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Hey Pandas, What’s The Worst Rule You’ve Seen Someone Actually Try To Enforce? (Closed)
Rules are a given part of life, but sometimes people go too far by making pointless rules.
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I'm 29M with a desk job. I have long hair but no one seems to think it's a big deal and I take care of them daily, so no hygienic concerns either. Until one day a manager wanted a power fix.
Manager : "you'll have to cut your hair"
Me : "why ? Are there safety concerns ? because women in the team don't have to cut them"
Manager : "You know, it's for the client"
Me : "okay, just send me an email asking me to do it and i'll do it"
Didn't get an other complain, I guess he was smart enought to understand wrinting it down would be a solid proof for an harassment lawsuit.
Some schools in Japan( mostly private JH and high schools) would make students with different hair color to dye their hair black, as this is the only real Japanese hair color, and they shouldn’t differ from the majority. Things are changing now, but it still takes time.
Our school tried to enfore not carrying more than one pencil, then made us buy new ones from them. Saying it was a "safety hazard." Still bugs me to this day.
Huge theme restaurant I waited tables at (would wait on over 100 customers during a shift) didn't allow trays to be used except for those small trays for serving drinks. Well one server who was there waaaaaaaay too long and did the schedules felt that beverage trays should be eliminated too so they removed them. This was a HUGE pain in the a*s because you could only carry maybe 4 beverages without a tray versus being able to carry a bunch at once, so you always had to ask someone to follow you with the drinks you couldn't carry.
Well one server (who hated this head server like the rest of us) decided to comply by always asking this particular server to follow him whenever he needed help with the rest of the drinks that he couldn't carry himself, even going so far as to walk to the other end of the restaurant if this other server was stationed there. This started to catch on with the rest of us and we would go out of our way to ask her to help us carry our drinks out.
About a month later we noticed the drink trays miraculously re-appear back in the side-stations and nothing was ever mentioned again about the rule after that.
My school implemented a "one way" rule in the hallways. The problem is, each grade level is on their own sort of loop, with bathrooms and closets in the middle. So, if you have two classes next to each other, you will get yelled at by a woman who's job is to harrass you about why you have no life plans if you don't walk all the way around.
They also closed the 2nd-3rd floor segment of one of the staircases, so now everybody coming and going from the 3rd floor has to use one staircase, in addition to the people using that staircase because it's closer.
We live in fear of the fire marshal.
Yikes, I feel bad for you man. The school I went to got rid of the one way rule due to people not following it/the rule causing more harm than anything.
during an emergency, dont take your backpack or your phone and dont contact anyone.
B*TCH DO YOU WANT US TO DIE WITHOUT NYONE KNOWING.
worked in the district attorney's office where the dress code for women when going to court was a dress or suit with stockings, of course. also expected to wear make up. the one rule that really got to me was the mandatory need to wear stockings. the place where i worked was basically the lower 40 of hell because the temps averaged high 90s with weeks sometimes into the triple digits. i went to work bare legged a couple of times and the office manager told me that it was unacceptable. i got along very well with the d.a. and after getting reprimanded a second time i went to his office. he asked me what he could do for me and i told him that he needed to either give me and all the other ladies a raise or amend our current health insurance to include some over the counter treatments. he asked me what specifically we needed and i, with a straight face, told him monistat vaginal cream for yeast infections. he asked me if i was serious and what brought this to my mind. i then told him that wearing pantyhose in temperatures over 90 degrees was like having a jungle in your shorts and it really did cause infections - something that he didn't know about. i also told him that if he had any cross dressing men in the office they would be complaining, too. i could get away with this because, as i stated, we got along and i was known for having sarcastic humor as well as being outspoken. the next day he came into my office and told me that he had talked to his wife and she confirmed what i had told him. shortly after, the code was amended to allow the ladies to go bare legged during the warmer weather. mission accomplished. for being in what is perceived as a very conservative environment i was fortunate to have superiors that allowed me to be myself.
Good for you! I’m glad the DA was actually a decent human being.
Customer is always right rule. It needs to go.
it started out as "the customer is always right in matters of taste" so store clerks wouldn't lose a sale by disagreeing with a customer on whether the object for sale was a good choice for the customer.
Girls can't wear short shorts, tank tops with spaghetti straps, shorter dresses, and all pants have to be longer than the length of your middle finger with your arms at your side. All because the dumb boys can't focus on the teacher if girls wear other stuff.
Ah yes. Mine also had no hats or head coverings (later removed due to one teacher repeatedly dress-coding a girl for her hijab), all girls must wear a bra but NO visible bra straps or bra outlines under shirt, and no crop tops.
no pets in the room during zoom classes
i'm quite literally in my own house, my dog can be wherever he wants to be.
and no eating drinking or going to the bathroom (my schools zoom rules) 🙄 like fukc that, im in my own house im gonna do whatever the hell i want.
My mum made a rule, "no reaching across people or across the table", at meal times. Then she made a rule "no asking for things to be passed". You want the salt, ketchup, butter, water? You have to wait silently for someone else to notice and pass it towards you. I'm not sure it would have worked even with adults, but this was 5 children, between 3 and 11 years old. No one passed anyone anything. I got told off for not eating my dinner, then I got yelled at and told to leave the table for blaming her "stupid rule". I was 10, aggrieved, and hangry. I refused to leave the table without dinner, and shared my belief that I shouldn't be punished because she made up rules that were stupid and wouldn't work.
It ended about as well as you might expect.
My elementary school had a rule along the lines of "if you see something bad happening and don't say something you also get in trouble". One time there was a massive brawl on the playground at recess and I saw some other kids run to get the teachers so I just kept chatting and trading Pokemon cards with my friend. Friend and I got called to the principal's office after recess and were given detention because we didn't also go get the teachers. My parents didn't care (they thought the rule was bull and I wasn't in trouble with them) but my friend's parents got so mad that their daughter's previously perfect record was tainted, they went absolutely nuclear and I think they threatened to get their lawyers. Pretty sure they lightened up on that rule afterwards and they removed the detention from our records.
Zero tolerance is bullish!t as well. If a bully f***s with you, defend yourself. Any school that coddles bullies should be held accountable
My old carer tried to make it so I only had an hour of a social life per day. It was like she didn’t want me to have friends. I ended up confiding in them instead of her. I’m out of that placement now and I’ve been moved somewhere else.
As an in home caregiver i say likely controlling. Maybe lazy if socialing made more work. But socialism is hugely important for mental health, which is part of a caregivers job.
In grade five, a teacher tried to force all students to write using wooden pencil and she completely prohibited mechanical pencils. She used to even submit those pencils and scold some students. I still don't get the point of it.
Also, in music class, the teacher once implemented a rule that you can't touch an instrument if you don't know how to use it. Then what is the purpose of the class?
My 4th grade teacher did the pencil thing too. She sent me to the principals office for having one of the grippy things on my wooden one too
I had a teacher get upset with me for wearing a hat outside on campus....as he was also wearing one...
Haha, id stare at him and be like eat ur words mister, that hypocrite
Most traditional rules parents maintain. Particularly ones that silence children, which just creates emotional distance and prevents them from speaking up if something is wrong.
Then there's sharing. Teaching children that they must share everything is counterproductive in the long run. Same with forcing bugs or physical affection. They just have to unlearn that behavior or wind up being overly accommodating and getting taken advantage of as adults. It's more important to teach them to set and respect boundaries. With my son, I found parenting way easier and more rewarding when I released the millions of arbitrary rules I grew up walking on eggshells around and just focused on teaching how to be a happy, healthy, and safe person in this intense and crazy world I summoned him into. As a result I have a well liked well adjusted kid who has a million times the confidence I could even dream of having, particularly back in middle school!
They started charging us for a lot more thing at school. You need a pad? A dollar. Tampon? A dollar. You want to buy breakfast (which is usually just a stale muffin or kolache or a tiny thing of cereal with a milk and a juice)? Yeah that'll be $3.50. I don't know, just feels wrong to charge students for food and resources.
When I was in elementary school, pencils, tablets and binders were provided by the school. Parents didn't have to buy these things.
If there is an emergency at my school, such as a school shooter or legit fire, we have to put our phones away. Turn them on silent, and tell our parents to check the FCKIN school website. Like lmao who da fck would listen to that? Not me, I’m calling my parents and booting up and leaving as fast as possible.
It’s sad that kids even have to worry about a school shooter, but are they enforcing this because it would be better if everyone stays quiet as possible? I don’t know the protocol for a school shooting, but what if there was a fire for example? I think it would be best if no one was on their phones and paying attention, so they can get everyone out safely.
i got scolded for bringing my back pack into class. even when it was used to carry heavy books and pencils. so i got a large pink and white bag that i carry around like a purse. its long enough hang down to my thighs. i never got in trouble for bringing it to class
no one uses their lockers at my school , most people don't even have one so we just have our bags in class
Employer tried requiring us to log how we spent our time per shift in 15-minute blocks (e.g. 11:00-11:15, 11:15-11:30, etc.) What makes this even wackier is that we were salaried (paid the same if we "worked" 20 hours a week or 60, we got 40.) Didn't last a week, as it was both tedious to compile and analyze... But more than proved the "Pareto Principle" (80% of the work is done by 20% of the people, in this example.)
“All shorts and skirts must be past fingertip length.
All shirts must have backs, and straps wider than 3 fingers
All girls must wear a bra
No bra straps may be visible
Absolutely NO crop tops
All shirts must be completely opaque
NO hats or head coverings whatsoever
Failure to comply can and will result in removal from class, changing clothes, and/or up to 3 days suspension.”
— My middle school dress code (they eventually repealed the hat one because a teacher kept dress-coding a girl for wearing a hijab.
they removed the hat one at my son's school too, probably for the same issues, we have a large indian population, most are hindu, but there's a smaller muslim population and at the middle school level is usually when girls start wearing head coverings. also i think they realized the hat rule is kinda outdated anyway. that started when it was considered socially rude to wear a hat indoors anywhere, back in the day you'd take off a hat at a restaurant or in a store or at someone's house, but that's not really a social norm anymore. So a lot of schools are letting that one go and just saying the hats can't have certain logos or symbols on them, following the same guildelines as shirts (no gang stuff, no profanity, no drugs or alcohol symbols/labels etc)
No sitting on the table. No kicking my litter. No scratching soft can-openers.
So one of the schools i went to essentially was separated into two halves-- one was for kindergarten-grade 4 the other was grade 4 to grade 8. My grade 6 class (this was my first year at the school) was so large that the only room suitable for the size was a kindergarten room. Unfortunately all the vending machines was in the other side of the school and there were hall monitors with strict instructions not to let anyone cross over (regardless of grade)... so even though some friends of friends were on the other side (there were 4 grade 6 classes, but we were the only french immersion class), we couldn't go over (doubly for me since I was new so the hall monitors genuinely didn't know what grade I was in as they hadn't seen me grow up). I snuck over to get some chocolate milk only to get stopped, I explained how unfair it was-- and still no dice. I ended up getting detention all week, and a call home which my parents came in and explained how I was right and it was dumb... they were like 'rules are in place for safety' and my parents were so furious over the stupidity that instead of detention that week they decided to just take me from school that week.
The funny thing was I was tested before joining the school and was slotted for grade 8 not grade 6 but because my parents already knew i was 1yr younger than everyone else, they didn't want me to be 3yrs younger and essentially picking a high school at 10. They opted to keep me in my correct grade in the hopes I would make friends my own age. Had they put me into grade 8, the class size would have been small enough that I would have been on the correct side of the school.
But yes a week of detention over a chocolate milk. I'd say that was a dumb rule.
Not so much a law, but I've seen some dumb rules in combat sports that made me scratch my head.
In some athletic commissions, climbing up the cage in MMA during a celebration (like raising your arms or preparing for a backflip) is considered "exiting the cage before the official result is read" is a source for some fighters either getting a suspension, or even fined. It's fine in certain US states, but not in others.
A poor guy remembered this rule after he won his UFC debut (in 7 seconds), and mid way climbing up the cage remembered this rule, jumped off... only to blow out his knee.
This next one needs a bit of context, and might come off as long winded, so please bear with me on it.
This second one happened in Illinois (this part is important) back in 2018 for the Professional Fighters League, in a fight between Thiago Tavares and Robert Watley. Watley was throwing a front kick while getting punched, and accidentally hit Thiago in the groin (no ill will in the kick, especially if you saw Watley's reaction after Tavares got hit).
After getting an illegal strike, the recipient of gets 5 minutes to recover before the fight resumes. That's very standard so far, regardless of combat sport.
If the fighter cannot resume after 5 minutes, the fight is usually deemed as a disqualification win for the recipient, or a no contest, and they organize a rematch at a later date. That's the norm in most organizations across the world... But because it happened in the state of Illinois, Watley was declared the winner by TKO.
The justification is because all groin strikes in Illinois are considered accidental, and if someone is unable to continue, then the one who can is the winner... which is very dumb if you ask me.
My school has a whole block with one-way corridors except the narrowest corridor of the block. That corridor is the worst of all the corridors.
At one of my old schools, the amount of time given to eat was only like 20 minutes, plus how long it took to get to the cafeteria. After that it was recess, but you weren’t allowed to eat at recess. If you weren’t done eating by the time it was recess, you could stay in the cafeteria to finish lunch. You had to go through the courtyard to get from the cafeteria to the recess area. The problem was, you weren’t allowed to go in the courtyard during recess. Several times I was walking back from the cafeteria and a teacher yelled at me for being in the courtyard during recess.
One school in my district got so overcrowded, kids were going hungry because lines were so long. Those who could started bringing breakfast and lunch. Free food students didn't eat some days. Plus, shorter lunch times with so many kids. I actually never ate breakfast because I always had lunch at 10:30am. And had to sneak snacks later in the afternoon
was not a job but a volunteer thing i was on an exit gate of a festival that in years past had a big litter issue from people leaving event and tossing trash on the ground so they asked me to stand with a trash can and tell everyone that they can't leave with "open containers" most compiled after an explanation some ignored me and a few as alcohol was served at event wanted to kick my a**e
i did not volunteer next year
Sincerely, the school rule that states girls can't show their embodied sexuality - because shoulders, legs, stomachs, hair, lip gloss - are all indicators of that. (I mean whaaat?) And if they aren't totally encased in clothing it causes a problem - it's a furious reaction from all sides.
What a croc of s**t to adults in society who would never say this to their children. And teachers. And children. Gawd bless the Heads who refuse this ideology - and ensure that it is fully discussed
Another silly one in MMA that requires some context.
In MMA, the Heavyweight division consists of fighters who fight between 206 pounds to 265 pounds (266 pounds if the competitors are not fighting for a championship). This was something that was made after the initial scrutiny of the sport back in the mid-late 90's to early 2000's, to help prevent fighters with massive weight advantages from fighting (example: a guy who weighs 155 pounds today would not fight an opponent that weighs 255 pounds).
However, at a PFL event in 2018 that happened in New York, the card got shuffled after the weigh ins. The originally scheduled event featured heavyweight fights between Kevin Tiller and Alex Nicholson, and Caio Alencar vs Jake Heun. The weigh ins came in as follows;
Kevin Tiller: 265.4
Alex Nicholson: 214.6
Caio Alencar: 243.2
Jake Heun: 224
Why did I bring up their weights? Well... New York has a rule that prevents fights at heavyweight with a weight difference of 25 pounds or more. Despite fights between guys at 230 going up against guys at 265 not perviously being issues. Anywhere else but New York, this fight would have happened without anyone batting an eye.
Instead, Tiller fought Alencar, and Nicholson went up against Heun. All the prep time these guys had for their original opponents? That went out the window.
I don’t really understand this, but I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted…
In my school the girls are not allowed to wear their hair in a bun under ANY circumstances, because "It looks messy" like, bro, not all buns are messy... But if the boys grow their hair out past their shoulders, they have to wear a bun, not a ponytail. Stupid rules
Also, we can't play truth and dare because people feel pressured to do the dare, and mind you, when we play we always ask the person if they are fine with the question/dare before doing it, and everyone is honest about it, I get that some people feeling like they HAVE to agree to play, but the session should have been more on the lines of "Dont pressure people into playing" rather than "ban the game" we had a whole 1 hr meeting about it and our teacher for some reason also ranted about her childhood crush on some Egyptian actor.
not being allowed to the bathroom in SCIENCE CLALL like they should know how bad it is not going tothe bathroom
At work, large room with cubicles, a fire exit at each end of the room, one leads to the front of the building, the other to the back. Had a fire in the front parking lot, heavy smoke blown by the wind enveloped the front of the building. Had to evacuate the building. Brain dead manager demanded the front part of the room use the front exit, regardless of the heavy smoke and fire dept. equipment. They were assigned the front door for emergency exit so the front door it will be. 25% of the people forced to use that door were out sick for days from smoke inhalation.
When I was in first grade, I had a teacher who was picky about writing the letter A. It could only be a double story A. Well, I was new to the class and started mid year and I was taught how to write A's the normal way. I got and F on my first spelling test there because I my A's weren't written double story. It didn't matter if the word was spelled correctly or not. I had been there a week.
Catholic high school in the middle west (USA). Pregnant girls could not enter school to finish/continue their high school diploma. Hated that. Since all were catholic they should have taken in consideration that they might have been pregnant by the holy spirit. At least that teached me in the 90s that religion is only to control people.
Yes, for sure. I knew (through my mom) a "born again Christian" woman and she was the most controlling hypocrite I've ever met. She used her religion in a "Do as God says, [but that doesn't apply to me, so Shhh]) type of way. She tried to control anyone who came into her orbit, including me, when she barged into our lives by way of being a "distant neighbor." She didn't hesitate to make herself known and to establish that everythng was "her way, or hit the highway." She once told me to my face that "She knew I wasn't a Christian" because I was a Catholic. So was my mom, but that didn't apply to her in this woman's distorted view. I was the devil, corrupting my poor, innocent mother, and had to be "gotten rid of." It took nearly 40 years, and this woman evicting me from a property she owned and forcing me and my 15 year old daughter into a shelter, for my mom to "see the light." She also took my mom's pain pills away from her and used them to control my mom. That was one step too far.
I live in a really dangerous city so we aren’t allowed to go outside during school hours. But there are two campuses. That we are required to go to during the day.
schools near me also have a no outside rule, and anyone coming inside has to use the main entrance and check in with security/office staff. but kids be ordering DoorDash and whatnot all day, i'm a delivery driver, so I'll go to drop it off, and they'll just summon me to some random door and open it to get the food, which sort of seems like a huge security breach, not to mention no adults are monitoring the doors, so the kids could just leave, prop them open and come back. i get why the rules are in place in todays world, but honestly i would have been so miserable. I left school so often back in 2000/2001 when i was starting high school. Went out to grab food, went out to walk around the trails nearby, went out to hang out on nice days on campus or just off campus with friends during lunch or study hours, or even walked home sometimes if i forgot something, then came back. and yeah, sometimes to skip. it wasn't all that secure, but school shootings weren't a daily occurrence back then.
The Permission to buy weapons
No talking to boys unless both of you have at least one foot on the slabbed area. We were an all girls school with an all boys school next door. There was one very small and heavily policed area where the two schoolyards met, made with slabs instead of asphalt. To talk to a boy, even your brother, you were genuinely made to go over and put your foot on the slabs.
At my high school (in the 80s), we supposedly weren't allowed to leave campus during our lunch break. Come lunchtime, all the kids who could drive made a beeline for the parking lot exit in their cars. Our "truancy officer" would be out there, yelling and waving his arms, as the kids zoomed by him. They probably wouldn't have hesitated (being stupid teens) to bump into him with their cars if he stood in front of them, and he knew it. Also, what was he going to do? Even if he could have written down all the licenses, there would be fifty people in detention everyday, and he was the one responsible for watching all the kids in detention. And we were a real rowdy bunch with lots of jokesters who wouldn't hesitate to make life miserable for him everyday.
My employer trying to forbid me and all my colleagues to discuss our wages.
the no phone policy. HERE ME OUT! i understand no phones in school and stuff because we shouldn't be on it but they get mad if it's on a desk or something. some days you don't have pockets or your phone will slip out of your pockets and teachers get mad. they even say "out of sight, out of mind" for a motto. i get the idea but it doesn't have to be that extreme.
I AGREE, plus we cant have it at lunch, that's just mean... so many more people would follow if we could check our phones at lunch, or to check the time, why cant we check the time on our phone and not the really off school clocks
An employee who had been with the company the longest, was the oldest employee, not very technology efficient (working in a technology company ) and had numerous complaints from previous employees about her and either transfered to a different department or quit because of her
Told all new hires the rules for the apartment were they were not allowed to abbreviate any words and not allowed to copy and paste. We all worked in a call center and 90% of the calls were the exact same issue. But she wanted us to type out the exact same reason for the call each and every time; and we were not allowed to let the caller go until we entered the reason for the call. If they hung up on us that was okay but we couldn't end the call until we had our notes typed in. She even tried to tell us on different occasions that if a customer hangs up on us then we should call them back, regardless of the reason they hang up.
Doesn't seem like a big deal. However, the department manager and her manager constantly complained that the customer wait times to talk to us were taking way too long. I decided early on that she was an idiot and I started using abbreviations, macros and copy and paste. Once I started doing that, The number of calls I was taking doubled and sometimes tripled versus what other people were clocking in. After talking to me on why my numbers were so good, they ignored her stupid rules as well . We started getting compliments on shorter wait times.
The wannabe supervisor was furious and hated me because I wouldn't do what she said and do it her way. She complained multiple times to management and started making my life miserable. Management agreed with me every time. But they wouldn't do anything about her. We had multiple fights in the employee department chat room. Reporting her did no good so I finally gave notice and told HR exactly why I was quitting.
After I left, one of the new hires was her new target and started making her life miserable. Have read recent reviews about the company for that department, it's all the same. One star reviews saying to avoid them. They've raised the pay and even started bribing new candidates and current employees by offering free beer after work. People are still quitting 🤣
Most companies would rather burn to the ground than get rid of a problem middle manager.
NO BACKPACKS. Only string bags. And you’re only allowed to go to your locker at the start of the day, lunch, and the end of the day. There wasn’t enough time for that if you wanted to catch the bus/get food, and string bags gave me terrible back pain or ended up ripping. Carrying around three binders, two textbooks, and a pencil pouch it is!
NO BACKPACKS. Only string bags. And you’re only allowed to go to your locker at the start of the day, lunch, and the end of the day. There wasn’t enough time for that if you wanted to catch the bus/get food, and string bags gave me terrible back pain or ended up ripping. Carrying around three binders, two textbooks, and a pencil pouch it is!
