Out of Pocket

How individual workers are helping finance demolition and construction companies and projects.

It’s late. You’re on your way home after a tough week. The motorway zooms past in a blur as headlights bounce off the rain-slicked tarmac, causing you to squint your eyes.

You’re concentrating on the road ahead, on getting yourself home safely. But there’s something else playing on your mind. You’re thinking about the hydraulic hose that went pop mid-morning. That cost you £98.00 because, yet again, your company doesn't have an account.

The receipt is still in the glovebox. Your bank balance is in the red. Your mortgage is due in four days. And you know that you won’t be reimbursed immediately because it’s the weekend.

This isn’t about wages. This is about the money you spend to keep your company moving. The cash that leaves your hands, your debit cards, your overdrafts. Money you may never see again.

These are companies turning over millions. Multinationals. Firms with slick logos and websites full of waffle about sustainability. But behind the curtain? It’s lads like you buying the f**king milk.

Let’s talk about that, shall we?

Word comes down from the top: “Directors visiting the site tomorrow. Make sure it looks tidy. Get some refreshments in.”

So at 6:58am you’re in Tesco, bleary-eyed, buying tea bags, milk, instant coffee, sugar sachets, and four packets of digestive biscuits. You’re not hosting a tea party. But you pay £12.83 because God forbid the top brass gets the wrong impression.

There’s no petty cash tin. There’s no company card. There’s just you, your wallet, and the unspoken understanding that keeping up appearances is your responsibility.

And you know what the best part is? You might — MIGHT — get that £12.83 back. After a six-week wait. After chasing the office. After submitting the receipt, the form, and possibly a blood sample. And even then, the reply might be:

“You didn’t get authorisation.”

Because obviously, in the heat of a 7am milk emergency, you should have rung the regional manager for written consent.

And that’s just the tea and biscuits. Let’s get into the real costs.

Fuel. We all know this one. You’re heading to site, and the fuel card bounces. Declined. Again. Probably hit the limit or maybe the payment is overdue. So what do you do?

Ring the office and sit in the forecourt like a lemon for an hour?

No. You tap your own card. £74.20. Gone. Just like that.

Because the lads have to get to site. The job has to be done.

Then there’s the job that runs late. You were told you’d be done by 5pm. But at 8:30 you’re still on site, packing up. Company digs? Not booked. So it’s down to you: £89 for a last-minute Travelodge room. You text the boss: “Just sort it and send the receipt,”

he says. You do.

Three days later: “Accounts says we need the VAT breakdown.”

You send it.

Then it’s silence. Weeks pass.

That £89? It’s gone. Like your patience.

At this point, you’re not just running the job. You’re financing it.

And here’s the thing: this isn’t rare. For many, this is standard operating procedure. You are the interest-free loan system propping up the construction and demolition industry.

Every parking ticket because there was no legal bay. Every litre of fuel. Every bottle of screen wash. Every set of AA batteries for the radio in the site cabin.

Every mop and bucket bought after someone missed the target in the site toilet before an HSE inspection.

It’s not just the graft they rely on. It’s your wallet.

But those at the top? Oh they’re fine. Expenses pre-approved. Company American Express card. Hotels booked in advance. A full English on the company dime.

You? You’re sat in the van with a sorry-looking Greggs sausage roll and a sinking feeling, hoping your debit card doesn’t get declined.

And it eats away at you. You don’t talk about it. You just absorb it. You tell yourself: “It’s only a tenner,” or “I’ll chase it next week.”

You don’t want to be that bloke — the moaner, the whinger, the problem.

But it’s not just one tenner, is it?

It’s ten here. Twenty there. Seventy on fuel. A hundred on digs.

It’s hundreds, sometimes thousands, over the course of a year.

Then there’s the fear. Fear of rocking the boat. Fear of being seen as difficult. Fear of being passed over for the next job or the next contract.

And the fear doesn’t end there. When you’re finally home, long after the kids are asleep, your partner’s on the sofa half-watching telly, you slip away for a moment and open your banking app.

You don’t even flinch anymore.

You just hope the wages clear before the mortgage payment goes out.

You pray the refund hits before the direct debits bounce.

You stare at what little money you have left, not really sure what’s yours anymore.

The truth is: you’re not just a worker. You’re an unpaid creditor. You’re a lifeline.

You’re the quiet, over-drafted, over-relied-upon backbone of the business – Not that they would ever put that in writing.

And they’ll never say thank you. They’ll never notice the biscuits. They’ll never know you fronted the fuel, or bought the hose, or picked up a mop and scrubbed piss off the floor so a visiting director didn’t soil his loafers.

It’s 11.59. Your wife has gone to bed and you’re looking once again at your banking app, hoping, PRAYING that - when the clock strikes midnight - the money you’re owed will miraculously appear.

If it does, maybe you’ll take your wife for coffee on the weekend. It seems only right since you’ve bought coffee for everyone else for the whole month.

But if it doesn’t…