Bisbehaving Bride

[WORKS_Steph]

Dear Nicole,

I’m getting married this winter and frantically trying to throw the wedding together while still working 60 plus hours a week. In an effort to save time and money I used our company postage for the invites. Wrong, I know, but our guest list is pretty small and I waited until everyone left the office to stamp them… Or so I thought. Turned out my nemesis, the woman I’m competing against for a promotion, was still in the office hard at work, and caught me red-handed. What if she tells? What should I do?

Sincerely,

Misbehaving Bride
Jupiter, FL

What do you think she should do?

[JEL]

Originally Posted by WORKS_Steph

What do you think she should do?

Even if your nemesis wasn't there to catch you, the ethical thing to do is go to your boss and tell him/her that you used company resources to send out your wedding invitations and that you need to know how to reimburse the company for the postage.

Always err on the side of communication and full disclosure and you will never have to worry about being caught on anything.

[MizzExecutive]

Originally Posted by WORKS_Steph

What do you think she should do?

I would just say you had the invitations on you and used the machine as it would be a lot faster than adding stamps by hand. Then have the money in an envelope to give to HR or whoever puts the money on the mail machine, as well as showing the receipt to your boss. You could even put it in his or her mailbox with a note saying "Just wanted to let you know I used the machine to mail my invites for my wedding, here's my receipt". In other words act like it wasn't something you were doing wrong since you had the money to pay back. I do it at my work all the time as do my co-workers.

[NicoleWilliams]

I agree with the other savvy ladies on the forum. The best thing to do here is just to be up front. Go to your boss, HR, whomever is appropriate in this situation, with money in hand and tell them that you did. Don't apologize as if it were some crazy sinful act, but tell them you were in a bind and had to get the invites out ASAP, and using the company's stamp machine, although not something you would normally consider, seemed like the quickest option at the time. This one should smooth over pretty easily. Just don't use the company stamps for personal use again, k?

-nlw

[victoria]

I would just very casually walk over to your boss and hand him/her a few bucks and say, "I used the postage in the office the other day to mail a few last minute things I needed to get out. Here is the money to reimburse all of it. I realize I probably shouldn't have used anything without your permission, but I was really in a bind."