What's the most unreasonable, pointless, inane, illegal, or just plain insane policies you've been subjected to in the workplace?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
101

On the one hand, my district has been pretty chill over the last 35 years about all sorts of shit. On the other hand, the weird shit that comes down from the state has to be seen to be believed*. On the Gripping Hand, in my district most of the admin drink with the staff. Hell, they’ve been known to buy the first round at Happy Hour sometimes on Prep days.

    • The one that came to mind is the mandate that we Government teachers have to teach the Federalist Papers. And not in general - the regulation specifically lists the ones we must emphasize. Has any teacher in the state ever done this? (Specifically, I mean. We teach the papers in general in both junior and senior years.) I doubt it. Has anyone ever checked? I doubt that even more. Did the idiot who wrote the reg get re-elected? Nope.
102

I’m fairly certain EVERY workplace now probably has the same cell phone policy which is what ours was for the longest time (it still might be, it’s just that at this point literally nobody enforces it unless it’s egregious)

But my work’s cell phone police is as follows…

  • No Cell Phones allowed on the work floor, all cell phones must be stored either in your locker or in your personal vehicle

  • Have all your friends/relatives be given the phone number to the manager of the facility if they need to contact you

  • In case of immediate emergencies have people contact your immediate supervisor.

  • Upon your supervisor being called due to emergency, your supervisor will then find you, relay the news, and determine if it is acceptable to go retrieve your own cell phone for further contact

103

I had a job at a call center in the late 80s where we were expected to clock out for lunch, for breaks, and for bathroom breaks (called run-outs, IIRC). Also, we clocked in when we got to the room we were assigned to that day, and if it turned out all the phones were in use, the room supervisor would tell us which room to go to, and we’d clock out of the first room and then clock back in at the next.

104

Before I retired I was an engineer and everyone on staff from engineers to line workers had their phones on their person and were able to use them whenever they wanted unless, obviously, the usage interfered with their work. Anyone could check texts and send an quick reply and even answer a quick phone call. I worked at a few places and that’s how it was at all of them.

105

My workplace didn’t generally have such rules unless a person’s cell phone ( or personal use of their desk phone) interfered with their work. But your description of your workplace, particularly your use of “work floor” makes it seem you are considering only one type of workplace ( maybe a factory or a warehouse ) and not others. There were only two workplaces I had where cell phones had to be left in either a vehicle or a locker - one was a jail and the other a prison. And I still had a phone at my desk in both of them, so there wasn’t any reason for someone to contact the supervisor/manager in case of emergency.

106

I can sort of see that for a public university, but we were actually out there entertaining clients. We might go to a show in Vegas with three or four clients/representatives. If we didn’t pay very close attention, a couple drinks would go on the tab and we would be told we were responsible for a $500 bill.

107

Yes, which is why that earlier system was stupid, and they got rid of it.

108

Did she continue working there?

109

Yes, but I have no idea why. The guy was a creep and an asshole who smiled to your face and then stuck a stiletto in the back of your neck.

110

You just happened to have Epsom salts available?

111

Probably the same kind of person who wants Critical Race Theory removed from the public schools, never mind that it isn’t there anyway.

112

Nope. Had to take the company vehicle and use the company credit card (note: the employee had requested Epsom salts so we weren’t dispensing meds for first aid). This may seem weird, but it goes along with “low pay, slashed benefits but hey: pizza Friday!” management philosophy.

113

Back in my own typing pool days (early 1980s), the company I worked for had a reward program for different levels of money-saving ideas. I had an idea that would save the company more than $100 a year - I cannot for the life of me remember what it was - and my prize, because it was Level Red, was a light bulb painted red.

Really.

114

Whenever somebody just mentions a “break,” without any qualification, the default is that it’s a 10-15 minute paid break. And for lunch breaks, virtually everybody just says “lunch.”

That policy was illegal.

When employers provide employees rest breaks that last 20 minutes or less, federal law requires that those breaks be paid.

115

As a flip-side story — an example where an employer could have been a jerk about its policy, but chose to be reasonable and accommodating, counter to the drift of the thread…

Years ago, I was working for a big technology company. They sent me to a multi-day training in Silicon Valley. Under the expense policy, I had a $75/day food allowance, covering breakfast, lunch, and dinner — not a per diem, just reported and reimbursed after the fact.

I asked them in advance: Is this $75/day a maximum each day? Or is it okay if, at the end of the trip, my average food cost per day falls below that threshold? They didn’t have a ready answer, so they went off to get a policy ruling. They came back and said, yeah, that’s fine; your budget is $75/day for the overall trip.

So for the first few days, my breakfast was the free donut and coffee at the training. For lunch, I bought a foot-long Subway sandwich, and ate half of it; the other half was dinner.

Then, on the last day, I took myself to a Michelin-starred winery restaurant, and blew things out with a one-person $300+ dinner and wine pairing.

My expense report was not rejected outright. They called me in to ask about it. I pointed out the policy ruling (which I’d gotten via email, in writing), and showed the math, where I was just under the daily allowance. They pondered for a bit, then agreed, and accepted it for payment.

Then they changed the policy, which is lame for anyone who might have had the same bright idea later. But they did allow it for me.

116

In terms of “Completely Pointless” rules set at my work.

We had a facility wide discussion once about how you weren’t allowed to sleep at work after some old guy got repeatedly caught hiding and falling asleep while on the job in various hidden areas around the place.

Of course after the discussion the only person outraged at the rule was said old man, who legitimately got so pissed at it he went out to his car and slept for the rest of his shift.

117

Somebody tried to bring their daughters girl scout cookies to sell at work and management immediately stopped them, because according to the vendors agreement with the people that stock our vending machines only they were allowed to sell food in our work place.

There was a counter-protest where employees began to bring in their own snacks to sell to other employees but then management claimed if we didn’t stop doing that the vendors were going to stop stocking the vending machines. So everyone eventually stopped.

I’m still curious if true how the vendors would have heard of this anyway. They’re 3rd party contractors who restock the machines the 3rd day of every month, they’re not going to wander in randomly, see someone eating a box of girl scout cookies and then start sounding the alarm back at base.

118

We have a locker room at my work for people to store valuables in lockers or put their street clothes in there so not to dirty then. The locker room isn’t assigned it’s first come first serve bring your own lock but about 75% of the lockers are unoccupied because most people just don’t need a locker at work.

As a result most lockers stayed unused and unlocked, but then people started throwing trash into the unused lockers for some reason which eventually stuck up the place if it was old food tossed into a locker. Work responded by buying cheap key locks for every single unoccupied locker (all 1000 of them) and locking them themselves.

Problem solved right? Wrong, the key locks were a temporary measure. They then planned to COMPLETELY gut the existing locker rooms and install new lockers that had BUILT-IN combination locks to prevent unauthorized people from opening them, which apparently was “more secure” than the key locks because in theory someone could use bolt cutters, cut the lock off, and then start throwing trash into the locker again. So they started by gutting the women’s locker room first, installing the new lockers over the course of the week, but then getting so much immediately backlash on how stupid it was to use combo locks with preset combinations people had to newly remember that they never started gutting the men’s locker room.

So now my work has two locker rooms with completely different sets of lockers.

119

I worked for a multinational 10 years ago with about 8000 employees. But the Chairman was the founder and liked to micro manage policies as if it was still a small company. He was 82 years old and had odd views on technology.

He didn’t believe in mobile phones because call charges were so high back in the 80’s. But someone once showed him email on a blackberry and he fell in love. So most staff were issued a company blackberry on a data only plan which meant it was good for email only. Staff were forbidden from configuring email on their personal phones. So everyone had 2 devices and 2 chargers.

We were forbidden from having personal items delivered to the office. All parcels and letters were opened and anything that didn’t look work related would lead to a disciplinary. This was because the postroom was outsourced on a contract that the chairman had personally negotiated and we were being charged on a per item basis. As a result it usually took an extra day or two for parcels to progress through the post room. For urgent IT stuff we used to get it delivered to a nearby Amazon locker. But the Chairman found out and outlawed that too.

120

The asset tag stories reminded me of something that happened at a previous company. We mostly sold software that customers would install themselves but for a couple products we offered either a virtual appliance or a physical rack mounted server with the software preinstalled. A major UK retailer had bought four rack mounted servers, two for production and two for test. Everything was installed, configured and working fine. When it came time for a software upgrade it would be done on the test servers first. The tech doing the upgrade went to the rack where they had been installed and found it empty. Because nobody had put an asset tag on them the people who inventory the racks didn’t know what they were so pulled them out and had them crushed.