Why do some employers need to treat employees like serfs? It's bad enough that we already live in a society that devalues labor, but being personally devalued feels pretty awful.
u/danbrownskin asked:
What's the most ridiculous rule in your place of work?
Here were some of the answers.
Wood Shop
Giphy
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.
Freaking HR
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.
I'm always late
Giphy
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.
Stay Hydrated
I used to work at a place in which my boss implemented a no more than 2 glasses a day water policy.
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.
That's intense
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.
But, the kids!
Giphy
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.
Perks
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.
Dress codes
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.
Smile for the camera
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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.
Discretionary
We got a new vacation policy where you could take UNLIMITED time off. 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."
At least you get popsicles
Giphy
Former job. You couldn't eat at your desk. The team managers however were pretty tolerant, on a hot day they would sometimes even hand out popsicles. The regulation people (who were especially in charge on the weekends, when no team managers were around) were very strict with this. A colleague of mine was shouted at because she ate a small pretzel, which was her breakfast.
Then again, some colleagues would casually eat a whole pizza or kebab while making a huge mess.
My desk!
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Previous job: given a tablet and a locker, had to look for a desk to sit on every morning. Stupid, caused unnecessary friction, waste of time, inefficient, and many occupied the same desk everyday anyway, they piled junks on their desk so no one else dared to sit.
Once my manager had mental breakdown, he hid in another floor away from us. It was ridiculous having to walk that far to get to him multiple times a day.
Bandaids?
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.
What's with the personal items?
Old work place had assigned desk location for various things like phone and stapler. You were also only allowed 2 personal items on your desk. I was written up bc I brought my own red stapler and it didn't fit in between the lines put on the desk.
Coffee is important
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I wrote the ridiculous coffee-making rules for my workplace. But I had my reasons. I was a woman on the edge. The coffee was unbearable and every time it was bad I would have a parade of people through my office complaining and a deluge of emails wasting my time. So I wrote a guide, rules, if you will, on how to use the extremely simple drip coffee maker in our break room.
I emailed them to everyone, I put two copies in the break room - one of them in the cupboard where the ground coffee was kept. I went through it with people who didn't understand. Minutes of everyone's time was wasted. No improvement, endless complaints to me, more of my time wasted.
By this point I was fed up of even hearing the word coffee, the sound of the coffee maker caused me to flinch. So I ordered pre-packaged coffee grounds to take the measurement difficulty out of the equation. How can you get that wrong? I thought, naively.
On the first day of what I was sure would be the new world, a coffee nirvana, I went to the coffee machine with high expectations. The senior partner had beaten me to it, she had put four sachets of coffee into the machine and added enough water to make six cups of coffee. The first mouthful nearly killed us. I went over it again with her and returned to my office, confident that this was a one-time problem.
After lunch I went back to try and get a cup of coffee. My expectations were not so high. I witnessed another senior partner carefully opening the sachet of grounds and reach for a teaspoon. She carefully spooned out a quarter of the sachet into the machine, filled the machine with enough water for 12 cups and triumphantly threw the rest of the sachet away. I waited, we tasted it together, she was appalled. She had no idea why it was so weak. I started a new pot, slowly filling with despair as it brewed. I couldn't shake one thought: I work for a doctors surgery. These people prescribe.
I went back to my office. I ordered a giant container of respectable instant coffee and a padlock. I keep the ground coffee locked in my desk. I brew four pots a day (this takes less time than the complaints!) and on my day off they make do with instant. We have a kettle, people are welcome to bring their own filter coffee and do with it what they will. Until someone can be trusted to make a pot of coffee which is not so awful as to inspire eight people to email me multiple times a day, each one of them hitting reply-all to create a small email firestorm in my inbox, this is the way things have to be.
Scotch tape
No scotch tape. On anything. I was a teacher, and the principal wouldn't allow it in the building, threatening letters in your file for insubordination if she saw it on your desk. Only painter's tape, which by design, is meant to not stick very well. I hung posters in my room with circles of duct tape on the back side, with strips of painters tape on the front side just for show. Subtle, petty insubordination.
What if you're sleepy?
You weren't allowed to yawn if you were with a customer. Our shifts started pretty early in the morning and you can't really stop a yawn unless you do this weird teeth gritting, nose breathing thing I perfected. Because God forbid we take 3 seconds to yawn and continue helping the customer, "We must be alert and clearly awake at all times."
They're children!
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I work at a small cheap childcare center. The boss/owner's (who is a complete whacko) office is next to the preschool room, which consisted of 3-5 year olds. The kids are not allowed to be within arms length from the wall because they are too loud.... this is a childcare center.... I've never been in a childcare center that's not loud.
Oh. And also, her air control is linked with the infant and toddler room, so in the summer time, when it's hot as f---, we would turn on the air for the rooms because it's obviously hot as sh*t in the rooms. Plus, we're constantly moving! But because SHE gets cold in her small office we have to turn it off. To make matters worse, our changing room is in the middle of both room, so when the air is off, and our trash is filled with poopy diapers it stinks up both rooms, and with the wet diapers it makes the rooms so musty and humid. Its f*cking disgusting. The owner complains about the smell and YET refuse to turn in the air BECAUSE SHE'S COLD. Apparently she doesn't know what a jacket or coat is, even though we are in MN.
There's no curve
We get evaluations. Either annual, when departing the work place for an extended period of time, when receiving a different manager, when promoted, and a few other reasons.
The stupid thing is, unless you've royally f---ed up, these evaluations are usually just pieces of paper that has some generic copy and paste of why said individual did such a good job doing a certain thing at a certain time. However, if you actually did excel beyond what is expected, did jobs outside of your realm and succeeded, ensured others succeeded, etc this will be annotated but may not reflect the way you think it would/should. Yeah, it'll still be positive, but it won't put you too far ahead of your peers in most cases. Why?
Because your manager (the one writing the evaluation) has to maintain a certain tempo, grading, scaling, or whatever you want to call it based on the evaluation matrix. If he grades you too high, then he establishes a high baseline which he'll have to maintain even for sh*t evaluees. If he grades too low, then excellent workers will get sh*t scores. Because if his matrix is all over the place it reflects poorly on him as a manager. So, everyone is generally evaluated the same, no matter what (this does fluctuate in certain cases).
So, essentially, your promotion is based off of time and not effort.
[deleted]
What do you use to drink coffee then?
I worked in an office where we couldn't drink coffee from an open cup/mug.
One of my coworkers, let's call her "Rebecca," claimed to have an allergy to coffee. If she smelled coffee or saw someone holding a mug with dark liquid in it (even black tea--yes, someone did this to test her) she would start coughing and run out of the office and take a break from the smell. When she came back to the office she'd proceed to loudly blow her nose and cough for a ridiculous amount of time to show her displeasure with the coffee. She eventually went as far as reporting a coworker to HR for having the audacity to drink coffee from a mug at his desk. The coworker called her bluff and asked for a doctor's note to prove she indeed had an allergy. What do you know? They never got one.
Manager ended up buying some tumblers off of amazon and giving them to employees to use since she wouldn't have this "allergic reaction" if tumblers were used. It became part of on-boarding.
PS - We all brought in Keurig pods to share so we could have a variety to use at the Keurig machine in the break room. I stayed late one night and caught her grabbing a handful of the pods on her way out and trashing them.
Also, she once got super cranky when someone forgot about her aversion to coffee and asked her if she knew where the nearest Starbucks was. You couldn't even mention coffee around her without her getting upset. What a weirdo.
That's not how that works.
Giphy
After much deliberation I decide to go back to work after 2 years of maternity leave (my bro died tragically, too). Legislation means your job is safe in local government for two years. Half pay for 6 months, government $ for 5. Anyway, I'm a permanent salaried full-time Museum Director for Local Government. My manager says i can come back starting at 9am instead of 8.30 but not leaving at 5.30. I need to take half an hour annual leave a day if I want to start at 9. (something the HR manager had suggested, by the way). I go, yeah, whatever, then a couple of weeks in realized, this is TOTAL sh*t and totally against their policy. Bring it up with HR - well, you need to take it up with your manager. I'm livid! I have a postgraduate degree, have been doing the job for ten years not including leave, and wha? Not trusted to work alone for 30mins at the end of the day? WTF?
Needless to say, my main concerns about returning to work were to do with this idiot power monger. Then, blessed relief, she's taking time off on LSL, her replacement asks me if I'm able to get to work on time... I'll do my best. WTF. what is the getting to work on time sh*t? who cares unless you don't make it up at the end of the day, and even more so, who cares unless the job f*cking gets done? MADNESS.
Finance bros
A little late to the party, but here goes...
I used to work in a call center for a large financial services company. They were super strict about being off the phone. Basically, if you have to use the bathroom, you better hope that it hits during one of your two 15 minute breaks or 30 minute lunch. Outside of those times, you got 8 minutes a day to be out of the phone queue (including if you had a complex customer issue). Anything over the allotted time gave them grounds to fire you for "call avoidance."
I made it work until I ended up having medical issues. And as part of my medical treatment, I had to take a medication that had diarrhea as a side effect. You can probably tell that this went over well with my employer. Ultimately, I was told that I had to have a letter from my doctor certifying that I would need extra bathroom time. So I call my doctor and (even though they thought it was weird) they faxed me a letter.
Somehow the company decided that this was an issue that required the disability accommodation department of HR's involvement. At this point I think things are getting ridiculous, but for the sake of employment, whatever. Then I get an email from HR. The email advised me that me needing extra bathroom time would require me to use intermittent FMLA. I had to have my doctor fill out FMLA paperwork. Because I needed to be able to leave my desk to take an unscheduled shit. I get the doctor to fill it out (at this point they have decided that everyone in HR has lost their minds). I send it into HR, and I figure it's all good.Nope. Not even close. After receiving the FMLA paperwork I get ANOTHER followup email with a spreadsheet attached. And I was instructed that I would have to TRACK how much time I spent in the bathroom each day and submit the spreadsheet to HR at the end of each month so it could be deducted from my FMLA time. Eventually I said enough is enough and resigned.
How?
Last place i worked... You had to complete 40 hours of job related training in order to get a passing mark for that section on your yearly job review (which impacted how much of a raise you got) but because it wasn't "mandatory" and could be completed outside of office hours (I. E. If you took a class that related to the job, read a book, go to a conference, etc and that would count) they wouldn't always give you time on the clock to complete this. Yet.... We were not supposed to do any work or access company resources (including the website that most of us used for training) when not on the clock.....
We had a mandatory training for a new ticketing system (technical support call center) that was developed by... People (this is a whole different story/complaint/general f--- up) and they scheduled us 4 hours of training time to complete this... Before it was even fully finished... They ended up with the lessons taking more than 10 hours of time to complete (per their system... Not actual real time, I might have to retake a test or read slower, etc issues)....
Several modules/lessons were added after about 50% or more of the room had already completed this training and we are getting emails from our time management lady and the woman that was in charge of the launch of this new program basically bitching at everyone for either not having the training completed (which is hard to do when things are added after you think you have it completed) or for taking too long to complete it.
Several of the lessons were auto play videos that you could not skip or jump through as their were tests at the end... And if you failed the test 5 times in a row, you had to retake the entire lesson and not just the test. Many of the questions were select multiple answers from these options, so you couldn't even do elimination for multiple choice.
So many things the changed in the almost 3 years that I was there that lead to me basically saying f--- it and end up getting fired. Call center... So metrics... My average handle time (which includes after call work) is almost 5 minutes below what it had to be... But I was on final warning because my after call work was about 15-20 seconds over what it was supposed to be. I literally have an award for customer service...but was being written up because I didn't think I needed to keep a doctor or nurse on the phone just so I could make sure my ticket was finished.
The new boss.
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I worked at a small advertising agency. We had few people but were second most profitable firm in our city, having the right combination of talents.
One day the owner's wife decided she didn't want to be a dentist anymore and started taking business classes. Not one entire semester passes and she somehow convinced boss that she should work with him (and bossing us).
First day she changes the ambient radio to gospel, louder enough to hinder concentration. Then at the end of our day 5h59 asks a single mother to do a sales report that would take at least one hour. Poor kid panics. She has to go take her son at school. She says so, promises to deliver the next day and come early. Boss says "do it or you don't have to come back tomorrow". Knowing that the girl couldn't abandon her kid at school. I wanted to jump on her and punch her face.
I used to read at my lunch break (and ate at a small mall near work). Monday comes and suddenly they're making people show the content of our bags. I happen to have a book on Greek Mythology with Pan in the cover. She says that I can't enter work with that book and that I should leave it at the gate (exposed, outside, in the rain and anyone could just rob it). I call boss and say that what she's doing is highly illegal and that I didn't want to sue them but things needed to get better. Things didn't get better, I quit. Some time later a friend tells me that the agency closed. She killed it in less than a year.
We know how to boil water.
We had a health and safety inspection in our office. We had a large store cupboard with a shelf dedicated to making teas and coffees. There were 7 of us in the tea club and would take it in turns to make a brew. We were told we couldn't have a kettle in case we spilled boiling water in ourselves. We'd used a kettle for several years prior to this without incident. Instead we had to go to the drinks machine and navigate back through 3 sets if double doors carrying several hot drinks! Oh, and like many others, we weren't allowed to walk whilst talking on our mobiles. Not even in the offices. And we got told off if we didn't hold on to the hand rail whilst going up and down stairs.
Everyone else gets it!
I work in lingerie design. The computer room that I work in isn't allowed a radio and the computers aren't allowed speakers. All other rooms are allowed speakers and radios except the room I work in...
Loophole
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I worked doing fundraising for an environmental group one summer in college. I forget the exact numbers, but if you met a certain $ quota each week, you got a set percentage of the money you raised. If you missed that quota by even $1, you just got minimum wage for that week. I usually didn't have a problem meeting quota, but once I had a bad week, and on Friday afternoon realized I was going to end up just under $20 short. I did some quick math, and realized that if I raised just $20 more, I would be paid a couple hundred more, so I just hit up an ATM, took out $20, and added that to my last donation. So, not exactly a terrible rule like some of these other examples, more of just a dumb loophole in their pay policy.
Change your name?
Everyone has to have a different name. If you're a new hire and someone is already using your name, even if it isn't their real name, you have to choose a new "work name". The boss's name is Allen, so when an employee named Allen came on, he had to use his middle name, Darrell. Then we hired another guy whose first name was Darrell, so he decided to go by his last name, Morgan. So the real Darrell had to use a different name even though that wasn't anyone else's actual name, because it was someone else's "work" name. No switching allowed. Now I'm just waiting for someone whose first name is "Morgan" to join up, and see where this goes next. (names have been changed to protect the innocent)
Don't move!
Once I was told to not leave the desk then got in trouble for not leaving the desk to run an errand for a customer.
We were told to forward calls about memorials to a certain department. The resident never informed us about the memorial, so when someone called to ask about the memorial I forwarded them to that department. I then got in trouble for forwarding to the department.
I got written up for telling a resident that packages had not been sorted yet because we had had fire alarms going off all day.
I literally got in trouble for doing what I was told and and then for answering a question. That was the last straw so I quit.
How do you sell then?
I work in sales.
Most insane rule is where I currently work.
We aren't allowed to give out price lists to customers.
The pricing recently changed and customers who are used to getting price lists (that's the way it has been done forever, 50+ years) are told they can't have a price list and please look it up in their computer system.
But every customer uses a different program and 75% have the wrong pricing.
Management's rationale is that they don't want the numbers in the hands of the competition. And they didn't trust anyone to not give out the lists so NO SALES REPS GOT PRICES LISTS EITHER.
I was getting phone calls asking how much something cost and I couldn't tell them because I didn't have a list. I ended up having to go through a 3rd party and sneak a copy.
After 4 months of this management acquiesced and grudgingly gave employees a list. Mostly because there were hundreds of calls coming in asking for prices and NOONE IN THE COMPANY COULD ANSWER.
Giving that price list is regarded as grounds for termination. And I have checked and the other reps are obeying the rule despite it all but eliminating their ability to sell.
I gave my notice last month - they insisted on 30 days just to be petty - and I am out of there in a week!
Hold it.
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Not an "official" rule but one we still get in trouble for if we break it:
We can only use the restroom the first 15 or last 15 minutes of planning.
If you have to go during class, good luck getting someone to cover for you.
Ireland
I worked for a supermarket in Ireland in which we personally had to provide pens for the customers to use to sign their receipts or whatever at the tills. The company wouldn't even order pens which we could then buy from them at cost. We had to go, on our own time, to buy pens for customers to use.
I worked there for six years and not once did I spent a single cent on a pen.
F is for friends
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My company doesn't allow fraternizing of any kind between the different levels of employee (assistant manager to staff members, higher management to assistant management). It's to eliminate favoritism. Yet every other company in the world champions on community.
Let them know
If you yourself come as a bagger in a completely different AD, we can't have a MBA and I've been trying not to all the marketing that goes wrong is so bad one time I was told I wasn't supposed to get them to confirm that there will be arrested.
Weird
Not a rule, per se, but you get in more trouble for calling in at the time your shift starts to let them know you'll be late than you do if you just arrive late with no warning.
More dress codes
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When I was first recruited for the company, I was told that the dress code was relatively casual - as long as what you wear covers you sufficiently and isn't ripped/old and tired you were good.
Quickly I discovered that actually, teams kinda have their own individual dress codes. If you're not dressed to the correct standards for your team you won't make 'progress' in the company. I'm not sure who actually sets these standards - I'm assuming team leaders. This produces an odd situation where I, a programming gremlin who barely leaves her desk all day - I don't even have internal meetings more than once or twice a month - have to be dressed to the nines, while others who actually see clients, partners, suppliers, et cetera, will get away with jeans and a polo shirt.
That's a power imbalance
You can not join the conversation if the people who are having the conversation are higher ranked than you. So everytime someone speaks, those who are lower ranked must shut up immediately.
SUPER IMPORTANT
I work in a restaurant where we have three ice machines. Now, in most restaurant the ice goes from the machine, into a bucket, into the soda tower or bar ice wells. But in my restaurant we have to put ice into bags, put those bags in the freezer over night, break up the ice in the morning, and then lug however many bags it takes to six different locations in the restaurant. Why, you ask? Apparently the double frozen ice makes your drink SIX DEGREES COOLER AND THAT IS SUPER IMPORTANT I GUESS.
Double standards
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I work at a car dealership where the morning meeting starts at 8:30 but if you are not there by 8:25 you will get sent home for the day. Also the management team (the ones in charge of the meeting) are almost exclusively 5 minutes late to the meeting.
I work at a medium sized company in a normal office environment. I have been here for a while and am good friends with several male coworkers, one in particular who shares a similar schedule with me so we often take breaks together.
People started noticing that we would leave and return together, and started to gossip (never mind that both of us are in committed relationships and our friendship is strictly platonic). My supervisor started watching on the cameras when I would leave, and one day when I returned she pulled me into a private office where she told me that male and female co workers would no longer be allowed to ride the elevator together if there was no one else in there with them... however, she meant that I was not allowed to ride in the elevator with said co worker.
That lasted all of about a minute, after multiple people were late due to having to time elevator rides so that they were on the elevator alone with a member of the opposite sex.
Don't wear pants
Business casual dress code even when i work at home. (They Skype me to check). Reddit
It's an emergency!
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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 damned ambulance company with a 911 contract. I will turn left if and when I need to turn left. Monkeytuesday
Samesies!
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
All for a pen.
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
Don't skip it.
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If you had to take a leave on Monday or Friday so that you have an extended weekend of 3 days instead of 2, it was counted as 3 days leave (counting in Saturday and Sunday). Deal with that! drvinaymuc
1 min.
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
Firemen
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 dumbbells... too risky. Haligan74
Represent!
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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
McDonald's did this to us when I worked there. They paid half, but they were still like 50-60 bucks for a crappy fleece. I just wore my regular jacket and nobody said a thing. Slizzard_73
Get that bread!
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
Make a list, check it three times?
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
I got 99 challenges
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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
xoxo
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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
Toilet paper
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
Get well soon.
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
Sing Along!
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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.
It was Kirby. Didn't mean to be subversive, just didn't think anybody would care. Im_A_Boozehound
Be a good friend
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
Vacay!
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
Something similar here. We can't use our "sick" time until we use three vacation days. So, lets say I have no vacation hours, but get really sick, I can't use PTO.
Our sick time is essentially useless. wetonred24
Driving rules
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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.
Edit: Perhaps this will answer the most repeated question... If the rule says no reverse, yet you're expected to park a car, then how can you park the car?
Answer: Never hit anything, and always reverse despite the rules. Expect to be fired should you hit anything in reverse, but probably not. The rule only exists to cover the company's butt, but if they don't feel threatened by you working there and you're an asset, you still will not be fired. And yes, many people are questioning the legality of it and you're right. It wouldn't hold up in courts, but it's in the handbook and it's silly. So I posted it. ImJustSo
The Hawaiian shirt
It's not like this any more, but for a while they attempted to have a dress code. Guys had to wear collared shirts, but "Hawaiian" style shirts were totally acceptable. You could not wear jean shorts, but jean overall shorts were ok.
I got sent home one day because my shorts weren't finger-tip length. We were tech support... no one EVER saw us, that was the best part. FuffyKitty
Witches
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No accusing other staff members of being witches. (Yeah, it happened so we had to make a rule. I run a hostel in Uganda.) Reddit
Which is exactly the kind of rule a witch would create. Blovnt