Article created by: Greta Jaruševičiūtė
“Rules are good. Rules help control the fun,” said Monica Geller in Season 5 of Friends. And she might be right; rules are indeed good and important as they help avoid chaos in so many situations. However, similarly to Monica, some rules can be too much.
Examples of rules taken one step too far have been discussed by members of the Quora community. In a recent thread, they’ve shared office rules that made them say "You gotta be kidding me", which we have gathered on this list for you to browse. Scroll down to find them and see for yourself how bizarre some rules can get.
#1
Image credits: Stephanie Burke
#2
Image credits: William Eisenhauer
#3
Image credits: Ellen Sharon
#4
I worked in college athletics and we had an athletics director that was literally a control freak nutjob. One day she sent the staff an email saying: “Effective immediately, if you leave the building for ANY reason during the day, you are required to email me prior to leaving, telling me where you are going, why you’re leaving, and when you are returning.” Wait, what? Do we work in a prison? Fed up with the totalitarian state, one of my coworkers decided to answer fire with fire: “I’m leaving to go up to the library to go to the bathroom. They have the cleanest toilets on campus. This might take a while. I’ll be back when I’m done.” The next day, the new rule was revoked.
Image credits: Ira Thor
#5
Image credits: Frank Hollis
#6
Image credits: Alan English
#7
Image credits: Lisa Newall
#8
Image credits: Ben Skirvin
#9
Image credits: Bart Crunk
#10
Image credits: Christopher Beckford
#11
Image credits: Terry Turner
#12
Image credits: Sarah Winston
#13
Image credits: Tyler Victor
#14
Image credits: David Ecale
#15
Image credits: Abe Goodman
#16
Image credits: Jim
#17
Blue pens are bad no blue pens. Blue pens are forbidden. —but— Only forbidden in the software team and QA department. Everybody else can use blue or black or whatever color they want. Why? We were a medical device company and submitted validation paperwork to the FDA. This was back in the 90’s when everything was done on paper records. Apparently, one FDA auditor suggested that blue is bad because some brand of copy machine (I think it was xerox) couldn't pick up the blue pen color. We didn't use those kinds of machines but it didn't matter. The FDA auditor says something and it becomes gospel, no questions asked. It made no sense, didn't matter. We spent more time redoing data sheets and other paperwork because of wrong pen color. The company kept buying them and stocking them in the supply cabinet. I suggested that we should stop buying them in a staff meeting and everybody looked at me like I had the heads. So we just kept buying them and redoing paperwork.
Image credits: Harrison McFarland
#18
A company I worked for had an office secretary that brought in a ridiculous rule regarding sugar. Because our sugar consumption was so high we had to make our coffee then take it to her for the sugar. She would unlock her cupboard and dispense some sugar for you. Ridiculous! I simply brought my own sugar to work.
Image credits: Brennan Stark
#19
We had a rule that every electronics box installed in the place where I worked had to have a special label tied on. This label gave lots of useful information about what the box was, what the part number was, serial number of the box etc etc. Right at the end there was a section for any safety information. Unless there was any specific safety information for the box, it was normally left blank. New boss comes in, and decides that the safety instructions need to be filled in on all the labels. First we had to work out what the safety instruction would be, most of these boxes were electrionics and while they may be a bit hefty there didn’t contain any nasty chemicals or need to be handled with care so picking something that was appropriate but obviously not just there because we had to meant we started getting creative. One wag decided that in the case of a large black box of electronics, roughly the size of four shoe boxes and weighing some 40 pounds, the most appropraiate safety advice should be “Do not swallow. If swallowed do not induce vomiting”. It was found, there was a fuss, the fuss came to an end when the boss of the new boss found out and had a quiet word with the new boss.
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Image credits: Andy Dickson
