Haresh Shah
The Fine Art Of Getting Away With Murder
By the time I heard this story of excess and padding of expense account by one of Life magazine’s star photographers, it had already acquired legendary proportions. There is nothing Life wouldn’t do to cover the world events and be the first and the fastest to bring it back to their nine million readers in words and living colors. Spreads and spreads of images – known among us at Time as fast edits. We were practically an assembly line of experts from the reporters to the photographers to the writers to the editors and the art directors and at the tail end – us the production people. We would stand by days and nights, weekdays or weekends – and jump in so the magazine would be on its way to its loyal readers on time, week after week.
So it was no wonder that people at the front end of the making of Life were the most pampered, nurtured and spoiled rotten. The darlings among them were the photographers. The story I am told of is that of one of Life’s photographers most notorious for padding his expenses and constantly getting away with it to everyone else’s envy and chagrin. Padding itself was not too difficult, considering that we were not required to submit any receipts for the expenses under $25.00. If you happen to be on the road for several days, how much you can get away with writing off depended entirely on your own creative audacity. No one ever questioned things you put down on your expense sheet – if for nothing else, not to sound cheap or earning a reputation of being a grouch.
This is how the story goes. A couple of editors and writers along with the photographer in question, who I will call Steve, are assigned to cover a major story in the USSR. They spend some weeks there and during their stay, Steve buys himself an expensive mink coat. No one is betting on Steve having paid for it out of his own pocket. So the editors rat on him and alert the editor-in-charge I will call Don, about the purchase. Steve walks into Don’s office as flamboyantly as ever – though a bit unsure this time around. He sits across the desk from Don and nervously watches him scan and scrutinize his expenses. Though some of the charges seem a bit inflated, boy, those communist countries are expensive! Don justifies. But there is nothing in it that seems out of ordinary. Certainly nothing in particular to make an issue of. So at long last he puts his John Hancock down on the dotted line. Relieved, Steve thanks him and begins to leave his office, but stops short of exiting.
‘Don!’
‘What?’
‘Just so that you know,’ and he stalls a bit, ‘that mink coat is in there!!’
None of us in the production department would get away with anything that came remotely as close. But it wouldn’t be unusual to put down and get away with charging for cabs instead of miles we drove on our cars, or when someone gave us a ride. Chicago cabbies were generous in peeling off their tablets and giving out blank receipts to their customers, especially the ones who tipped well. And you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist either to ask for an inflated food and beverage receipt from your friendly waiter. Or we wouldn’t hesitate too much charging for the meals which the printers bought or that fancy dinner you took your girlfriend out to, especially on the evening that you had ended up working late. Little chicken shit like that.
Pretty much the same when I joined Playboy. Even though they had certain do’s and don’ts, their rules were quite flexible. More so for those of us who lived and worked abroad. We would book our own flights and book our own hotel rooms and keep track of our own expenses. I joined the division several months after it came into being. I just followed the path already paved by the ones who had been around, such as staying always at the exclusive George V in Paris, Principe e Savoia in Milan, Excelsior in Rome, Vier Jahreszeiten in Hamburg. This obviously wasn’t necessary, but that’s how it was. Though pretty soon I got tired of those pricey and pretentious places and whenever I could find a small boutique hotel, like L’Europe in Paris, El Cortez in Mexico City, U raka in Prague, I would stay there
They were small and cozy and personal and cost half as much. And I got to know the city from a perspective of a different neighborhood. I couldn’t see spending +/- $200.- a night, that is in the Seventies and the Eighties. Also because I wasn’t comfortable with the doorman, concierge, bellboy and sundry always picking up my stuff, calling cabs for me, opening doors, escorting me to my room and going through the motions of turning on lights and television, showing me how things worked with call buttons and at times even how the toilet paper rolled. Hanging around, fidgeting until you fumbled into your pockets and handed him whatever you fished out. With the currencies changing in every country, sometimes you gave too much, others not enough. I just felt so embarrassed at one human being playing the role of a subservient – waiting on you hands and feet.
I found this ritual to be quite humiliating. I didn’t see any grandeur in staying at those and boast about. Though I too have often done precisely that, it is mostly in jest, and also to communicate that I’ve been there. I’ve done that. And just because the company is paying for it, I had no reason to surrender my natural self – which is not being a subject of being fussed about. I like just to step out and walk out on the street, walk down to a café and have some real good coffee with freshly baked Croissant or Brötchen or Simit or Media Lunas, whatever the specialty of the land was. Rub shoulders with the locals. I even went as far as convincing my boss in letting me rent apartments in Essen and Mexico City, where I needed to spend several days every month. A month’s rent would be covered by the equivalent of four or five nights of stay at one of our usual hotels.
Similarly, I never went overboard with my meals, just because they were paid for. Of course I went to and most of the time taken to some of the finest restaurants in those illustrious cities and enjoyed them, but when left alone for an evening or two – a rare occurrence – I would either stay in the room and order myself a club sandwich, heaped with the fries and wash them down with a beer – something I have discovered the glitzy hotels are better at. Or I remember once in Paris, I had such a craving for the Big Mac, and thank God, they had a McDonalds right off the Champs Élysées inside one of the shopping alleys. Or be able to eat Klobasa and beer on Václavské náměstí in Prague. And I loved Köfte with rice at our Turkish publisher Ali Karacan’s staff canteen. I would really be embarrassed to charge those meals, so that I just left those columns blank.
I am not saying I have been squeaky clean with what I put on my expense reports. But its not something I would ever consciously entertain. What was for the many: what can I get away with? for me it was what can I justify? For example, I didn’t hesitate a bit to charge the company’s Air Travel Card to upgrade myself to the first class of which I wrote in my last week’s Strangers On The Plane. Didn’t Chantal say that the economy was all sold out? Or while I would be on a business track and invited a friend or family for a meal, it was fair to include them – a philosophy I had picked up from Charley McCarthy of Cadillac Printing in Chicago: If I end up working late most of the week, I have no qualms about taking my family out for a nice dinner over the weekend at company’s expenses.
When I was re-hired, along with the others, I had negotiated the first class travel for myself, and when Carolyn accompanied me to Barcelona, I promptly traded in my first class ticket for two economies. It worked out about the same, because in those days, there were not a million different fares. There was first class and then there was full fare economy with no restrictions. And then there was “excursion” fare, that came with restrictions on the minimum and the maximum stays. And there was no business class.
Actually, some of what I put on my expenses was a laughing stock in the accounting department. Such as several pounds of Pixies – the locally made Fannie May’s most delicious chocolates containing walnuts and caramel wrapped inside milk chocolate in the shape of a turtle. They are orgasmic, is how one of my managers – Jean Freehill described them. And once tasted, all of my partners across the globe had gotten addicted to them. For $6.00 a pound, (it has since gone up to $ 24.99 a lb.). I couldn’t have done better. And sometimes, I also brought along a few bottles of California wines as gifts. What was there to question?
When I was in doubt and ran into a situation of to be or not to be, I would run it by my boss. When I was fired from Playboy the first time, I lived in Europe and my then boss Lee Hall and I agreed that the company would pay for my relocating back to the States. Since I was in no hurry to get back, I thought it might be fun to sail across the Atlantic instead of flying back. I had figured out that even thought sailing back would cost much more, if I took my car with me and filled it up with some of my stuff, it would actually be cheaper for the company. I talked to Lee. I personally don’t care, as long as you can convince the personnel – if they question. So I returned back to the States, unemployed, but in style, on the luxury liner, Queen Elizabeth II.
Likewise, when I was re-hired, and joined the staff in Chicago, having gone through several suitcases, I realized that I needed something lighter but sturdier. My heart was set on an elegant looking but heavy duty Lark garment bag at the luggage store in the Water Tower Place. But it cost $350.00. Lot of money for a suitcase, even today. And this was in 1979. And yet, I was tempted to buy it and then a thought occurred to me, shouldn’t the company be paying for it? After all, a suitcase was one of the most important tools required for my job.
‘I don’t know about that Mr. Shah!’ Lee responded. So I had some convincing to do. I’m not sure if I succeeded, but he capitulated. ‘Look, I don’t think we can get away with it. But I will sign off on it, bur if they question it, then you’ll have to pay for it yourself.’ As much as I was inamorato with the damn suitcase, I agreed. And guess what? “They” never asked. Years later, my friend Nasim (Y. Khan) in Germany inherited it from me and its still out there somewhere.
Fast forward to 1992. The top Playboy managers from across the country are invited by Christie (Hefner) to a management golf outing at the exclusive (read highbrow – pretentious) Westchester Country Club in Rye, New York, to spend an informal day with other executives, “bonding”. We are teamed up with appropriately matched novices and serious golfers. I had done a couple of those before and had presumed that I could go on the greens with my shorts and the t-shirt. Sandals and all. Wrong! While shorts were okay, the club rules required that we had to wear a shirt with collar – i.e. polo shirt at the minimum and must wear proper golf shoes. I didn’t have either and we are about to t-off. No problem. Like all of them, they have a gift shop stocked with everything that a golfer would need. As snooty as the club is, things are obviously top of the line, even though the price tags made you cringe. What choice did I have? I pick up a nice polo shirt made of fine cotton, the club logo discreetly embroidered on it. It was like fifty bucks. And while I am trying out the shoes, that run more like a hundred and fifty, I grumble to no one in particular. Sitting next to me in the locker room, tying on his own shoes is Herb Laney, Playboy’s Divisional Vice President for the mail order operations.
‘What are you bitching about? It’s a business expense!’
‘You mean?’
‘Of course. See this shirt?’ He turns his hand and pinches the very fine fabric of his polo shirt with his fingers. ‘You’re damn right I am going to expense it.’
‘But I also need the golf shoes!’
‘Well, since you’re not a golfer and are buying them only for today, I would expense them too!’ I look back at Herb, dumbfounded. He gives me an amazed look as if I had just gotten off the boat!
Suddenly, I can’t help but think of how I could have gotten away with charging that Tuxedo I was suckered into buying for the Czechoslovakian launch.
© Haresh Shah 2013
Illustration: Celia Rose Marks
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Next Friday, August 16th, 2013
JE NE SAIS PAS
I really don’t know for sure. I have three irons in the fire, so I guess it will be whichever begins to glow first. So let the next week’s entry be a surprise:)
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