We have this Whatever Jubilee Society Trust, where we have to put funds generated through donors or for conferences, and they pay out for the expenses after deducting a hefty 10% as processing fee. We had conducted a few ‘continuing medical education’ (CME) programs. One of the minor expenses had been for the servant to go to the medical council office to submit CME certificates, and for another servant to go collect them after certification. They had to be paid Rs. 12/- each, which I could have done from my own pocket. But the CME funds had to be used appropriately. So I put their bus tickets in the expenses bills, and submitted all bills for reimbursement. They sent the bunch back, asking me to put travel vouchers, not tickets, as required by the auditor.
“I have put the tickets, and written in my covering letter what the travel was for” I said.
“That won’t do” the clerk told me, and gave me a blank voucher. “Fill this, sign it, paste it on another sheet of paper and submit it along with a covering letter.” I looked at it. On an A4 sized paper, there was a printout stating that Mr./Ms. xxx was authorized to travel to so and so place for so and so purpose, and should be paid Rs. xxx.
“That is wasting a national resource – paper!” I said. They would not budge. So I printed by covering letter with receipt summaries, and in which I printed the voucher, filled it up, signed it and resubmitted it. It came back promptly, stating that the voucher could not be a part of the printed letter, it had to be on a separate paper. The clerk or his boss seemed bent on deforestation, considering their penchant for using up paper. I wrote to the trust, asking to ask the auditor to correct the procedure, so that paper would not be wasted. In the meantime I submitted the remaining bills. They did not answer the letter. “Just ignore the letter” the boss person must have said. So finally I wrote a new covering letter, attached to it two vouchers in the names of the two servants, and asked the trust to pay them directly, as was stated in that voucher. I wanted to see if they would take out two bank cheques for the same. After all they always said “all payments by cheque.” That seemed to taught them a lesson. They paid the two servants cash. The next time we had another voucher business to sort out, the secretary wrote to me, asking me to paste it ona sheet of paper that I would throw away as waste. “I don’t throw away paper any time until I have used it” I wrote. I pasted the voucher on the wrapper of a sterile surgical glove and sent it to drive my point home. It did not bounce back. When I sat and calculated the expense incurred to get the Rs. 24/- reimbursed, it came to Rs. 6/- for only the paper, and Rs. 4/- for printing and pasting. If I count the time and energy spent trying to save paper, based on calculation of my earning per hour, it will be Rs. 625/- extra. I wonder if they will understand all this even if they read this.
“I have put the tickets, and written in my covering letter what the travel was for” I said.
“That won’t do” the clerk told me, and gave me a blank voucher. “Fill this, sign it, paste it on another sheet of paper and submit it along with a covering letter.” I looked at it. On an A4 sized paper, there was a printout stating that Mr./Ms. xxx was authorized to travel to so and so place for so and so purpose, and should be paid Rs. xxx.
“That is wasting a national resource – paper!” I said. They would not budge. So I printed by covering letter with receipt summaries, and in which I printed the voucher, filled it up, signed it and resubmitted it. It came back promptly, stating that the voucher could not be a part of the printed letter, it had to be on a separate paper. The clerk or his boss seemed bent on deforestation, considering their penchant for using up paper. I wrote to the trust, asking to ask the auditor to correct the procedure, so that paper would not be wasted. In the meantime I submitted the remaining bills. They did not answer the letter. “Just ignore the letter” the boss person must have said. So finally I wrote a new covering letter, attached to it two vouchers in the names of the two servants, and asked the trust to pay them directly, as was stated in that voucher. I wanted to see if they would take out two bank cheques for the same. After all they always said “all payments by cheque.” That seemed to taught them a lesson. They paid the two servants cash. The next time we had another voucher business to sort out, the secretary wrote to me, asking me to paste it ona sheet of paper that I would throw away as waste. “I don’t throw away paper any time until I have used it” I wrote. I pasted the voucher on the wrapper of a sterile surgical glove and sent it to drive my point home. It did not bounce back. When I sat and calculated the expense incurred to get the Rs. 24/- reimbursed, it came to Rs. 6/- for only the paper, and Rs. 4/- for printing and pasting. If I count the time and energy spent trying to save paper, based on calculation of my earning per hour, it will be Rs. 625/- extra. I wonder if they will understand all this even if they read this.
