BURLINGTON, Mass. For Floyd Ketchum, Chief Financial Officer of Applied Widgetronix, the most annoying part of paying the company’s bills to its professional services firms wasn’t the bottom line, but the one right before it. “I’m paying a six-figure sum for an audit or an acquisition, and then they want to nickel and dime me for photocopies at fifteen cents a page?” he says with consternation. “It always adds insult to injury.”
The practice became widespread after legal and accounting firms were advised to “unbundle” out-of-pocket costs in the 1980s and charge separately for them, but eventually businesses realized they held the upper hand and fought back. “Law firms are a dime a dozen,” says Ketchum. “My first obligation is to save my job, and to do that I’ve got to save my company money.”
So the most recent statement Applied Widgetronix received by email from its lawyers on December 15th–with a gentle urging to pay by year end–was for a flat fee, with overnight courier charges, faxes and other “overhead” or out-of-pocket costs built into a single all-in number. “That’s the way I like it,” Ketchum said, but before he had time to authorize payment he received a second email, this one with an image that violated his company’s Dignity in the Workplace Policy. “It was the panty hose of an associate at our accounting firm,” he says, shaking his head. “I guess they were celebrating getting our audit done by year-end, and forgot to take me off the distribution list.”
“Buttcopying” has historically been tightly controlled as client charge numbers were required to activate photocopiers and fax machines, but with advances in technology and the end of “unbundled” costs, the risks associated with sitting on a xerographic machine and pressing the “Copy” button have expanded exponentially. “Used to be you had to remember the client number before you hopped on top of Mr. Copy,” says Melanie Orthwing, who over the years has made a practice of copying her butt and sending it to her boyfriends when she had to work late. “Now, you’ve got scanners and ‘Reply to all’ buttons,” she says sheepishly after learning that the Michigan Department of Motor Vehicles received an image of her derriere along with an application to transfer title to 152 refrigerated chicken trailers. “So you never know who’s going to get a moon shot out of the blue.”
In a tight labor market employers are reluctant to suppress the fun that many derive from butt-copying, and labor lawyers say protections that have previously covered only weekend office visits by employees’ children should apply to “non-exempt” or hourly workers as well. “It’s an issue of fairness,” says Gene Graymond, a labor-side attorney in Saginaw, Michigan. “If the CEO can bring his kids in on Saturday for butt copies, you can’t tell Cheryl in accounts payable that she has to stay off the machine for fear of breaking the glass.”