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Friday, May 16, 2008

Splitting the Check

Why is it that whenever four or more people go out to dinner together, even if everyone rounds up generously and even if everyone got almost the exact same thing, it always takes about half an hour to settle the check?

Our annual conference has started, and so has company reimbursement for my meals and transportation. Yesterday I took a cab with some coworkers from the location of a board-staff reception to the hotel where our conference is taking place. We asked the beleaguered driver for a dollar in change and three receipts.

Due to the conference, I'll be working long days every day until next Friday, so posting will continue to be spotty and/or short. Please stick with me--I'll definitely be back to full strength soon. Enjoy your weekend!






5 comments:

Anonymous said...

What's worse is my best friend and I take forever to figure it out at lunch each week--and we were both accountants!

Scarlett said...

@Syd,

There was an accountant present at the lunch that inspired this post--sadly, it still took us exactly thirteen minutes to figure out what everyone owed (people who weren't accountants kept trying to do the math).

Anonymous said...

What I hate is the people who are like, Oh I think I'll give you this much (when their bill was a bit higher).

I feel like, if I'm putting in money, round up. !!

Scarlett said...

@GG: Yeah, there's always that one person who does that...I hate it when I've ALREADY rounded up and then at the end we're a couple dollars short and I have to cough up more while someone who shorted their part is sitting their quietly. Not that I'm bitter, or anything. :)

Anonymous said...

The problem has been (not so much with friends as with co-workers) that people DON'T all order the same amount! Some are very extravagant and order steak and 3 high-priced drinks while I order a very minimal dinner with ice water. The "everybody pays the same amount" method can cost me 3x or more than the price of what I actually consumed, so I object and make them (grudglingly) figure it out individually.