That’s what I’m saying. Work should be completely separate from personal life, doubly so for expenses. This is wholly on the father, of course. I like the idea of giving youngsters agency and such, but it must come with guard rails and some amount of supervision. The father clearly had no idea what he was getting himself into.
Even if one has one’s very own personal single-owner company, you keep company stuff separate from personal stuff.
There are accounting reasons for this, there are management reasons for this, there are even legal reasons for this (for example if you own limited company is sued, keeping its shit totally separate from your shit means none of your stuff is part of the discovery process and if it loses the lawsuit, none of your personal stuff gets taken).
This is even more so when the company is not yours and you’re just an employee - you don’t want company troubles to end up hitting you and the company doesn’t want you troubles to end up hitting it, so it’s a win-win for both sides.
Always suspect when companies want to start mixing company stuff with personal stuff - in my experience they’re either small amateurish operations, they’re doing it to get you to do unpaid work for them outside work hours (i.e. the “company phone” that gets calls from management at odd hours) or its some weird tax evasion scheme and/or ties you more to the company (the “company car” that you don’t really use for company stuff).
This guy fucked things up massivelly, even if a $118k “lesson” is maybe a bit too much.
It’s not a bit too much, people have to understand what things are worth snd what risks they’re subjecting those things to. It could have been an idiot in a $118k car changing lanes without looking and wrecking $118k that way, or someone using a company card for “de minimis” personal purchases. They’re both things that have no negative consequences 999 times out of 1000, and the 1000th time something goes wrong and you’re SOL.
We’re all smart enough to understand the concept of tail risks, most of us just choose to gamble with our lives and money anyway.
That’s what I’m saying. Work should be completely separate from personal life, doubly so for expenses. This is wholly on the father, of course. I like the idea of giving youngsters agency and such, but it must come with guard rails and some amount of supervision. The father clearly had no idea what he was getting himself into.
Even if one has one’s very own personal single-owner company, you keep company stuff separate from personal stuff.
There are accounting reasons for this, there are management reasons for this, there are even legal reasons for this (for example if you own limited company is sued, keeping its shit totally separate from your shit means none of your stuff is part of the discovery process and if it loses the lawsuit, none of your personal stuff gets taken).
This is even more so when the company is not yours and you’re just an employee - you don’t want company troubles to end up hitting you and the company doesn’t want you troubles to end up hitting it, so it’s a win-win for both sides.
Always suspect when companies want to start mixing company stuff with personal stuff - in my experience they’re either small amateurish operations, they’re doing it to get you to do unpaid work for them outside work hours (i.e. the “company phone” that gets calls from management at odd hours) or its some weird tax evasion scheme and/or ties you more to the company (the “company car” that you don’t really use for company stuff).
This guy fucked things up massivelly, even if a $118k “lesson” is maybe a bit too much.
It’s not a bit too much, people have to understand what things are worth snd what risks they’re subjecting those things to. It could have been an idiot in a $118k car changing lanes without looking and wrecking $118k that way, or someone using a company card for “de minimis” personal purchases. They’re both things that have no negative consequences 999 times out of 1000, and the 1000th time something goes wrong and you’re SOL.
We’re all smart enough to understand the concept of tail risks, most of us just choose to gamble with our lives and money anyway.