About ten years ago, I owned a property preservation company. Property preservation doesn't mean upgrading it. Literally just maintaining it in whatever condition it was currently in. We closed the company because federal rules kept changing and were impossible to keep up with.
Our favorite was "The Winterizing Rule."
Every year we had to go around to all of our properties and complete this whole "winter readiness" process that included things like making sure snow shovels are easily accessible, treating the pipes, having plant blankets ready in case of frost, etc. It was a decently time consuming and expensive process.
Oh, by the way did I mention I live in South Florida and most of these properties were in Miami?
Yeah, no matter how many times we explained that we don't need to winterize and that we can't even GET snow shovels most of the time, we couldn't get the banks to understand. You have no idea how many half-panicked people we have spoken to on the phone about this.
It never mattered. The answer was always the same. No we could not, in any way, skip or cut back on winterizing. Hard rule. Must prepare for winter. What will you do when it snows??!?
WINTER IS COMING!
Reddit user IAmHungryAndTired (us too, homie) asked:
What is the most stupid rule you've ever seen?
Yeah... it's looking like quite a few of us have had to deal with wave after wave of rules that made no sense. Kick back and enjoy some people who had to deal with their own personal "winter."
Every Half Hour
A personal favourite of mine was having to clean supermarket toilets every half-hour.
Since we weren't allowed to start until the bathroom was empty, it always took at least 10 minutes to get started.
From there, we had to restock soap & roll, brush and mop the floor and wipe toilets, urinals and sinks (different cloths), which took a minimum of 15 minutes if you half-assed it.
Finally, you weren't allowed to let people in for 10 minutes after mopping to allow the floor to dry.
After being pulled up for not cleaning them every 30 minutes and explaining the problem, I got an official written warning. Naturally, I then closed the toilets to make sure they were empty and did everything as instructed, which got easier as the day progressed since the toilets never actually opened for use.
Restaurant Rules
New rules at the restaurant I work at.
We are no longer allowed to order food while clocked in and can only get our employee discount after working at least 5 hrs. Also, we can't eat in the break room anymore. Or in the lobby.
Where and when am i supposed to eat? Also, I should add that I close at the restaurant I work at, so kitchen is closed by the time I clock out. Functionally they just told me I'm not allowed to eat on days I work.
- NE09_GxT
Locked
The middle School I went to has a rule that if you have an F, then they will lock your school-issued laptop to only be able to access email and classroom. This means that the research paper due tonight can't be done since you cant access the internet to research it or a word processing program to write it - thus lowering your grade further.
- Cayden5
No Talking
Giphy
At my last job we technically weren't allowed to have conversations with co-workers. Upper upper management said it was because customers might get anxious about interrupting conversations. Lower management (my immediate bosses) never actually enforced that rule.
- JLHeavy
The Front Door
When I was a kid, my parents had a rule that we weren't allowed to use the front door of the house. My parents weren't the kind of people who explained themselves to their children, so to this day I have no idea why this was the rule.
One day while climbing a tree, I was stung by a venomous caterpillar and it was both extremely painful and I had a bad allergic reaction. The front door to the house was locked, so I pounded on it until my sister came and she refused to open the door. she kept saying "go around...go around" as I was crying and gasping for air.
The last thing I remember is collapsing and looking up at my sister through the window who was smiling smugly.
apparently a neighbor saw my lying there and called 911 and I was taken to the hospital and recovered just fine. But my sister never so much as apologized, even as an adult she defends her action as "we weren't supposed to use the front door".
Former Flat Earthers Explain What Finally Made Them Come Around | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
The Forbidden Hallway
Our vice principal in high school had some kind of obsession with stopping "loitering." I guess she forgot things called "breaks" and "spare periods" for seniors exist. In her infinite wisdom she decided that the best way to combat this loitering epidemic was to first close the front hallway by the office to any student traffic from 9am when class starts to 3pm when it ended.
The presents a few problems.
One, some people have lockers in this hall and need to get stuff in between classes.
Two, the way our school was built if you couldn't use this hallway you literally had to go outside to get from one wing of the school into the rest of the school.
Also if you got sent to the office for any reason not only were you in trouble for that, but also now you're in trouble for using the hallway as well which was an automatic detention for anyone caught using the hallway.
It later escalated to essentially not being allowed to be inside the school unless you were in class or in the cafeteria at lunch time. So if you had a spare period you were pretty much stuck sitting up at McDonald's or driving around aimlessly. Students had to start renting out the trunks of their cars as lockers since the risk of using your own locker was too high.
Eventually the entire staff had enough of this, including our school cop who all this time had been refusing to actually charge anyone with loitering, hence the detention punishment, because in his own words "this is the stupidest f*cking rule I have ever heard this woman is insane." They got the school board involved and she was relieved of her duties.
- kg106
Harmonious
When I worked in China they had a rule that you had to keep your desk in a way that was "harmonious". Stuff like your stapler had to be at a right angle to your keyboard, stuff like that.
- ooo-ooo-oooyeah
Like Hitting
In my middle school we weren't allowed to high five each other because it was "like hitting."
- jec3rd
Adult Scissors
I used to work at a big oil company, the one which very fittingly rhymes with hell. We were not allowed to use "adult scissors" without proper training. Until someone had completed said training, only the brightly colored plastic and extremely dull "children scissors" could be used.
Wait
Giphy
If the fire alarms go off at our school we have to wait for an announcement or for relief before we can either do the drill or run for our lives.
Everyone thinks it's dumb and our teachers were told that it's because of school shootings and they want to make sure it's a legitimate emergency; but if there is an honest fire then that's more dangerous I'd think. Plus it's hell for the kids with auditory triggers involving loud noises or sirens.
Curious to hear about some of the more creepy indiscretions people get away with, Redditor Flytechofficial asked:
"What is perfectly legal, but creepy as hell?"
These things that happen in public restrooms can be considered criminal.
Respecting Splash Zones
"Using the urinal next to me when there were plenty of other choices."
Nightmare For The Pee-Shy
"hanging out in a public bathroom timing how long people pee."
Bad Timing
"I swear to God. I did a lot of work in hospitals for a while, big f'king hospitals with tons of bathrooms all over the place. For some God damned reason, regardless of what time or bathroom I selected to take a sh*t in not 30 seconds after I sat down a janitor would knock on the door to clean the bathroom. It's not as if it was one janitor, just some random janitor would inevitably need to clean whatever bathroom I was in as soon as I got comfy. It's like I was being stalked by the janitors."
"So now I'm trying to take a sh*t knowing full well there's somebody out there actively timing how long it takes."
Looky-Loo
"I was drunk in a casino and went to use the washroom. The floors in there were a polished marble or something. Sitting on the toilet, pants down, my stall neighbour made eye contact with me on the reflective floor tile."
The following examples involving minors have no legal repercussions.
Outside Watchers
"Technically, you can stand on the sidewalk and stare into someone's house through a window. It's not illegal as long as you stay off of their property, but it's really freaking creepy."
Keeping Tabs On Someone's Age
"A national newspaper having a countdown for when a child actress becomes 'legal' for sex."
"Answers to questions that will surely come. ....Yes. The Sun (UK). Emma Watson."
– pdirth
The Young Subjects
"When I was a child, we had a creepy horrible neighbor that would harass my family constantly. One of the things he did was stand at the corner of his yard and videotape me playing in a pool with my friends (we were around 8). My parents called the police but were told that it's legal if he's on his property."
These perfectly harmless examples can give you goosebumps.
Macabre
"Hanging your doll collection from the trees in your yard using string made from human hair."
People's Taste
"I believe the act of cannibalism itself is legal so long as you didn't murder anyone to do it. If your homie gives you his arm to gnaw on, it's fair game."
I recently treated myself by going to a movie theater after what seemed like a long hiatus for much of the year.
Streaming blockbuster movies from home, while convenient, has never made as much of an impact when compared to the moviegoing experience.
But after my recent trip to our local AMC, I'm beginning to think watching entertainment from the comfort of my quiet home is a much better option.
I forgot that a good majority of audience members are disrespectful and pretty much ignore all the rules—including no texting or talking during the movie.
The normal volume conversations and the number of lit screens from people's smartphone's in my peripheral vision throughout the movie were huge distractions.
Maybe as I'm getting older, my patience has worn thin, or I happened to have a particularly unpleasant experience. But seriously, how can anyone enjoy going to the movies when people are constantly updating their status inside a darkened auditorium?
It should illegal. Rant over.
I feel like if there is nothing after life, it just invalidates life. But maybe I'm just dramatic. I hope there is peace. Thoughts?
black and white two funerals GIFTogether...
"When we die, the whole world as seen by us, dies together with us."
"Yes it does. As does the entire universe. Only when we are alive can we experience the passage of time. The instant we die the entire universe will experience heat death and cease to be. It my take a million eons but since we can no longer experience time it will be relatively instantaneous."
- OkEbb749
Thanks Alan
"It's one of the great wonders of life: What will it be like to go to sleep and never wake up? And if you think long enough about that, something will happen to you. You will find out, among other things, that it will pose the next question to you: What was it like to wake up after never having gone to sleep? That was when you were born. You see, you can't have an experience of nothing. Nature abhors a vacuum. ~Alan Watts"
So Romantic...
"When I was much younger, I had a dream where I died. Not a typical dream, not a romanticized dream. It was a dream where I was an archer in a medieval battle. About 5 minutes into the battle, chaos was all around me, and I watched an opposing archer aim and loose an arrow straight into my left eye."
"I remember the sensation of impact, ringing in my ears, and falling to the ground. I remember the warmth of the blood on my face. The feeling of life leaving my body, and the sense of worry evaporating into warmth and peace as the world left behind me."
"I remember waking up shortly after thinking that the feeling and reality of that experience was so vivid and so detailed that it must have been an experience from a previous incarnation hundreds of years ago. From that moment on, I've never feared the actual process of death. I feel like I've experienced it many times before."
Erase
Computer Reaction GIFGiphy"I think one of your best friends delete's your browsing history."
"Take the hard drive out of my computer at home… Put it in the bath… And make sure it's completely wiped. -Tensai Slime"
If you love me... rule number one... HIDE THE EVIDENCE!!! Let that be heard far and wide. And dreams, always so intertwined aren't they?
Before & After
Happy Baby GIFGiphy"Exactly the same as before you were born."
- whumoon
"I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. -Mark Twain"
Moving On...
"We clean the bed and assign it to another patient."
"The REAL reason why nurses are so dark. 90 year old man in hospice got hit by a car on his way to get fitted for his funeral tuxedo, and didn't have a DNR. Kept him alive for four hours, and now it's time to document everything that was done to save his life because there will inevitably be a lawsuit from a family member who has had four years to say goodbye but somehow didn't get to."
Again...
"Play again?
Yes
[No]
I don't know what they mean or how to utilize them. I'm a Buddhist (but a gamer first and foremost) so it's cool you guys made those connections This totally makes up for r/movies continuously banning me."
Oblivion...
"I've answered this one before but here it is again. Either two things happen after you die: you either go somewhere or it's oblivion. If it is oblivion, then we're just going back to the same place before we were born and there's nothing wrong with that. We were there for billions or trillions of years, possibly infinity."
"You lose that concept of time since your brain doesn't work anymore so you don't even know it's over. It's not nothing because nothing would be something and that means that you are aware, which you can not be if you're dead. If we do go somewhere, then that's something no one understands because no one has ever come back to tell us."
"Those stories of people coming back after they "died" and "saw stuff" weren't really dead. Their hearts stopped but their brains were still working. If the Universe continues to recycle itself infinitely, then there's a chance we will be reborn or continuously reborn but have no memory of our previous selves."
- jamoh20
On Holiday
"When I was a kid I drowned while on holiday with my family, a giant fat man jumped in the pool on top of me and no one noticed till I was on the bottom of the pool. I remember the feeling of my lungs being on fire, then shivering then as everything was going dark a strange sense of peace and I was ok with it, No panic or terror then it went black."
"I was resuscitated at the side of the pool a few minutes later. I remember nothing from the black to being "alive" again. I was around 7 when it happened and since then I've been strangely at peace with the fact that one day I will die and slip into the dark void of nothingness. Hope that helps."
Popcorn?
500 days of summer cinema GIFGiphy"You wake up in a chair in a cinema and learn that the other are past lives of you and you're about to watch your next life very soon on the big screen."
The truth is none of us know the truth. We live everyday with the afterlife being a gamble. And that seems like it's going to have to be enough.
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