Bored at work - the new epic thread

[Beckie]

This morning I got an email at work asking me what the £18,700 'I charged' to expenses was for. It was actually the other person with my name.. but all day I have been wondering what she is charging to expenses for that much! I am also thinking I wonder if she was allowed to charge that much to expenses! As far as I know she is not a manager or very high up so its not like she is buying everyone in her department a new pc.

The most expensive thing I have charged to expenses is a £100 security keyfob so I can work from home (basically an authenticator).

Whats the most expensive thing you have ever charged to expenses and what do u think shes up to?

[Heeuge]

A twin clutch diesel Octavia!

Last time we travelled to our Paris distribution centre we weren't even allowed to put a McDonalds for lunch through expenses 'because we weren't staying overnight' - the same UK finance team who denied us that took out their France counterparts for an evening meal 3 weeks later and between 10 of them put a bill of just over £4k on expenses.

That's a lot of big macs

[Beckie]

There is quite alot of difference between what we are allowed and what our commerical people are allowed. To get a new mouse they send over an IT person to check if the mouse we have is still working. And then they take that mouse away if we are allowed to swap them - I still have a roller ball mouse & my collegue 0 key on his num pad doesnt work, I also know people who have worn the letters of there keyboards. But commercial got all new fancy meetingrooms with big TVs.. and laptops that they could plug into the big tvs to do presentations, commercial also have all the window seats because they paid for the office to be painted.

Our fun days we get two free drinks vouchers and arrange our own transport. Commerical fun days get free drinks all night and then either a taxi or a hotel at the end of the night..

[Heeuge]

At our Christmas parties we get given a sheet of raffle tickets which we can exchange for drinks at the venue. We've just taken to bringing our own books of raffle tickets.... Free drinks all night!

The last one got messy \o/

[ash]

lol I hope you get the same colour tickets as well, otherwise people might cotton on

bur

[Heeuge]

There's the gamble. Between the team we had at least one of each book colour. The ones that guessed right get extra friends for the evening

[ash]

thurrrssssdayyyy

slow week... man I am so tired today and its July - its raining!!! wtf

[Devious]

yawwwwwn...

[Heeuge]

I'm sat at my desk eagerly awaiting today's new additions to the Dell Outlet. After spending weeks looking at replacements for the missus' macbook (she likes the pretty curves of the Samsung SF311) I decided to get myself an upgrade as well. Conveniently enough the battery on my M1330 has given up for the 2nd time in 6 months as well - any ol' excuse!

The savings on the outlet beggar belief at times - why would anyone buy retail?

In my case, if I spec up the Latitude E6420 how I want it on dell's retail site it comes to £1300+ delivered (i5, 1600x900 screen, discrete graphics, back-lit keyboard & SSD) while on the outlet the exact same spec*, classed as certified refurbed (ie a customer return, barely touched) and with the same 3 year NBD warranty that the retail site gets, popped up at £650. Rediculous(ly awesome)!

*The only thing that stopped me buying yesterday is that there doesn't seem to be any mention of whether the units have the optional back-lit keyboard. Of course it could just be that none of the current batch on the outlet have that option ticked!

Come oooooon 3pm-ish!

[ash]

Well its like a car, as soon as someone buys it, half the value is off ( even if they don't use it at all for a year

[Heeuge]

There are 3 categories - 'certified refurbed', 'pre-configured new' and 'scratch & dent'. I've discounted the scratch & dent and of the other two I'd be quite happy to take either. Since Dell offer so many customisations for each model they're unable to do much with the them once an order has been cancelled during/after build. Instead of leaving them on the shelf waiting for someone else to order exactly that same configuration, they shift them through the outlet.

In essence, because someone somewhere decided that they didn't really need the built-in webcam on their order I can get their laptop for almost half the price, woo!


An example....

On the retail site:


With VAT & Shipping that comes to £1378.....


The closest on the outlet right now is identical save for the discrete graphics, which tends to add maybe £25 to the price (and possibly the back-lit keyboard, it's still unclear):


With VAT & Shipping that comes to £672, a saving of £706. (that's more than 50% discounted folks)


Like I say, rediculous! I got my M1330 from the outlet and despite being a cert-refurbed it was sealed as new, still had all the protective stickers on the screen/case and didn't have a mark on it. Lovely jubbly!

[ash]

Which outlet you checking or is it a special one that you need to 'qualify' for?

[Roper]

The savings on the outlet beggar belief at times - why would anyone buy retail?

Be thankful they do, else all the bargains would be gone, you should stop telling everyone!

I may need to check here in future, didnt expect the bargains to be quite that extreme.

[Heeuge]

Nothing special, just the regular Dell Outlet site. From the homepage, I go via 'Business & Education', then 'Check Availability & Pricing for all Business Laptops' and check the box for E6420.

They sometimes have a free shipping offer on but it's all quiet on that front at the mo. There are savings to be had on all hardware if you're willing to wait and keep on checking.

...didnt expect the bargains to be quite that extreme.

Not all savings will be that massive but you're generally talking at least 25% cheaper than retail.

As for not telling anyone about it, if anyone else finds out I know who to come looking for here.....

[ash]

public forum! /looks at google bot