Most pointless covid restrictions you’ve seen by an organisation or workplace?

[Lucidas]

Cordoning off every other toilet and sink in an attempt to enforce social distancing...meaning people are clustered tightly in a queue, chatting for longer

Those stupid in/out arrows at the entrance of every shop that are right next to each other. Pointless. Have given up trying to follow them, particularly as no-one else is ever entering/exiting at the same time as me.

Also toilets. Shopping centre.

The sink area is quite cramped, as the queue goes through this area. All sinks and driers operational. Lots of people in this area...

Toilets themselves... Good size cubicles, but alternate ones cordoned off.

So spend longer in the cramped area with no barriers and limit people in the more spaced out area with barriers?

I work in a school and we have had our staffroom cordoned off but we still all get crammed into the same room for staff meetings.
Also I have to wear my mask to walk to collect the kids from the gate and to walk back to the classroom. I then remove it once we are inside. I mean, why? I don't come close to any parents either. So pointless.

At work we had only 4 women working on our floor and 40+ men. That's a different problem, but it meant the ladies loos with 5 cubicles were always available. With Covid, we had an agreement between us which of the cubicles were 'ours' and stuck to our own. Then they taped off all but 2 and made us share, making the risk of passing Covid between us greater than before. Fucking idiots.

Masks for parents waiting outside school. Coloured a bit by my frustration at having to collect the disguarded ones from my front garden in a regular basis, but also, why?

Army base. The soldiers on the training courses could share rooms, facilities and basically live on top of each other.
They have to march 2m apart. Unless a car is coming the other way. Then they close ranks. They also weren't allowed to sit next to each other in the dinner hall.

I work in schools and some of them won’t let us go in and see two ‘bubbles’ on the same day, even if we swap PPE and move to a different area. Yet the kids mix on the school buses and waking home.

Schools who closed the playground (where parents can socially distance) and instead have staggered times with parents crowed on a tiny paved street cheek by jowl (siblings make staggering mostly just inconvenient rather than helpful!). If they’d let everyone socially distance on the very large space, it would be so much safer. I asssume this is a government edict by someone who hasn’t been into a school, rather than the headteacher who I’m sure would know better.

At school drop off. Pre covid the gates were open for 20 mins from 8:30 and kids had to be in by 8:50. Parents walked up let their kids go in and leave.
Now they only open for 5 mins so parents and kids are waiting outside gathering and talking. The one year level go in and parents still hang around and wait for their child in the next year level to go in. Huge crowds are outside the school talking and mixing.

Taping off sinks and cubicles in toilets so people are then stood waiting to wash their hands or don't bother.

One way systems in shops. How is it 'safer' (god I hate that word) for me to walk up and down every single aisle in Tesco, rather than nip down the 3 aisles to get the items I need?

Changing rooms being closed. I can buy a top, take it to the public toilets to try on and then return it because that's "safer" than using a changing room in the shop that has been cleaned.

Seats on buses and trains being taped off yet the same people are using the bus or train so just stand instead. How is that "safer"?

It's all pointless theatre.

We’re on a campsite and no visitors are allowed in. I mean, why? It’s mostly outside and we’re allowed to mix inside with one household anyway if we all inexplicably decided we wanted to sit inside the tent together.

Teachers having to disinfect all the chairs, tables, doorhandles, walls, everything, every single afternoon after school. As if there's going to be an outbreak spread by a chair leg.

University have placed giant yellow arrows every 0.5m apart to implement one way systems around buildings. Fine - but the routing hasn't been worked out properly so it leads you into dead ends (I swear they'll find a skeleton of a Fresher in a lonely corridor at one point who was doomed by the one way system from hell) or the amusing point in the library where all the one way arrows converge in the centre of a room and there's nowhere legitimately to go (one of the cleaners was pissing himself laughing watching the antics from this one going on)!

School - closed playground - so instead of being distributed around different classroom doors (they all open externally onto the playground) and stood distanced on a huge stretch of tarmac and school field - we're rammed onto a narrow pavement.

The co-op. A slightly odd officious bloke directing people at the self service tills with commands such as “please step back one step and to the right two steps, as in 5 seconds I need to walk in front of you to reach the carrier bags”

The result is chaotic, with people all confused trying to get it right and bumping into each other, which starts conversations between them

We don’t need entertainment to open. Just go in the co-op and loiter by the meal deals to watch the fun unfold.

Two swings for babies next to each other. One was removed completely. Yet at a different play park in the same council area, the swings were all left intact.

Having to have my temperature taken for an outdoor shopping place. All I wanted was a coffee.

We have two classes in my child's year at school and the children aren't allowed to mix at all to preserve the bubble. Only there are twins with one in each class, they mix the classes at breakfast and after school club and they have been mixing at the park after school but they can't mix in the playground during school hours.

Oh and temperature taking. There are posters in our large teaching hospital saying it’s pointless, for reasons x y and a (I can’t remember why). Yet my temperature is always taken at the beauty salon. It’s always below 35 degrees. Which suggests I need more help with my health than a simple eyebrow wax.

One way system in a very empty office. I refuse to walk around the entire office to go out the out door to get to the toilet. I just go out the in door if no-one's coming in, or stand aside until they enter. But if I was caught my manager I'd be in trouble 🙄

School has drive through drop off operational in non covid times.

Covid closed that.

So the parents all gather in the morning in huge groups outside gate.

How is a drive through drop off a hazard ? No one is involved with door opening etc.

Logic of this baffles me

Closing every second locker at the swimming pool

All one way systems

Same issues with the toilets

A place near me has said only 2 women in the toilet and to wait outside if there are more than two...it’s absolutely impossible to see how many women are in this toilet without physically being in the toilet

And shops that say no more than 5 people and leave it to the customer to calculate, I don’t know if people are bending down or are hidden behind a pillar or clothes rack...and I don’t want to be told off!

@RedcurrantPuff

Closing every second locker at the swimming pool

All one way systems

Surely the locker one makes sense?

There are less people allowed in pools anyway, lockers are packed together. Closing the alternate lockers seems logical no? Or am I missing something?

Alcohol at an outside bar in the fresh air cannot be sold unless you have a table. So no social distance queuing for a beer. So everybody crams onto one table with complete strangers to chat and order the beer.

Kids wearing masks outside to wait for pool to open fire door to enter.

To them walk poolside in masks to stand poolside and change - including taking off masks.

To them swim and breathe on each other for 2 hours to get out and stand together to put dry robes on.

Then put masks in to leave pool again!

I'm very pro mask but I do think at times you have to accept you are taking an element of risk and the mask wearing is only limiting that risk for the time you're wearing them - and when that's 2-3 minutes of 2 hours in a space together it seems like it won't prevent anything spreading if someone is asymptomatic!

My work has removed the kettle from our staffroom the fridge, microwave, vending machines and pool table have been allowed to stay but apparently the kettle is just too dangerous!