, from experience, I know that his side is almost always with her.
Should I approach her? I don't feel like it would be a good idea to do that though, only because I know her. She is very defensive, and would retaliate immediately.
Continuing to let it go is getting very difficult and is like a brick in my chest, and is becoming so hard to focus on work. I wish I could just ignore it and let it go... But I'm also scared I will lose my job if our company goes under due to her personal spending, and so I feel like I should stand up and say something.
Any advice on what I should do is greatly appreciated.