Company Credit Card and the Amish

Yesterday, I touched on several reasons why I am not a fan of work travel.  One of those reasons was that work travel is disruptive to my normal eating routine and often makes it difficult to eat healthy.  There is, however, one positive to eating while traveling for work--the company credit card.  My company pays for all employee meals when on travel.  There is no official limit to how much your meals can cost, but any meal over $25 must have an itemized receipt included in your expense report.  If the meal looks too extravagant, you might get a few questions.  While many of my co-workers like to take the opportunity to swipe the company credit card for lavish steaks, big meals, and drinks, I like to use it to order food that is healthy, but that I am too cheap to pay for on my own.

Tonight, I made a stop for dinner at Panera Bread, a chain bakery and cafe found across the U.S.  Here's what I ordered, to-go: 1 cup of chicken noodle soup (love chicken soup although I do not eat chicken), 1 cup of black bean soup, 1 full Mediterranean Veggie sandwich, and 1 Greek salad.  Three baguette pieces and 1 bag of potato chips were also included in the meal.  My meal came in one of those large brown shopping bags, often used for carrying catered food. 

Here was my rationale.  It was very cold outside, almost freezing, hence, I wanted soup.  I could not decide between chicken soup and black bean soup, both of which are very good.  Since cost is no object in this situation, I got both.  When I personally eat out, I am too cheap to order salad because salad is often overpriced and not very filling.  Since, again, cost is no object here, I ordered $6 worth of romaine lettuce, sparsely sprinkled with feta cheese, tomatoes, and olives.  Finally, I had to have a main course, which was the sandwich.

I wonder if the girl who took my order thought I was ordering food for two people.  I wonder if the hotel check-in manager thought I was having a party in my room with my big bag of food.  Lastly, I wonder what my manager at work who will have to approve my expense report will think when he sees my receipt.  Yes, I ordered a lot of food.  No, I did not order food for anyone else.  Yes, I followed the company corporate policy.  No, I did not have dinner with anyone else.

On a different note, I did learn a few more things about Ohio today so I can be less of an ignorant Californian.  Northern Ohio is pretty flat while the southern portion of the state is more hilly (but nothing like San Francisco).  Apparently, the difference in Ohio geography was caused by a glacier thousands of years ago; the glacier flattened northern Ohio, but it never reached southern Ohio.  In the Cincinnati area and along the border with Kentucky, you will start meeting people with Southern accents.  When you go east towards the Appalachian Mountains, you will find what a manager at work here calls “clannish people”—people who are wary of outsiders and live barely above the poverty level.  There are also a number of subsistence farmers and a handful of "truck" farms, large farms that import in Hispanic farm hands during the harvest season.  

The Amish people also have large farms, 40-80 acres that are often bought through their church so technically the church owns the farms.  The Amish do not hire hands to help with the harvest.  Instead, the whole community pitches in to help with farming.  In addition, the Amish do not believe in and have no need for insurance.  If someone's house burns down, all families pitch in to help rebuild the house.  Did you know that the Amish are famous builders in this area?  Although they do not believe in electricity, they can build houses equipped with electricity and there is such a thing as an Amish electrician.  The Amish refer to the non-Amish as the "English."  Children of Amish parents, at some point in time, are allowed to go out into the world and explore the "English" ways.  They then must decide whether they want to lead an Amish or an "English" life.  Once that decision has been made, the idea is that there is no turning back.  I wonder if these people pay taxes.  I wonder how these people do their taxes, obviously not by Turbo Tax!