When I was first out of college my first job was working for General Mills in retail sales.. In starting out, one of my first training sessions was working in sales in the Omaha, Nebraska area.
At the time, my cousin Linda (Laverty) Latham was teaching in the area and I decided to invite her out one evening for dinner. We just ate at some pizza place, shared a few slices and a pitcher of beer.
At the beginning of the following week, I turned in my expense report to the office manager. He looked it over, chuckled a little and then threw the report into the waste basket. "Now," he said. "Let's figure out what you really had to eat that evening." He proceeded to tell me that I had a steak as did Linda and padded up the expense report to at least triple the original amount. Back in the mid 1960's, a pizza and beer was around $5.00 or so.
The lesson learned, I guess, was according to the office manager: "If Corporate (up in Minneapolis) thinks that one guy down in Des Moines, Iowa can eat that cheap, then maybe everyone should be able to do the same."
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