Strange workplace policies

In My Humble Opinion
1

I was 15 when I got my first job, cooking and food prep at McDonald’s. When I was assigned to prep, the managers insisted that we wipe down our workstations as often as possible with a cloth. Well, one time my cloth got dirty, so I asked for another rag. Apparently that was a no-no. My manager explained to me that “rag” was a slang term for a pad (of the female-time-of-the-month variety), so I couldn’t use it to describe the cloth. Never mind that this was the first time that this sheltered teen had even heard that slang term; it was verboten. I used a cloth, not a rag.

There was a pussywillow tree in my yard. I often wondered what would happen if I brought a branch in to work at McDonald’s and started talking about it. If I referred to it by its common name at there, would I be guilty of sexual harrassment by McDs’ standards?

At my current job, there’s a rule that everyone must back in to their parking space. I’m not sure what inspired that, but I’m guessing it was some sort of parking lot accident involving two people backing into one another while leaving work. I’m not sure how the new policy prevents people from backing into each other while arriving, but, as we all know, it’s usually a waste of breath to question management.

2

For awhile, my boss tried to institute a policy that no one could take golf clubs in a company car on an overnight trip. Tennis shoes, bicycles, soccer balls, cross country skis were all OK, but not golf clubs. Someone might see them and think that we were shirking our duties.

It was a stupid policy, because we couldn’t take the company car to the golf course anyway. But we could have a friend pick us and our golf clubs up at the hotel.

We finally told him that we were going to take the clubs and he was welcome to write us up, at which point we’d appeal and run it up the ladder and win. He backed down.

Did I mention the boss is the only person in the office who does NO sports?

3

At my last office job, the powers that be somehow felt that it was imperative that I wear pants. I’ll never get that.

4

Are you male or female?

5

At an office I used to work at, 4 of us shared an office. We each had a nice big desk area but no dividers. My partner and I sat near the window, and the other two folks sat near the door. I had a small clock radio on my desk which I had tuned to a soft rock station. I kept it so low that my partner often would say “What’s that song? Turn it up a bit?” and the people by the door couldn’t hear it at all.

One day my boss came through and told me to take my clock radio home. We were not to listen to radios of any sort at work, even headphones if we weren’t answering phones. Um, OK. No one ever found out why, and I don’t think anyone else even had a radio. Actually, I know why- he was just a petty tyrant who wanted to exercise some control.

6

The boss at my last job told us not to carry pens when we were using the copier. She didn’t like all the ink marks on the copier (not on the glass mind, on the copier itself). Of course we all ignored her.

7

Not a workplace policy, but my school had a couple of wierd ones. We got a new headmaster and he introduced stupid rules like

“The moment you walk into one of the buildings, you have to take you’re coat off.”

Luckily, being in the Sixth Form I didn’t have to obay that particular stupid rule.

8

Damn grammer! That should be “your” not “you’re”. rolls eyes need sleep…

9

Is (s)he American or English? Or scottish? :smiley:

I’m an uni, but there always seem to be a lot of these. “None of your own appliances in the kitchen, but in your room is ok” sort of thing. The justification is different every time, but the forbidding is normally there.

10

I was told this when I worked at a restaurant as well, but the reason given was that “rag” sounds dirty/unhygenic to any customer who might overhear. We were supposed to call them cloths or towels.

11

I used to be a teacher. When the state evaluator observed my classroom, I had points subtracted for the way I handled discipline problems. You see, I didn’t have any discipline problems during that particular hour, so the evaluator couldn’t honestly say that I handled disciplinary problems well.

And this was a fundamental class in a tough inner city high school!

sigh

12

In the course of many honest jobs I have held in a checkered life, I have often wondered about workplace policies.

Some policies are in place because they are necessary. Rules like "Don’t steal the office supplies. Don’t curse and revile the customers. Failing to show up for work repeatedly will result in termination.

…these policies always make sense.

Some policies seem to be in place so that if someone sues the place, the High Sheriffs can point and say, “Well, we had a workplace policy that prohibits that. Plainly someone violated our policy. Can’t sue us.”

…and this makes sense, too.

Some policies seem to be in place because someone was feeling insecure in his Bosshood, and decided to make some new rules for other people to follow, so he would feel better.

…these rules may or may not make sense.

Some policies are in place because the New Boss arrived, and realized that all the existing employees knew how to carry out their jobs and handle the work environment WAY better than he did, and so it became necessary to screw everything up beyond all recognition, change all the procedures, institute new policies, and generally bring the entire operation to a grinding halt so that EVERYONE will be as clueless as the new boss is…

…and therefore look to the New Boss for leadership and guidance as opposed to ignoring him and doing their jobs, the way they always have.

…these policies almost never make any sense, unless the place was hopelessly screwed up BEFORE the New Boss got there.

Worst of all is a place where ALL of this has happened at one point or another.

Why?

Because workplace policy is almost always cumulative. Once policies are firmly in place, they are, in many shops, nearly impossible to remove without completely revamping the system.

This means that every idiotic rule ever nailed down by some insecure idiot of a boss will remain in play… forevermore. Whether they’re necessary or not. Whether they make any sense or not. Whether they’re even POSSIBLE any more or not…

I worked at a shop like that once. One of the rules said we had to memorize all employee policy. None of us ever did, because by the time I got there, the employee policy handbook was the size of a Stephen King novel.

What you DID was, you got to know your SUPERVISOR, and you made a point of networking with your fellow employees. What were this particular supervisor’s pet peeves? Which rules did he enforce, and which did he ignore, and which did he not even know about?

It was way easier than memorizing that frickin’ phone book. Admittedly, it didn’t always make SENSE.

Someone once gave me an analogy for the situation. I liked it so much, I’m going to inflict it on you all, now. It’s long, and complicated, so if I’m boring you, skip to the next post now.

Once upon a time, there were three scientists. They decided to do an experiment on a roomful of gorillas.

They got a reinforced room, and put five gorillas in it. They stocked it with toys, things to climb on, things to mess with, things to build gorilla nests out of, and so forth.

Lastly… they put a little staircase in one corner of the room. At the top of the staircase was a big bunch of bright yellow bananas.

When the apes woke up, they went about their gorilla business. Shortly, one of the gorillas noticed the bananas. He wandered over and walked up the staircase…

…and triggered the hidden switch on one of the steps.

SUDDENLY, SIRENS WENT OFF! ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE! JETS OF ICE WATER ERUPTED FROM THE WALLS, SOAKING AND TERRORIZING THE POOR GORILLAS!

…who huddled terrified in the middle of the room, until it all quit.

Later, it happened again, when a different gorilla tried to get the bananas.

Within a week, all the gorillas had firmly learned the lesson: DO NOT SCREW AROUND WITH THAT STAIRCASE.

The scientists kept careful notes.

One day, they shipped Koko The Gorilla off to the zoo, and now there were only four gorillas. They replaced him with Bobo, who was from a circus. The five apes sniffed each other, made friends, and all was well.

…until Bobo noticed the bananas. Interested, Bobo ambled over to the staircase.

Gogo, the leader, noticed this, and HOWLED at Bobo.

Bobo looked at Gogo, as if to say, “What’s YOUR malfunction?” and put his foot on the first step.

IMMEDIATELY, ALL FOUR OTHER GORILLAS leaped at Bobo, tackled his ass, and beat the living shit out of him. Why? They knew damn good and well what happened when you climb those goddamn stairs, and this was about the only way they had to effectively and quickly communicate to Bobo what the story was. Did Bobo understand? Hell, no. But he quickly learned that you do NOT mess with the stairs.

In time, Dodo was shipped off to a zoo, and they were four again. He was replaced with Hoho.

…and when Hoho decided to have a look at those bananas, he was promptly dissuaded by United Ape Action. Including Bobo. Bobo had never heard the sirens, never been soaked with ice water. He had no real clue why he was helping beat the crap out of Hoho, except that this is what one did when an ape tried to climb the stairs. He did not question. He had LEARNED.

Over the course of a year, apes came and apes went. The experiment finally concluded when ALL FIVE apes had never heard the sirens, never been soaked… but would STILL attack any ape who tried to get the bananas, which were changed regularly, for color and freshness, and eaten by the three scientists on their Cheerios in the morning. The sirens and water jets were eventually disconnected, since they were a waste of resources.

Finally, the scientists concluded their study. They wrote their reports. One got a job at Stanford, the second went on to work in Africa, and the third went on to make ape documentaries.

But the room with five apes remained. In time, three more scientists got hold of it. They were equipped with speak and spell tools, symbols, and computers, and they wanted to see if they could teach the gorillas to use sign language.

The work went well, and the scientists wrote many reports. Including one that said, “Gee, I wonder why the apes seem to make a point of avoiding that staircase, over in the corner…?”

You know something?

Most employees… and nearly ALL bosses… don’t really communicate any better than the gorillas in my freakin’ story.

And once a rule is in place… it may well be there forever.

Even after the sirens, water cannons, and bananas are long gone…

13

In my current office, we have no formal written dress code (unwritten is business casual Mon-Thurs., casual Fri.) We do, however, have a written fragrance policy. Guess whose office manager is sensitive to artificial fragrances, and many flowers?

14

I used to work at a newspaper. Every afternoon, someone from the press room would bring a paper to every employee in the building.

One day we had a big meeting where the owner of the paper chewed us out - for reading the paper at our desks. He was furious.

The reporters tried to explain that they liked to check their articles for errors. No! That was wrong! They were not to read the newspaper at their desks.

He then went on to tell us, that he got phone calls all the time about stories in the paper. He would tell the callers that he hadn’t read the paper. He said they would be shocked and even angry that he hadn’t read his own paper. But he never read the paper at his desk, because it was wrong!

15

A bit of a hijack, but it’s a good idea to check articles for errors after publication. I’ve been working at a newspaper for the last fortnight or so, and on Friday morning, everyone in the office was reading the newly-published paper. One of the journalists (her name is Julia) started gibbering slightly as she read through one of her features. Apparently, she’d written up some captions for the pictures in the article, and she’d meant to double-check on the names of some of the people pictured. Sadly, she forgot to do this, and there’s a picture of a couple, Bill and Norma Stuart, which is neatly captioned - “Seen here are the grandparents, Bill and Stuart.”

General consensus - oops.

16

We have some dumb rule that only family members are allowed into our private offices. Everyone else is suppose to stay in the reception area. Nobody follows it, but it lead to a real bruhaha when someone cited me for having the two-daughters-my-lesbian-sister’s-partner-gave-birth-to-and-she-adopted in my office for 15 minutes, cause 'they’re not really your nieces."

17

In my experience, most workplace rules are simple dominance behavior. The same feelings that makes big wolves pee on smaller wolves and big baboons mount smaller baboons of both sexes are found in most workplaces, and result in rules that may make little or no sense but do reinforce the boss’ feeling of being on top of things (or to be more accurate, people).

Frex, my wife’s boss, who is a short, stupid, dickless man who can’t use the Internet, won’t hire anyone of either sex taller than he is, won’t hire guys generally, and forbids his staff to use the Internet unless they have a pressing business need to do so. It’s so obvious what’s going on that you have to laugh sometimes.

18

I once had a job where every month or so, I had to copy a stack of 15-20 floppy disks. I had only one computer, and this was back in the days of single tasking computers, so copying a floppy made it so that the computer was unusable for anything else. Copying that stack took at least an hour, sometimes longer.

I typically read a book or a newspaper while copying the floppies. I had asked for work-appropriate reading material (magazines related to my job, for example) but they wouldn’t purchase them. So I read whatever I had on hand.

After doing this for a few months in a row, I got called into my supervisor’s office and was thoroughly bitched out for reading a book while copying floppies. I pointed out that I was working, I was NOT goofing off, and that the floppies did need to get copied. Didn’t matter. I then asked “So, what should I do when I copy them? Stare at the wall?”

My supervisor’s answer: “Well, they are paying you, if they want you to stare at a wall while you copy the floppies then that’s what you should do.”

I quit that job about a month later. I couldn’t take it any more.

19

My current place of employment just got a brand new COO (well he’s really more of a general manager but he thinks COO is more impressive) in his first week here he went on a random policy creation spree with some very strange results, epecially the dress code which includes the following gems:

** Undergarments **
Worn and styled appropriately

So I can’t wear my leopard skin thong to work anymore in case Frank decides to do an underwear inspection one day… Though I seem to remember an amusing story from Wang-Ka about the hazards of wearing thongs to work that make that seem like a bad idea anyway… :slight_smile:

There’s also a full page in the dress code about personal hygiene including reminders to bath daily and to use deoderant, a list of when we should be washing our hands that would make Howard Hughes proud:

Anytime you’ve had to touch your mouth, nose, ears or hair
After using the restroom
After eating
Following any contact with dirty work areas
Following contact with a patient
After sneezing or coughing
Upon arrival and frequently throughout the workday.

Granted we are an oncology clinic so sanitation is important for those that deal with patients, but people with regular patient contact already know sanitation proceedures, this list is mostly for office goobs like me (I’m the IT manager).

Not so much a policy but it is strange: There is a washer and drier in my office and people are in and out washing linens and towels 'n stuff all day.
I

20

I worked for a place that made us back in to parking spaces, too. It was so in case our battery went dead, we’d be positioned for a jump. (Shit…I accidentally typed “hump” and cracked myself up!)

I also worked with a pair of obnoxious control freaks. They made me lock up the post-it notes and other supplies that I had to use EVERY SINGLE MINUTE OF MY DAY. And I had to get the key from some uptight suck-up secretary every time I needed something. They also forbade open toed shoes. In an office environment. In case we dropped blueprints on our foot. I lasted a month.