Monday — The Mysterious Affair of Salaries
From the Series “The Payroll Manager Diaries: Tales from the Shared Service Centre”
Dear Diary,
Another Monday in the SSC, where I manage a payroll team for Europe and question my life choices. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to handle payroll for multiple countries, imagine juggling flaming torches while riding a unicycle — over a pit of hungry alligators.
Today started with an email from Linda in Marketing. She’s upset because her pay check was “a little light” last month. "Light" is her way of accusing us of docking her hard-earned salary as part of some personal vendetta. I had to explain that if you "forget" to log your hours, the system isn’t going to magically know you were here. It’s not Santa Claus, Linda
Then there was Dan from the German office who emailed to ask, "Can I get paid in Bitcoin instead of euros?" I had to resist the urge to send him a link to Google with the caption "Here’s how currencies work."
Meanwhile, in the break room, the Italian and Swedish teams were fighting over who makes the best coffee, while the Germans complained that the fridge is full of expired food. As usual, nobody will admit to owning the science experiment in Tupperware that’s been there since the euro was introduced.
Karen from HR made her grand entrance today, wearing her usual clueless smile. “I think we should do a team-building exercise where we all list our favourite colours! It’ll really help with cross-departmental harmony,” she announced. I had to resist the urge to ask her how knowing that Steve from IT likes blue is going to help next time the payroll system crashes.
Before I could fully process this gem of wisdom, in walked Nigel from accounting. Nigel, who is from Northern England and speaks a dialect I like to call ‘Finance Gibberish,’ gave me his usual nod of superiority. “Morning, payroll brainiacs! Just a quick query about your accrual methodology. I’ve noticed a slight discrepancy in the amortisation of employee benefits. It might affect our EBITDA calculations, so we’ll need to reclassify those expenses in Q3, pending an audit of the deferred revenue streams. Right, mate?”
I nodded as if I understood a single word. Nigel has a way of making simple things sound like a scene from a financial thriller. I’m pretty sure he thinks "amortisation" is something everyone discusses over breakfast.
To top it off, Bob, the office prankster, somehow convinced the new intern that payroll was handled by a complicated series of handshakes and secret codes. So now, the intern’s been wandering around, trying to figure out the “secret handshake” to get paid. I’ll admit, I nearly choked on my coffee when I heard about that one.