February 7, 2026
Fiber vs Fraud: pick your F
The F Word
From grandma-style reimbursements to audit gremlins — and the F stands for Fraud
TLDR: Reimbursements went from a helpful human to nitpicky audits and corporate software, sparking a debate over trust. Commenters split between “it’s fraud control” and “it’s cost-cutting by pain,” with nostalgic throwbacks and fiber-bar jokes highlighting how bureaucracy can crush morale and momentum.
Remember when the office mom handled your receipts and a check just appeared? The community is mourning the “Joann era,” and they’re not subtle about it. The story: reimbursements went from human help to the Concur maze plus an internal auditor nitpicking every line. The comments lit up like a fraud alert. One camp screams: this friction is intentional. As cortesoft puts it, make the process painful and people expense less — cha-ching. Another camp says the quiet part out loud: as orgs grow, trust shrinks. jonahx calls it a move from “keeping people happy” to “spending less.” The mood? Grimly comic.
There’s nostalgia too: jmclnx reminisces about the 80s when you just handed receipts to the admin and went back to work. Then came the “canned” systems asking for mystery codes nobody knows. Meanwhile, loeg drops the mic with the real F word: Fraud. Cue the peanut gallery arguing auditors vs builders: are we preventing scams or just grinding down morale? For levity, tombert’s cliffhanger about buying “a box of Fiber One bars at a CVS Pharmac…” had readers joking the fiber wasn’t the only thing causing… friction. The thread’s vibe: weaponized paperwork, trust on life support, and a new office meme—“Audit brain.”
Key Points
- •In 2005, travel reimbursements at SUNY Buffalo were handled by a department secretary, with checks arriving in about 30 days.
- •The university later partnered with Concur, requiring faculty to self-file expense reports through the system.
- •A departmental auditor was appointed to review submissions, frequently returning them for minor format or rule issues.
- •The process shifted from seamless to adversarial due to increased auditing and procedural friction.
- •The author argues that misaligned intentions can turn processes and tools into sources of friction, affecting organizations and individuals.