Question

Topic: Career/Training

Office Management Tips For A Newbie

Posted by Anonymous on 6/9/2010 at 1:23 PM ET 25 Points

I'm interning in the corporate HQ of a business and I've been told to fill up a requisition form every time I need something for my work. These could be pens, A4 papers, pencils, board markets, practically anything that I need on my desk. I was offered a good monthly salary for this 3-month long internship but I'm beginning to feel that there might be dirtier things I don't know about. My question is, is it normal for every office to bill all employees for office supplies? What I see is that about 4-8% of my monthly salary might be spent only on requisitioning. Is this normal ??
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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 6/9/2010 at 1:43 PM Accepted
    Nayeem 19

    Requisition Forms are used by many companies for the employees to request office supplies (usually managed by the mail room dept. at many of these companies). However, I've never heard of a company billing office employees for supplies, this is a "new one" for me.

    Find out if this "policy" applies to every employee or only to short-term internships. Perhaps the company has had a previous bad experience where former interns might have taken advantage of their time at the company and requested supplies that they ended up taking with them and using for themselves once their internship was over.

    Good luck with your internship.
    rocafortmercado
  • Posted on 6/9/2010 at 1:57 PM Author
    Thank you Mercado...my company has had a bad experience with previous interns.
  • Posted by Frank Hurtte on 6/11/2010 at 1:55 PM Accepted
    I have never heard of this practice - but I wonder what kinds of materials you would need that might eat up 8% of your income.

    Over the length of 3 months, you might actually use 2 pencils, a couple of pens and a small box of paper clips. If you are asked to do projects that require mass quantities of folders, notebooks, etc - then you have a genuine beef. That type of thing should be billed to the project.
  • Posted on 6/11/2010 at 11:39 PM Accepted
    I agree with the others. I haven't heard of such as thing as billing employees of the office supplies being used in the office. Are all employees, including the regular ones, being billed, or just the interns? You have to read up on the company policies regarding this matter. Ask the regular employees or your boss if this is really the policy of the company. Or someone in the company may be just extorting money from you because you are new and will be staying for only 3 months.

    Why would it eat up 4-8% of your monthly salary? Does your work entails you to consume several pens, pencils and markers in a month?

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