1. F Yeah!
At my old job, HR held a meeting to tell us that there was too much swearing on the sales floor. Someone raised their hand and pointed out that swearing is very common in our industry and that is the way that our customers speak. HR later sent out a memo explaining that swearing should be limited to conversations with clients. It was amazing.
redemption_songs
2. What’s the worst that could happen?
If you are stuck in traffic on the way to work, you must email the CEO. Phone calls and texts are not permitted, only email.
gshell
3. We like to stay dehydrated here.
I used to work at a place in which my boss implemented a no more than 2 glasses a day water policy.
What a cunt. I ignored this rule and complained directly to our CEO and the matter ended later that day.
What was weird though was the majority of people actually followed the rule and some even shopped me up to HR about ‘breaking the rules’.
I left not long after that because not only was my boss a bellend, but if my colleagues were going to hr over me drinking water, then I obviously couldn’t trust them.
X0AN
4. By the way, UPS trucks do turn left.
Once worked at a place where some miniboss decided that since UPS trucks don’t turn left, we shouldn’t either.
I don’t know or care how well that worked out for UPS, but this was a god damned ambulance company with a 911 contract. I will turn left if and when I fucking need to turn left.
EDIT: I don’t know if UPS trucks turn left or not or if that is beneficial for them or not, and frankly I don’t care. The point is that miniboss thought they did, and that was the reasoning he gave. He was an idiot. I did not stay there long.
Monkeytuesday
5. It’s important to maintain your image when no one will see you.
Business casual dress code even when i work at home. (They skype me to check)
McNuggetsBitch
6. Someone is trying to start a fight.
Old job of mine in a warehouse. Our stations were pretty far apart, so when we’d listen to music we’d all usually have our own stuff playing. Not a problem since you could barely hear the neighbors music. Well, the CEO didn’t like hearing multiple songs when walking through the warehouse. He made a rule that we all either had to listen to the same music, or none at all.
Historiun
7. This sounds creepy.
Had a workplace time our bathroom breaks and deduct them from our allotted 15 minute breaks or lunch. We had to go see the office manager to get a key to open the restroom. As soon as we left his office he would start a timer… when you got back he would stop the timer and tell you how much time you needed to deduct from your lunch or next break. They watched our breaks like a hawk.
Also, if you made a mistake they would stand over you and time you while you fixed it and deduct that from your lunch or breaks.
You couldn’t bring anything “that smells” for lunch and they had no way of heating anything up.
I worked out my contract and split.
Jamaidens
8. How is this supposed to help?
My dad told me this one a while back. He used to work for a PR firm… The way he described the office environment, think “The Office” but in the 1980′s.
The company hired a “Corporate Efficiency Specialist” to come in and “improve” things. She came in and implemented all kinds of rules, which seemed to follow some sort of caste system.
Her philosophy was, the higher your office rank, the more “perks” you get…
Her idea of perks:
Number of pictures you are allowed in your cubicle.
Whether you are allowed to have a potted plant or not.
Coffee mugs were only allowed to senior employees. Others had to use paper cups.
Being allowed to leave the office for lunch was also considered a “perk”
Needless to say, a coup soon followed, and she was tossed out on her hiney.
Fedupwithpeople
9. We want everyone to be miserable.
Not my current job but I used to work for some crazy people.
· you had to stand in a specific area while eating so they could see you on the camera
· don’t talk to customers longer than 3 minutes unless you’re making a big sale, even then, keep it short
· answer the phone within 2 rings, keep the conversation to less than 30 seconds
· you can’t talk to your co workers outside of work
· you can’t talk to your co workers while at work, even if there was not a single customer in the store
I’m sure there’s more I just can’t think of right now.
JennLegend
10. We’re your family now.
The VP of our company just held a mass meeting to tell all of us we can’t have pictures or plants or food or any form of non office supplied object on our desk. Tons of coworkers have family pictures or their kids’ finger paintings pinned up on the cubicle walls. All that has to be removed. People were pissed.
Anvirel
11. How about a photocopy?
We have to do all of our paperwork at least three times. There is a copy of it in our personal folders, a copy online, and a copy in our store folders. Not only does it waste time and paper, but forgetting to do one has gotten people fired. They did the other two identical pieces of paperwork confirming that yes, they did take out the trash and yes, they did check the store voicemail, but how dare they forget to do the third piece of identical paperwork. Our weekly visits from corporate revolve around whether or not we’ve all done this paperwork. It’s so redundant.
quartpint
12. So you’re better off not showing up at all.
If you are 1 min late it is a tardy. If you take a half day nothing goes on your record. I was told to just take a half day if you are going to be late because they straight up fire you for tardies. Also if you clock out early it is a tardy. If you have to go to the doctor on lunch break and it is going to take and hour and ten min, take the rest of the day off. Weird.
Whosyabobby
13. We can’t have you getting hurt.
Fireman…our Risk Management department decided long ago that poles were too risky for us. So we use the stairs. We have poles. Anyway, now the newest rule is no free weights….as in NO free weights to work out, stay fit. Go into burning high rise- absolutely, walk around the station carrying 40lb dumbells…too risky
Haligan
14. She said no.
I once needed a pen. Figured this was a reasonable ask. Went to the supply closet on my floor, which was locked. Asked the floor’s admin, she told me to go to the main supply room in the basement. Went to the basement and explained my situation of needing a pen. They told me all requests for supplies must be approved by my department head. Problem is, being new, I’d never met my department head. She also worked in San Francisco (I worked in Milwaukee), so I needed to send an email both introducing myself, and asking her if I had permission to get a pen from the supply closet.
NicolasCage4eva
15. This is problematic.
My workplace doesn’t let you use the word “problems”. Instead, we have to say “challenges” if something is wrong. As a problem is a negative word, and challenges promotes the fact that there is room to fix said problem…
throwaWaY2113232444
16. Is this a dumb rule, though?
I used to own a pest control company. One day I walked into one of our bays and found a technician licking the inside of a cap from a bottle of herbicide. When asked he told me that he just wanted to know how it tastes. I told him that any future pesticides will taste like unemployment and created a no ingesting pesticide rule complete with signs.
1136991040443
17. This seems pointless.
If we want to take a full 5 day week off we need to use 2 vacation days, 1 personal, and 2 more vacation days. Can never use 3 vacation days straight!?!?
Icecreampopncereal
18. Woah.
Many years ago I was a vacuum cleaner salesman. There were songs about this particular brand of vacuum cleaner and how awesome it was. Every morning, we had to sing these songs as a group. In fairness, it was a pretty quality item.
EDIT: It was Kirby. Didn’t mean to be subversive, just didn’t think anybody would care.
Im_A_Boozehound
19. Bad plan, man.
I used to work for the now long defunct books, movies, and music store Media Play. Just one of the 285 reasons that poorly run business ran into the ground was the tardy/attendance policy.
If you were literally :01 seconds late clocking in, even hours before the store opened, it was a really, really big deal. You’d not only be formally written up, but lectured like a child often times berated even. If you were tardy three times, bye-bye. HOWEVER, if you no-showed and then called 2 hours later saying you were sick?—okay, thank you, feel better. This trained everyone to just take a sick day instead of being half a second late to work. I can’t tell you how many times you’d see a coworker screeching into the parking lot before work after fighting traffic from a wreck or whatever, noticing it was 8:01, and then slowly driving off to go home and feign being sick. This was particularly upsetting when it was a pulldown stock week when we needed every hand on deck but had unusually early shifts.
SSmtb
20. Sorry. Safety hazard.
Can’t have my hands in my pockets.
Themikegman
Image Credit: Google Images
21. This leads to friendship and we can’t have that.
We can’t ask others if they want to come grab a coffee in the break room.
AlkorCineast
22. Promote or freeze.
We aren’t allowed to wear jackets unless they are purchased from the resort gift shop with the hotel name logo on it. They are $50+ and we don’t get reimbursed, but it’s the price you pay to stay warm in the cold months.
PhantomTaco
23. Take that!
Dress code policy is just dumb at my work. Different positions have different requirements. Even though we all work in the same office.
My favorite rule though is the one on shorts. We can wear shorts on Fridays between memorial day and labor day. However the shorts can’t have pockets on the side. It was written to discourage ratty cargo shorts. But the way in which it is written allows me to wear gym shorts. So I do.
bondsman333
24. Eh, same thing.
I’m a teacher, so I have a million stupid rules I have to follow. But the worst one is that my performance evaluation is based on student improvement on the STAR literacy test. I teach wood shop.
CoolioDaggett
25. I did not know this was something people fought over.
I worked as a call receiver. We NEVER saw a customer. We were only on the phones with them. Rule: Your hair must only be a natural color. I dyed my hair the same exact color that someone from a different shift had. I was reprimanded. I told them that if the rule is not enforced for everyone, they couldn’t single me out. Their reasoning for letting the other person have that color but not me…mine was my real hair, dyed an ‘unnatural’ color; hers was a weave that could be changed very easily.
Really?! Then why hasn’t she been asked to change her hair? Because that shit is expensive.
They gave up trying to convince me they were in the right.
krystyana420
26. This leads to all sorts of nasty problems.
No accusing other staff members of being witches. (Yeah, it happened so we had to make a rule. I run a hostel in Uganda.)
Willboase
27. Don’t talk about anything but especially this.
Former job at a law office: One of the partners sent an email to the entire staff that employees were not allowed to gossip in the building.
What was everyone gossiping about, you ask? Oh, said partner was divorcing his wife and sleeping with one of the associate attorneys in the firm. But, you know, don’t gossip.
kat_rob
28. You know those serve a purpose, right?
For a while, we were going through a lot of bandaids and my manager was tired of buying them. So, she locked the last remaining bandaid in the safe (we had to have one; required by health inspector) and no one was allowed to use them if they cut themselves. I worked at a fast food joint where people could knick themselves on knives, tomato slicers, sharp edges, etc. If you cut yourself, you just dealt with it/openly bled. The rule changed pretty fast though when she cut herself while using a box cutter and we had no bandages in the store.
BlondieRants