The Company Credit Card

For those of you lucky enough to work for a company where they mistakenly hand out credit cards like candy to all their employees, then there are a few things you need to know. You probably have that card tucked away in the depths of your wallet/purse, afraid of what may happen if you use it even once, and this is wrong. If your company is dumb enough to hand you a credit card, then they deserve it if you decide to take complete advantage of the situation.

The first thing you need to find out is what department in your company is in charge of handling, distributing, and monitoring the credit cards. When someone hands you a credit card on your first day, then guess what, they're the ones you need to befriend. There will also be a legal document for you to sign, but don't even bother reading it since the information you need to know will not be on there.

What you need to discover is how much you can spend on the card each month without getting flagged, a figure that is different with each employee within each organization. If you can keep it under the flagged amount each month, they won't even monitor what you're spending the money on.

My previous company gave me an American Express card, and for the first three months I didn't use it once. Luckily, a young lady in HR that had a thing for me questioned my lack of spending one day, and explained that I can spend at least $150 a month without my bill even being questioned. Anything over that, and I get a warning. Two months of over-spending and I have a meeting with people I don't want to have a meeting with. This got me pretty excited.

The very next night I was out with some friends at a bar, and when the $225 bill came to the table, the eight of us decided to play credit card roulette. For those unfamiliar with the game, each patron at your table puts a credit card in a hat, and the first one the server picks has to pay for the entire bill. It can be both exhilarating and suicide-inducing all at the same time. To this day I'm not sure why, but I put my company card into the hat and crossed my fingers.

I'm sure you can guess what happened next. My card gets picked, and the next morning I walk into work with the same feeling you get when you go over to a girlfriends house after you've cheated on her, and you're not sure whether she knows or not, but you're pretty sure she knows (obviously never done this, but seen it in the movies). Eventually, I received an email from HR saying I went over my monthly total and I had to print out the email, sign it, and return it to them. Not a big deal. And after that month I didn't go over my limit the rest of my stay with the company, in order to prevent going to that meeting with those you don't want to meet with.

After that happened I learned my lesson and would put between $130 and $145 on my card each month on groceries, gas, and late night movies from Comcast OnDemand. You know, the essentials. Also, I'm pretty sure that during my 14 months with the company I never once used the card for anything work related, which should probably have told them something. So your first step will be to find out your limit, and then abuse that puppy for all its worth, because like I said...if they have enough money to distribute credit cards to everyone, then you deserve to watch Forbidden Secrets with Lacy Thunder for $9.99 at 2am on a Tuesday.