End of teachers’ book. Voodoo expense

David Wolff was walking down Bourbon Street, in the famed French Quarter of New Orleans, complaining to a co-worker about a Wall Street analyst who 'always bashed us in his newsletter'. Inspired by the numerous voodoo shops around, Mr Wolff thought that a voodoo doll would be just the thing to calm the behaviour of the Wall Street analyst. His co-worker, who was a vice-president at the software company that they both worked for, not only 'loved the idea', but also prompted Mr Wolff to put the voodoo doll on the trip's expense report, under 'miscellaneous supplies'. Faced with vice-presidential approval, the accounting department paid up.

This is 'a wonderful blend of unusual spending and bad intentions,' reckoned Scott Adams, the creator of the ultimate anti-management hero, Dilbert, the cartoon strip character. Mr Adams found out about the story in his role as judge for the California-based Freeworks.com's Laughing at Your Expense contest. And he liked the voodoo story better than any other entry in the contest, so Mr Wolff will be named as the official grand prize winner of the contest later this week.

By the deadline for submitting entries, Freeworks.com had received over 200 stories of employees who had tried - and succeeded, in most cases - to 'gain an advantage over their company', according to Tapan Bhat, the company's co-founder and vice-president of marketing. Entries could be submitted via the company's website.

One contestant submitted an expense report for a trip to Chicago, where he tried to cook some home-made food in his hotel room while showering and accidentally burned the whole set of curtains in the room. His company duly reimbursed him for $2,788 paid for the damaged hotel room, as well as for the $0.75 can of camp fire fuel intended to cook only the food and not the curtains.

Other entries pointed out the very strange rules relating to bureaucracy and expense reports.

One contestant reported having submitted a report that included the price of donkeys hired to carry supplies up a mountain, as well as 'beers and expensive dinners'.

The manager responsible for approving the expenses criticised him for an unexpected error made filling out the form, related to the donkeys and not the beers: 'He said donkeys are NOT equipment, they're transportation'.

'What's most interesting is that most people who cheat on their expense reports do it just for the excitement of it and not for some personal gain. The more unethical the deed, the better, but I looked for unusual things that were hard to explain. I expect David Wolff to go far in management,' Scott Adams predicts. For now, Mr Wolff, an Oregon resident, will go to San Francisco to meet Dilbert's creator as an entitlement that came with his prize. This time the trip will not be on expenses.

From the Financial Times