Company reimbursements are like a zero interest loan on their part. A lot of times, the convenience makes dropping a few dollars here and there an easy choice for a manager who needs to pick up something – especially when you have a slow purchasing department.

But where do you draw the line?

A common phrase thrown around the lot right now is that we’re a circus start up. That sounds crazy if you know the history of BAC, which was around as a non-profit for 39 years before bankruptcy closed its doors. However, if you actually work on the lot, it’s probably the most accurate phrase to describe what’s happening there. Everyone does their job plus like 8,000 little extra things to get the show through the day.

Thanks to that non-profit bankruptcy though, our name is fairly tarnished and in our new for-profit reincarnation, getting credit hasn’t been an easy process. That means there have been moments where I’ve asked for silly things like props for the show that’s going to open in four days or confetti cannons and a lyra for the New Year’s Eve party that will happen in a few days and was advertised promising things like confetti and a human NYE ball and the credit cards didn’t work.

I mean, just cause there’s a water gag in the show doesn’t really mean we need a hose to get water to the ring, right? Maybe me and my department are just overly needy.

Initially, the company was great at reimbursing me. We’d run out of paper and ink. I’d go buy paper and ink. I’d have $80 in an envelope on my desk in two or three days.

Lately this is not the case. To make things worse, we had a large corporate shakeup and our credit cards were all frozen for a week to stop some issues and since then, I’ve pretty much just been buying everything our department needs to stay afloat.

When I’m being regularly reimbursed, this is not a problem. As a matter of fact, I actually like racking up all the extra airline miles.

Presently though, the show owes me close to $3,000.

Guys, if they just repaid me, I could max out my freaking IRA in January. For the first time ever.

This post is also spurred by the fact that we need a pop up tent to act as a nursery for the performers’ children for the rest of our tour. They cost about $300. I’ve had a very whatever approach to tossing down $300 for something during the whole tour, but clearly the total amount is adding up.

So when do you pull the plug on essentially essential spending? The company already agreed to provide this pop up tent nursery. I know that if we go through the regular channels, there won’t be a nursery in time. I know that if there’s no nursery, children will appear backstage and possibly get hurt or get in the way of people working and those people will get hurt.

Sigh.

I feel like I should be able to buy a tiny slice of equity in the company for my contribution of like .00000000000001%. Because I’m well aware we’re either going down in flames over the next year or we’re going to wind up the only financially secure circus left in America and I’m going to retire from there.

In the meantime, I think my answer is to have a cut off number and when they hit it, I’m done. It’s loosely been based on how much money is in my checking account and not letting that amount touch any of my savings. However, the slow siphoning is adding up.

On the plus side, I’m definitely more ok with all of this than working for free.

How much would you feel comfortable lending your company? Do any of you have nightmare stories of not getting reimbursed?