Have you ever had a rule changed because you were too good at violating it? How about a company or school policy that never made any sense in the first place? Sometimes even the best-intended guidelines don't really work, and the lessons are usually learned the hard way.
free__soul asked: People who were the reasons for certain rules what is your story?
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.
10. Justice.
Former co-workers of mine. Contracted employees have a maximum amount of time they can work each week.
Company pushed a lot of 60+ year old employees into retirement via a benefits change. A bunch of those who retired re-signed on as contracted hourly workers and started making more money than they had before they retired.
My dad did that. Retired with pension and full benefits after 35 years. Then they realized they still needed him and asked him to come back. He told them he would help them but only as a contractor at some absurd hourly rate and they had to keep paying his retirement benefits. They agreed because they needed to finish the project. And he doubled up for awhile. When he finally left again he still had his same benefits rolling (which was enough to retire comfortably on) but he also had made 6 figures (less taxes) working 25 hours a week in his one year as a contractor.
Now they don't do contracting. They've brought a couple people back in similar fashion but as part time employees and the retirement benefits get put on hold.
9. Always check IDs.
Checking ID at work when we have parties that contain alcohol. Used to be honor system until a newly hired person under 21 drank too much and vomited in the hallway.
Our CFO's 16 year old daughter worked for us for one summer and we did a booze cruise. She was doing shots on the boat with her department. Her dad didn't even get mad when he had to practically carry her to a cab. Weird dynamic.
8. Maybe don't do this.
They banned doing handstands at my primary school because we used to play the game where you'd sing a song and go up into a handstand and when I went up, for some reason my arm just gave way and I landed on my shoulder and broke my collarbone. I saw my old teacher a few weeks ago and apparently that's the handstand story equivalent of the boy who swung back on his chair and cracked his head open.
That actually happened at my high school. The kid had to get staples in the back of his head.
I'm surprised I didn't with the amount of times I lent back and fell into a table behind me. I would always do it though, it was the only thing I could get away with in class without getting kicked out 100% of the time.
7. Helicopter mom.
When I was going into 6th grade, my family was moving to a new town. In order to prevent myself and my brother from having to go through the hassle of moving and to alleviate some of their stress, my parents decided to send us to sleep away camp for 6 weeks.
My brother, 2 years older, proceeded to get extremely sick within the first week or so that we were at camp. He was on bed rest and at more than one point the staff had to bring him into the small town nearby to go to the hospital.
My mother had a tendency to overreact and make mountains out of molehills. She was extremely unhappy with the staff and thought it was outrageous that my brother got that sick that quickly, assuming that someone must have showed up to camp on the first day knowing they were sick and spread the germ to my brother.
Luckily, he recovered after the first week and was able to enjoy the rest of the summer. When the term was over we left camp, excited to see our new house and meet the people at our new school.
Fast forwarding to the next summer, our parents saw how much we enjoyed camp, and decided that having us out of the house for a month wasn't so bad for themselves either. Instead of driving us this summer, they decided to send us on the buses the camp ran to different counties and states. The total ride was about 4 hours, an eternity for a middle schooler with a surplus of energy.
Once we arrived at camp, the buses all line up and there's an in-processing tent set up where all the kids had to walk through before they could get their bags and go to their cabins. It was taking forever. I started to get irritated; I had waited all year for this and now I have to wait more! I finally get off the bus and into the tent and see what they are doing. Each camper is getting asked a series of questions about their current health- are they feeling sick, so they have any allergies, do they have any prescriptions, etc. They would then get their temperature taken by the nurse to confirm they did not have a fever, and were sent with a counselor to their cabin.
I get to the end of the line, and ask the nurse why they are doing all of this because it is taking so long and I was being an impatient child.
Her response: "A parent was very upset last summer that their camper got sick, so now we are screening everyone and quarantine them if they show any signs or symptoms of being ill"
I look at my brother, who was standing behind me, and yelled "THANKS A LOT".
TLDR: Overbearing mother caused camp to establish screening process to make sure kids weren't sick.
6. Still sounds fun.
In third grade I jumped off of a very tall piece of playground equipment, smacked my chin on my knee and bit my tongue. It was a blood bath and the teacher passed out and hit her head off of the pavement... resulting in another blood bath. Welp, the next morning there was an announcement stating no more jumping of off the "tower" on the playground. The next day the teachers son tried jumping off of a rope swing over the school yard fence and broke both of his arms. The school removed all of the fun stuff off of the playground that summer.
My elementary school's playground consisted of blacktop, a slide, and a tire swing, and we were almost never allowed to use the tire swing because it was always muddy underneath it. I feel your pain. A couple years after I aged out, they got real playground equipment, and a few years after that they built an entirely new school because of all the asbestos in the old one. I was a little salty.
5. Kids on a leash.
When I was younger (3 or 4) my school had a large field near the entrance where we'd walk across to get to class from our drop off room. I decided it would be funny to try and run away. My brother did the same thing a year later in the same year, and that's when they introduced a fun colored rope everyone had to hold onto when going to and from classes.
4. Chop chop right outta class.
At my school, it was a rule to not act like a ninja. When I was young, I got interesting into Naruto so I started acting like a ninja. 3 people saw me and started to act like a ninja as well. The teacher noticed so she told us to stop. We stopped for the day but the next day, we did it again. Our teacher was getting annoyed so she gave us a bad star (a red star that meant you we bad. At the end of the week, you had to take the bad stars home for your parents to see) we got mad at the teacher so when she wasn't looking, one of the ninjas stood up and walked slowly. He plopped the red stars from each of the ninjas star sheet. Teacher noticed and had enough. She sent us to the principals office. He was laughing but told us to stop. Next day, there was a rule. Don't act like ninjas.
3. So put a Starbucks in the school, duh.
So, in my high school there is a rule that was added my junior year and is even in bold in the student/parent handbook. This rule was that students are not allowed off campus during the 10-minute passing period at all. The reason that this rule exists is that my sophomore year I was really craving a Starbucks during my first period so in the last few minutes of the period I mobile ordered a coffee and then during break ran half a mile to pick up my coffee and walk back.
I made it back to my class on time, but the school still tried to get me in trouble until I said "show me where it says I cant leave campus during the passing period in the handbook and I will accept any punishment, otherwise you have no grounds to punish me" and after 20 minutes of sitting in the office I got out with no punishment. Then my junior year that rule was added to the handbook. To this day its one of my best (worst) accomplishments.
2. Good sentiment, bad implement.
My high school had a policy that any student who passed an A.P. exam with a score or 3 or above would receive an automatic 'A' in the corresponding class.
I failed A.P. Government--I never did my homework--and got a 4 or 5 on the exam.
They changed the policy the next year.
1. Yum.
I moved from the Midwest to Texas to attend college. It was the first the time I tasted deep fried okra. The cafeteria was all you could eat. The okra was like crack to me and I ate plateful after plateful. Pretty soon the rule was two servings per meal.
Fried okra is indeed like crack. I've been eating it my whole life and still devour the stuff.
