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People Share How Simple Rules Backfired Massively

Rules were made to be broken, right? Sometimes you don't even have to break the rules to make things interesting, you just have to get a bit creative with how you follow them.


Reddituser Orb_Detsoob asked:

"What's a rule that was implemented somewhere, that massively backfired?"

Boredom Begets Mischief

"No card games at school"

When I was in elementary/middle school Magic The Gathering and the Pokemon card game were pretty popular. Almost all of the guys played and would get together after lunch to play before classes started again.

Here is where it's important for me to mention that this was a Christian school. It probably didn't take long for a teacher, administrator, or helicopter parent to wonder what all the fuss was about. Sure enough, one of them probably got a hold of an MTG card, saw art depicting a demon, and decided that this had to be the work of Satan to warp our young minds.
Almost over night, all trading card games were banned from school. Any cards would be confiscated until the end of the school year.

Well, you now have several dozen pre-pubescent boys with about 30 minutes of free time and *nothing* to do. So we did boy sh!t. Ran around, pushed each other, went places we weren't supposed to, just overall got into mischief. All this time they had a free baby sitter that was keeping us all engaged, quiet, civil, all while reinforcing quick math skills and teaching multi-level problem solving.

The next year we got a new administrator and card games were allowed at school again.

-JohnnyUtah_

Technically Acceptable

The previous school I worked at decided that all shirts needed to have the school name or emblem (which was a fancy letter 'E') on them to be dress code appropriate. That's all the handbook said. No clarification on how the name or emblem was designed or the color or if it had to be permanently affixed to the clothing. The students hated the policy and, being in high school, looked for any loophole possible. They found one due to the lack of clarity of the handbook policy. The kids would make paper 'E's and pin them to their shirts. Thus, they could wear whatever they wanted and by pinning the 'E' to the shirt, were still dress code compliant. I thought it was pretty genius. The administration did not.

-jamer0658

Did Nobody Forsee This One? 

Middle school wanted to create a "trash free environment" so they removed the trash cans from the parking lots, halls, and cafeteria. Then just told the kids to "toss your trash when you get home or in a classroom"

The amount of litter skyrocketed overnight, after a week or so they brought back the cans.

-nagol93

Malicious Compliance

At my old job, some people abused lunch so they made a few of em text in when they started and finished lunch. One guy specifically would text the start time, place he got food, his order in detail, the address, price, etc. Even when he bought a snack while out. That stopped a week later

-Tenshotshad

POPCORN (1pc) sent 11:52am

POPCORN (1pc) sent 11:52am

POPCORN (1pc) sent 11:52am

POPCORN (1pc) sent 11:52am

-LockoutFFA

Double The Trouble

Air pollution became a big problem in late-80's/early-90's Athens, mostly due to the number of old, heavily-polluting cars on the roads. So the Greek government made a law where only cars with odd-numbered final digits on their number plates (1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 etc.) could be driven on odd-numbered days (1st, 3rd, 5th etc.)- and only evenly-numbered cars could drive on evenly-numbered days. Sounds great doesn't it, they'll halve the number of cars on their roads right - nope, they doubled it - everyone bought one old, highly-polluting car that had an odd-numbered plate and another with an even-numbered plate - nobody could park and the air was worse than before.

-Chopper3

Arid Environments

Dry Counties were meant to reduce use of alcohol in certain areas, but they result in people who want to get drunk driving further away from home to do so, increasing the odds and frequency of drunk driving accidents. Also many attempts to rescind dry county laws end up getting countered by campaigns paid for by the bars and liquor stores that set up on the edge of dry counties, typically under the guise of religious messages.

-BigRed2989-

Gotta Be Cool

Last summer in Sweden, bus drivers in some counties started wearing shorts due to the heatwave. After being denied to continue doing so by management, they started wearing skirts instead. Dress code policys had banned shorts, but not skirts.

-SowerPlave

You're Just Making It Worse

Universities love to mess with alcohol related things. My University decided to pull over campus busses on weekend nights and give out tickets to drunk passengers, as well as look out for walking drunks. The following month had more DUIs than the entire previous year. Everyone's excuse was they were scared to walk or take the bus, so they drove.

-MudSama

To Be Fair, You Can't Really Ban Stupidity

My company had an injury (in a facility in a different country no less) that resulted in lost time. The guy was hammering on an adjustable wrench because the nut was too tight... instead of banning stupidity, they decide to ban adjustable wrenches in every facility. All fine and dandy except we dont have wrenches at our machines, because everyone just uses an adjustable wrench. About three weeks into buying thousands of wrenches they decided adjustable wrenches were safe again and stopped buying us regular wrenches.

-DerpiesG

Guilt Is A Powerful Motivator

A famous example from Freakonomics was when a day care started charging a small fine for parents who picked up their children late. Instead of resulting in more on-time arrivals, the new policy actually caused more late pick-ups. This is because the parents were originally worried that a late pick-up would be a significant burden on the day care employees, but because the fine was so small (only a few dollars), they decided that it must not be a big inconvenience for the day care.

-Idoitforthelolz3

Things People Secretly Love But Would Never Admit To In Public

Reddit user sweet_chick283 asked: 'What do you secretly love that you would never admit to in public?;

Collection of VHS tapes
Bruno Guerrero/Unsplash

What makes us all unique is our passions and the things we love, whether it's singing in the shower, reading books, or listening to specific music artists.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where we are judged for our various tastes and interests thanks to social media, and it makes us consciously selective about sharing the things we love on the internet.

Curious to hear about people's personal desires under anonymity, Redditor sweet_chick283 asked:

"What do you secretly love that you would never admit to in public?"

These aren't really chores for the following Redditors.

Good Clean Fun

"Mopping, im a janitor and generally hate my work... but damn mopping is so good."

– MrDDog06

"When you have a great rhythm going it is something special. I get the same feeling while I vacuum, but won’t let my wife know I enjoy it."

– Bogus_34

Act Of Unwrinkling

"Ironing clothes. A dozen of them. Can’t explain how it relaxes me. I told one person and they looked at me like I’m crazy."

– eerie_white_glow

"My mum misses the days when dad would be out on a Friday night, my brother out with friends and me upstairs quietly playing PS1. She would pour herself a Bacardi & Coke and do the ironing while watching her TV shows."

"I'm sure she doesn't really miss it now that we've moved out and they've retired but it was her wind-down after a busy working week so I can see how people can find it relaxing."

– xdq

Our solo actions can spark joy.

Big Brother Is Watching

"pretending to be on the Truman show and whenever im in my house i act all inconspicuous so they dont know that i know that they’re watching me."

– Bec_121

"C’mon man, you’re not supposed to let him know. You signed a contract when signing up for live views. I’m reporting you."

– doeswaspsmakehoney

The Multi-Tasker

"Playing video games naked at home while eating cheese."

– thickening_agent

Releasing The Kraken

"I love the feeling when you've eaten good fibre and let out a solid long train log in the toilet. That feeling is heavenly."

– therapoootic

"Even better when it’s a clean wipe and not a poo crayon."

– TheWarmestHugz

Ultimate Comfort

"My (male 41) weekend routine is coming home from work, make hot chocolate, start a fire, dress in a ugly pink nightgown made for old ladies and watch forensic files."

– crazyloomis

Some people are obsessed with collecting things.

So Kawai

"Sanrio stationery stores. All those different multicolor pens, a thousand kinds of erasers, spiral bound notebooks galore... my kids sadly have absolutely no appreciation for this wonderland..."

– HavingNotAttained

It's A Staple

"Office supplies have a weird, special place in my heart ever since I was a kid. They don't even have to be 'cute' necessarily."

"Japan's legendary stationery stores is unironically a reason I want to go."

– _CozyLavender_

Not Caring Anymore

"The older I get the shorter that list gets. Not because I love less things, but because I don't care about hiding it."

– Bi-Beast

"YES!! I'm 53 now. I'm working my first job in public since 2006. Today is Halloween and we're allowed to dress up so I am sitting here waiting to go to work dressed as a VERY bad Wednesday Addams. My bf said I'd 'look stupid' because no one else will probably dress up and I'm like, 'WHO CARES!' My makeup looks horrible and not like I practiced, but I DO NOT CARE! I'm having fun with it anyhow and I don't care if my coworkers dress up or not. I'm bein' ME! :)"

– deanie1970

Honorable mentions start here.

The Savior

"Picking up worms from the street and sidewalks when it rains and moving them into the dirt so they don’t burn in the sun, every time it rains I do this."

– sky_kitten89

Hero Of The Moment

"Yoooo I scoot SO many snails and worms. I work as a tech/mechanic at an automotive shop, I had a peoject car towed to my house the other day and it was covered in snails. I saw them when the tow guy/coworker was unloading and I was like, 'oh! It comes with free snails!' and began moving them. He laughed then realized and said, '... Oh, you're serious. Uh... Okay.'"

"I don't care who knows it. These little things barely can look out for themselves, why shouldn't we if we can take a moment to help? I don't care what happens next, it probably doesn't matter overall but I can help this moment."

– chris14020

Why should some of the hidden desires mentioned above have to be secret?

Redditors opening up about some of these would make them a hit at parties–no shaming.

As a matter of fact, I'll totally be down for a Forensic Files viewing party where we all make hot chocolate, light the fireplace, and cozy up together in our respective pink ugly nightgowns for old ladies.

historical reenactors
Sigmund on Unsplash

We've probably all heard some variation of the saying "Truth is stranger than fiction."

Real life isn't just strange, it can also be downright ridiculous.

History is riddled with moments of absurdity.

So ridiculous that people have a hard time believing real life is, well, really real.

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