The Company Gas Card

In the classic film The Apartment, Jack Lemmon strives for a promotion, going so far as to let the married executives in his company bed down their mistresses in his apartment. Nightly he relives his sock-on-the-door-freshman-year-of-college, shut out of his own apartment, all for the sake of advancement, symbolized by a key to the executive washroom.

Company perks have evolved since then. Now we have access to time shares, laundry services, even free beer. With the price of a tank of gas pushing fifty dollars a pop, being handed a company gas card has become the new marker for hitting the big time.

The theory behind the gas card is simple: you're a busy worker bee, and the bulk of your gas is going to be spent coming to and from work, or visiting clients. If a company buys gas cards for its upper echelon employees, it will receive a bulk-rate discount from whatever gas company it signs with by ensuring all purchases will be made at that particular company's pump. Perfectly symbiotic — your company gets cheaper gas and the gas company makes sure it gets all your business.

Good for companies, bad for the rest of us. High gas prices actually have a positive effect — they encourage conservation. Why pay for a tank of gas when you can take a plane, a train or a bus to your destination? However, the economic push to conserve only works in the theoretical vacuum, a place without gas cards. If you're getting free gas, why bother taking public transport? When choosing your next vehicle, why look at a Prius when a gas card means it is just as cheap to fill the gas tank of a suburban land tank? No one ever scales a rainbow to be thrifty with the pot of gold.

Picture the newly minted executive, Mr. Lemmon, turning on every spigot in the private washroom, basking in the rising steam while tumbleweeds blow past in the desert landscape outside. The hilarious antics in the movie assure the viewer that Jack's earned every drop, and every rising executive feels the perks are a salve for the hardships. Perhaps they are, but if that salve is made from the bones of baby harp seals, then for the benefit of all concerned, companies should rethink the perk.

Though it's nice to think people conserve because it's the right thing to do, the bulk of people conserve because it's necessary in order to balance their checkbooks at the end of the month. It's destructive to offer incentives that encourage unnecessary consumption-companies should rethink the practice. Now, free beer, THAT's a public boon. Bartender? Another round!

— Colin Alexander (colin_alexander [at] hotmail [dot] com)