If there’s one thing I know I’m good at, it’s writing an effective letter while in the heat of anger. Knowing I’m right (and being wronged) makes me ever so much more forceful and articulate. Earlier this week I got a letter from the worker’s comp carrier, billing the Company for $2,300 as a result of our last audit. I checked the figures that this billing was based on, and they were wrong.

The total payroll the auditor found was the same as I reported, but somehow some of it had got into the wrong category. We pay a higher percentage on lower salaried employees, except when they work on certain jobs for the state that require us to pay them more. On those jobs we pay a lower percentage, but this audit billed us for those employees at the high rate, regardless of how much they were paid.

I’ve talked to two different auditors about how to report those employees’ wages, and I knew I was right. That’s why it took me about ten minutes to write a letter describing clearly (more clearly than I have hear, that’s for sure) why I didn’t think we owed the $2,300.

Today I got a call from the auditor. He said that it was a computer glitch that shifted those wages into the wrong category. I had done everything correctly, and he had reported that to the insurance company, he said. Now they were going to cancel the $2,300 invoice and issue another one, probably not charging the Company any added premium at all. It’s good to be right, and it’s good to be able to prove it.

So here’s the dilemma. The Boss doesn’t know about any of this. Do I tell him? Do I brag and let him know that I wrote a letter that saved us $2,300? Is that tacky? Maybe so, but I think he would like to know. It upsets him (to put it mildly) when we spend an extra nickel, so if he knows we’ve saved a couple of thou, it could make his day. And, you know, his mood pretty much determines how good a day everyone else is having.