One of the great perks of being a prof at McGill is something called a P-Card. It is a credit card that bills directly to your research account. It is incredibly useful for buying stuff you need for your research and not having to wait for reimbursement. It’s no good for conference hotels or airline tickets, which is its main drawback (if having a credit card that bills directly to your research money can be said to have any drawbacks whatsoever).
As you can imagine, such a system is susceptible to abuse. There are routine audits (which happen to me every time I use paypal, for instance, which I guess is reasonable on their part) but every so often they eliminate a set of things from the “realm of the possible.” Today, we received one such email, which includes the following list of forbidden sites for P-Card transactions:
ACCESSORY AND APPAREL STORES MISCELLANEOUS
AMUSEMENT PARKS
AUTOMOBILE PARKING LOTS AND GARAGES
BARBER AND BEAUTY SHOPS
BILLIARD AND POOL ESTABLISHMENTS
BOWLING ALLEYS
BRIDGE AND ROAD FEES AND TOLLS
BUYING/SHOPPING CLUBS, SERVICES
CANDY, NUT, CONFECTIONERY STORES
CAR WASHES
CARD, GIFT, NOVELTY, AND SOUVENIR SHOPS
CHILD CARE SERVICES
CHILDREN’S AND INFANTS’ WEAR STORES
CHIROPODISTS, PODIATRISTS
CIGAR STORES AND STANDS
COSMETIC STORES
DEBT, MARRIAGE, PERSONAL COUNSELING SERVICE
DUTY FREE STORES
ELECTRIC RAZOR STORES SALES AND SERVICE
FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS MERCHANDISE AND SERVICES
HEALTH AND BEAUTY SPAS
INSURANCE SALES, UNDERWRITING, AND PREMIUMS
LEATHER GOODS AND LUGGAGE STORES
MARINAS, MARINE SERVICE/SUPPLIES
MOTION PICTURE THEATERS
NURSING AND PERSONAL CARE FACILITIES
PAWN SHOPS
RELIGIOUS GOODS STORES
SHOE STORES
STAMP AND COIN STORES PHILATELIC AND NUMISMATIC
TAX PREPARATION SERVICE
WIRE TRANSFER MONEY ORDERS (WTMOS)
WOMEN’S READY TO WEAR STORES
I guess that I’ll have to front the expenses for my ethnography of debt counselors and my cultural study of carwashes, and that project on the geohermeneutics of candy stores will just have to wait for another time. . . .
Yeah, I got that today too. Excellent post.
My favourite one is the “Marinas” one — which seems to conjure up images of McGill profs as Tony Curtis (in disguise) in Some Like it Hot (when he says to Marilyn, “excuse me, you’re blocking the view to my yacht!”)
I guess even a SSHRCC grant wouldn’t stretch to a yacht. And besides, the St Laurent is frozen for about four months of the year.