Singapore's law about not chewing gum pales in comparison.

Reddit user danbrownskin asked:

What's the most ridiculous rule in your place of work?

Here are some of the surprising, disheartening answers.

How Much Wood Would A Wood Shop Shop?

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

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Curses

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

Lateness Policy

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

Be A Friend To The Water

I used to work at a place in which my boss implemented a no more than 2 glasses a day water policy.

What a c**t. 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

Marking Time

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

Fancy Home Time

Business casual dress code even when i work at home. (They skype me to check) McNuggetsBitch

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Perk This

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

We Hate Fun

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

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Who Wears Short Shorts?

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

Left Emergency

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 f***ing need to turn left. Monkeytuesday

The Word Is No

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. JennLegend3

Round Robin

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

Forever Vacation

We got a new vacation policy where you could take UNLIMITED time off. When he announced it, we looked at the big boss like he had a d**k growing out of his forehead; all the while he assured us that if we wanted vacation, to take it. Really! A little bit afterward, he changed it to "discretionary" time off meaning that if your boss approved it, it was ok. Then it changed to "160 hours should be the max and if you go over 200 hours then you probably don't need to work here." rando_schmuck

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The Pen Is Mightier

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

Tardy To The Party

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

Fires Are Easy

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. Haligan74

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Jacket Theft

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. PhantomTaco84

Call Displays And Project Days

Former job: There was trouble when I (officially) moved desks and my new desk had a phone with call display. Apparently call display phones were allowed for people at a certain pay level. Your pay level also governed the height of your cubicle walls. My manager's solution was to promote me.

Another former job: We were mandated to work on a engineering related research project outside of work hours, because a responsible engineer always gives back to the engineering community. I could live with that. However, your project had to be related to the company's business. khendron

We Thought This Went Without Saying

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

Seeing Triple

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

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No Problem

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

Guilt-Free

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

The Queen

All the extra toilet paper in the building has to stay in a single closet where it can be overseen by the toilet paper queen. I heard her shrieking the other day when she discovered someone had "hoarded" one spare roll of toilet paper upstairs so the people who work upstairs wouldn't have to walk down multiple flights of stairs when the toilet paper ran out. rhino43grr

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No Understanding

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

Emotions?

When I was in the military I saw a buddy of mine sitting outside crying. I went and consoled him best as I could - apparently he was just depressed and unhappy. After he was feeling a bit better I went to go and find someone to tell them what was happening. They knew. In fact, he had been crying so much lately that they had instituted a 'no crying at your desk' policy - which is why he was outside. TypewriterKey

You'd Lose Uno

I drive valet. The company handbook says you're never allowed to back up. Ever.

You absolutely cannot do the job without reverse. It's impossible.

It's in there because of liability and our insurance policy. This way it can always be the valets fault if an accident occurs ever. ImJustSo

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Bewitched, Bothered...

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

Hair In The Dark

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 sh*t is expensive.

They gave up trying to convince me they were in the right. krystyana420