26 Workplace Rules So Ridiculous They Sound Completely Made Up
Every workplace has rules. Some are important, like washing your hands before handling food or not operating heavy machinery after three margaritas. But some seem to exist because someone in management had a bad morning and made it everyone else’s problem. I’ve worked enough jobs to know that the people making the rules aren’t always the people who have to follow them. And sometimes, the less sense a rule makes, the more seriously management takes it.
Employees on Reddit shared some of the most ridiculous workplace rules they’ve encountered, and some of these sound like they were invented just to see how much nonsense people would tolerate before quitting. These stories prove that common sense isn’t always part of the employee handbook.
1. The Trash Can With A Disciplinary Record
“When I started working in an open office, each desk had a little trash can. On the first day, I moved the trash can out from under the desk to have more room for my legs. The next day, the trash can was gone. I filed a ticket to find out why, and they said it was the third infraction of that trash can being found in the walking space, so now it had been taken away.
I said the previous times hadn’t been me because I had just started, and I was told that the infractions stay with the trash can, not the person.”
2. Coffee That Only Benefits The Company
“I worked in an office where we were not allowed to drink the free coffee/K-cups after 2 p.m. because the caffeine would still be in our system after we clocked out at 5 p.m., and therefore, it wasn’t solely benefiting the business. So crazy!!!”
3. The Conference Room Sword-Fighting Ban
“There was a rule that we were not allowed to fight with swords in the large conference room. It mainly applied to me, though. And it wouldn’t have been a rule, but someone snitched.”
4. The Boss Who Banned The Word “Absurd”
“My boss made a rule that we couldn’t use the word ‘absurd’ because someone (OK, it was me) used that word about something he said in the workplace, and it hurt his feelings. So he had his sycophantic deputy put out a memo saying that word is banned from our workplace.”
5. Charging Your Phone Is Apparently Theft
“Not being allowed to charge a phone in the lunchroom while on lunch. The owner put a sign in the lunchroom saying that they considered it theft of electricity…”
— u/r64fd
6. The Scientist Who Had To Handle Hand Sanitizer
“During COVID, my workplace could only find hand sanitizer to buy in gallon-sized jugs. So they had to ask a scientist (me) to aliquot it into smaller squeeze bottles for distribution around the offices because I had the training to handle ‘chemicals.’
AND it had to be done in a fume hood while wearing gloves, a lab coat, and safety glasses because…it’s a chemical, and policy says we must wear PPE to avoid getting chemicals on our skin.”
7. The Office Where You Couldn’t Say “But”
“I worked in an office where we were not allowed to say ‘but’ and had to instead say ‘and also.’
‘I’d love to help you with that project, and also, I am very busy with my own work.’
Literally had meetings about it. Meetings. Plural.”
— u/skizem
8. Mandatory Birthday Celebrations
“I worked at a company where the HR director was a dictatorial psychopath. Each month, we had to meet in the break room. All the people with birthdays that month had to stand at the front of the room, and everyone else had to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to them.
We are adults. And when I say, ‘had to,’ I mean HAD to. She wrote it into policy. You were not allowed to miss it. She took a roll call to ensure everyone was there.
A few clever people would schedule vendor meetings, etc., to avoid having to do it… Then she forbade that too, putting a block on the Outlook calendars so nobody could schedule over it.
It was the cringiest corporate death march I had ever known. Just…insane.”
9. Find Your Own Coverage, Even From The Hospital
“When I was 14, I worked at a grocery store where you couldn’t call out sick or get time off unless you arranged the coverage yourself.
I called them from the hospital with a broken ankle, and they STILL wanted me to arrange coverage, or they’d expect me to show up. Lol.”
10. The Energy Auditor Who Cost More Than He Saved
“Several years ago, they went hard on energy saving at work. Not only did we have to shut off all electrical devices, but we had to unplug everything. All the internal window shades had to be angled so they pointed outward.
Randomly, in the middle of the night, the ‘energy auditor’ would go through our rooms and offices looking for violations. If violations were found, we got a ‘pink note.’ Three notes and we got a talking-to by HR.
The whole thing lasted a couple of years, until they figured out that the energy auditor was costing more than they were saving.”
11. A Doctor’s Note To Drink Water
“I used to work at a major retail store as a cashier. I tried to bring a Hydro Flask of water for my shift, and they told me I needed a doctor’s note to have my water bottle.”
12. Assigned Bathrooms By Floor
“‘Staff who work on this floor MUST use the restrooms on this floor. Do not use another restroom on any other floor unless you work on that floor.’
Um, most of us HAD to be on multiple floors to respond to requests there. It therefore made zero sense, with 12 floors, to expect people to pee/poo on their base floor.
WTAF. This was caused by a single Karen who insisted the entire medical center was defecating in her personally adopted restroom.”
13. No Sitting, So Employees Got Creative
“‘No sitting’ in a job where you just look at products go by on a conveyor belt.
OK, then, we sit on overturned garbage cans. Oh, the higher-ups on a visit did not care for that.
Now we have stools, lol.”
14. Reporters Forbidden From Eating Lunch Together
“I was working at a small newspaper with a horrible editor. She decided that she didn’t want the reporters to eat lunch together, so we were assigned separate lunch breaks.
If we were going out, we’d have to write down where we were going so we wouldn’t overlap at the diner. I couldn’t even take the intern out for pep talks.”
15. The Boss Who Sent Spies To Parties
“In college, I had a job where our boss told us that ’employees are not allowed to fraternize outside of the workplace.’
There were about 30 employees, all of whom were college students, so of course we hung out and partied together all the time. A few times, he even had the assistant manager show up at parties to spy on us and see who was there… so we just offered him beers, and he ‘didn’t see anything.’
It was absurd. Someone once talked to him, and his logic was that he was worried that us partying together outside of work would lead to hookups or arguments/drama that would then bleed into the workplace.
But, like, you’ve got 30 people aged 18-24 working for you…that’s gonna happen anyway. Anyway, the rule was very important to him, but we just ignored it.”
— u/mejok
16. Desk Decorations Had To Match The Company Logo
“A company I worked at once made a rule that we could only decorate our desks with the colors of the new company logo.
Anything that wasn’t those two colors had to be taken down. It was so silly!”
17. A Physician Who Had To Justify Their Job Every Week
“Well, there was a period of time when I, a physician, had to write an email to my boss every week listing five things I did that week, justifying my employment, because of a tweet Elon Musk wrote.”
18. Restaurant Employees Told To Dip Their Fingers In Boiling Water
“My first job in a restaurant: I was 15, and every night the owner had all employees dip their fingers in boiling water to build up heat resistance.
Back then, my parents told me good employees listened to their bosses, so I just assumed that was normal.
Now that I think about it, it was completely insane.”
19. No Long Sleeves While Working Outside In Winter
“We weren’t allowed to wear long-sleeved tops or cardigans because it apparently looked bad in front of the customers.
It was winter, and we were working outdoors.”
20. Mandatory Office Days With Nobody Else There
“My previous job mandated two days a week in the office, even though I was the only person on my team at my site.
I’d come in, sit by myself, and have 100% of my meetings on Zoom. Just pointless.”
21. Coming Into The Office To Collaborate With Nobody
“I have to go into the office to collaborate. I work on a team of five.
One is 250 miles away and doesn’t come in; two are in different countries, so they don’t come in; and the other guy has different office days than I do.”
22. Ten Minutes Late After Working Until 2 A.M.
“Being called on the carpet for showing up ten minutes late for work, even though I worked until 2 a.m. the previous morning. And had worked late several of the other previous nights. And over the weekend.
We didn’t have a meeting scheduled or anything. I just needed a little extra time to heave myself out of bed.
Never, ever work for a family-owned business. After that episode, I started looking for the exits.”
23. No Bandanas In A 100-Degree Warehouse
“I wasn’t allowed to wear a bandana or sweatband in an un-air-conditioned warehouse in a hundred-degree (37.7 C) weather because it could be gang-affiliated.”
24. Sent Home For Wearing The Wrong Socks
“I was in the military, but this grocery store somehow has them beat.
I got sent home at once for wearing the wrong socks. They were just black ankle socks.
They also make you throw away everything from the deli/bakery and will charge you with theft if you eat any.”
25. The Impossible One-Minute Drive-Thru Rule
“You have to get every car through the drive-thru in under one minute, and you also have to cook everything to order.
The thing is, the average customer doesn’t want to be out of the drive-thru in one minute. They might think they do, but in reality, they want to check what’s in their bag, open their drink and take a sip, get it situated in the cupholder, put their wallet away, adjust their music, and then pull away from the window.”
26. Only Bible Recordings Allowed At Work
“I worked at a restaurant where the owner was a born-again Christian ex-Marine. He lived in a house behind the restaurant and worked there most days.
The only thing we were allowed to listen to was the Bible on tape. No music.
Of course, when he wasn’t there, we would put on regular stuff.”