Every job has some sort of Murphy’s Law type rules. Mine is that all hostel guests will wait until one in the morning, after you have gone to bed, to make complaints. The complaints will always be things you can do nothing about (Last night it was two girls complaining that there weren’t any other guests to mingle with, not quite understanding that it’s called the low season for a reason).
Which immutable laws of nature apply to your job?
“Get it in writing.”
What Paul said. Plus: “cover your ass”. CC your boss, his boss, all their relatives, and the CEO in every email if an issue becomes “hot”.
I forgot: “Don’t always trust the customer.” If they say: “We didn’t change anything, and all of a sudden our database won’t start”, they changed something.
No matter how much someone says that they have tested your pre-launch website and that everything looks good… they will wait until 20 minutes AFTER it’s launched before noticing the most basic possible way in which what it does is not quite what they want. 
The words of wisdom of an old-timer, when I was first in the job, many years ago (and my subsequent experience seems to have proven him right):
“DON’T VOLUNTEER FOR ANYTHING. DON’T ANSWER TELEPHONES.”
“They will forget”
Document every conversation with students, even though you aren’t an actual therapist yourself. Print out their e-mails and place them in their files.
If you begin to do the much needed, very neglected filing – or even announce your intentions to do so – all hell will break loose.
There will be dire (current) client emergencies, security procedures, trips to the ER and 6 new clients assigned without our office being told until the clients walk in the door. Oh, and at least two warrants will need to be walked through. Right now.*
I wish that was hyperbole. God, I wish it was.
Also, never disagree with the director. Ever. Just nod and smile.
*I work in a juvenile detention center/intensive supervised probation office.
Beware of the phone ringing at 4:58 PM on a Friday. This is always the call with the issue that takes 55 minutes to resolve. It’s never an emergency, it’s just some kooky thing that sucks up too much time. We always answer the phone of course, but there’s a lot of eye-rolling when it rings at that time.
Pebkac.
Give everybody a day off, shut down the shop and intend on just being there for a couple of hours yourself and a customer will call needing something urgent that will necessitate your waiting around all morning for them to come and pick up.
Can y’all tell that happened to me this morning? Things were real slow, so I got all generous yesterday and told everybody that they could have to day off (with pay!) as an extra holiday. Naturally the phone rings this morning five freakin’ minutes after I get here, so I will sit here until the customer comes to get the one item they cannot live without another second. Wanna start a betting pool that it’ll be early afternoon before the fool even shows up?
New employees will have a modicum of skill in some area, but in the rest of the areas where they need to know how to do specific functions, they will be partially or totally useless. For example, people who come to work in radio, to make sound for the air, who have never operated a digital sound recording program or edited anything in their entire lives. They won’t know how to read a level meter, or know how to record without overloading the signal. Everything they do will sound like crap because they don’t know what they’re doing and are terrified to learn. Then they’ll make a bunch of recordings that are unusable, because they misunderstood the instructions and save them as way files (instead of .wav). Despite numerous, frequent offers to teach them how to do their jobs, they will never, ever find the time, or ask for any assistance. If possible, they will be computer illiterate.
This is retail.
All rules apply only when a manager is watching. If a manager is not watching, no rules apply.
If a supervisor tells you to do something that bends the rules, and you do it, and a manager sees you, you are in trouble. The supervisor will get a raise.
Managers have no rules. No drinks on the sales floor, unless you’re a manager. If an empty drink container is found on the sales floor, you get in trouble, even if it was your manager that left it.
I need to go into business for myself.
Never Question the Head of our Legal Divison. About anything. She’s right. Move along.
I work in residential property management (mostly lower income, but not subsidized). Our unwritten rule is thus: If a tenant is talking, and it’s about money or their property, there’s a 90% chance that they’re lying. Really. It’s sad, but true.
I gotta eat my words. The customer showed up at 9:45 this morning to get what he wanted. That means I can get outta here when I decide to now. See, I knew if I said he wouldn’t show up he’d show up… or sump’n like that.
I think it stands for Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Computer. Although I have always seen it as Pebcac - Problem Exists Between Chair And Computer.
No matter how many times you review and edit a document, you will find errors in the 500 copies that come back from the printer.