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

@Bananacocks nooooooooo

I did a postal vote but I heard you either had to take your own pencil or use one that was then chucked in a box after one use as the polling station

Who’s going to get Covid off a pencil ffs

Cafe - waitress brings tray to table but you then have to take your coffee and cake off the tray yourself. Coffee was obviously spirited onto the tray by mindbending techniques in the kitchen.

@RedcurrantPuff

I did a postal vote but I heard you either had to take your own pencil or use one that was then chucked in a box after one use as the polling station

Who’s going to get Covid off a pencil ffs

This was a nonsense SM story and IMO quite dangerous - I wonder how many people didn't vote one their way home, for example, because they didn't have a pencil with them. You were "allowed" to take your own, but they were supplied as usual.

Only 2 people allowed in the post office queue at our corner shop. The post office counter is right inside the shop so no way to know if there is a queue when you arrive. If there is a queue then people tend to assume its for the whole shop.
Told off in the metro centre for walking from one side to the other to get into a shop, passing nobody, they wanted me to go to the end of the mall passing a group and walk round! This was last year it's not enforced now.

When I was in hospital for a week after giving birth my DP was only allowed to visit for 30 mins a day. We had our own private room so don’t see what difference it made?

Not quite the same but being told (only last week) that I couldn’t take my dog into the care home garden to see my mum as it’s an infection risk apparently - bearing in mind that a) she’s had both vaccs, b) I’ve had both vaccs, c) it’s outside d) we were the only ones there e) pretty sure that dogs don’t carry it.

I swear there are a number of people who are thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to make up and enforce endless and pointless rules. I am in general very obedient but this latest one made me very cross indeed!

At a cafe: I watched the server place sauces onto a tray to bring over to our table. No gloves used or hand washing. Only to be told that I had to take everything off the tray as they couldn't touch it

We had staggered drop off times at various gates at school. Very logical.
Except for the parents who had to drop two children at once to classrooms which internally were next to each other... But externally the furthest points apart. Before Covid they could use the connecting footpath... But the rules said they had to leave the grounds, Wal around the narrow pavement Surrounding the whole grounds, re-enter through another gate and end up 20m away from where you started. They could have easily made the footpath one way, especially since only a handful of parents needed it.

Earlier in the pandemic our pool had a changing room only on exit policy. You had to arrive pool ready and undress on poolside. Fair enough.

Now we can use the changing rooms before and after but they've kept the one way system. So I have to walk in and go past the changing room door, up a flight of stairs, past the viewing area, down a flight of stairs, take shoes off, walk along the edge of the pool and enter the changing rooms that way. I rebelled the other day and snuck straight in.

Some of these are just silly but some are, or could have been, actually dangerous.
Does no-one challenge such stupidity especially if it's at somewhere like a workplace or school where you have to be there regularly?

Logic has gone out of the window and the jobs worths are loving their rules.

See I don't necessarily think it's all that, sure there's people who probably are, but more so I think no one, really, knows what the hell is going on anymore.
Opening last year in hospitality, we got email guidance from the local council that basically contradicted the government guidance........ And then someone checking we were complying who said something completely different.
If the people making the rules haven't got a clue, the staff, and then customers stand no chance!

Same place and we had to trot half way around the building to deliver food, the longest way reserved for the food going out, you know, so it was nice and cold by the time it got there 🙄

The bank! Have to go in person to collect new card. Queue out the door as only 20 people allowed in. Inside are the chairs spaced out 2m. They are fabric double seaters and there is an x on the 2nd seat. So each time someone gets called up to the counter, every person in the queue has to move up to the couch in front of them. But you have to sit in the same spot as the person was in front of you, as you can't sit on the side with the x. If you are same family, I had to go in with dd, you can't sit together you have to have the one side of sofa to yourself. They aren't being sanitized between each person and they are fabric.

Temp taken at every shop. So in a shopping center you can have it take 20 times and each time it's different.

And at our local fast food drive through no longer serves soft serve ice cream. Because.... Covid 🤔

The removal of alternate swings in the park is really annoying me. I have twins and I cannot push them both on the swing together without running backwards and forwards as the 2 centre swings have been removed leaving the 2 outside ones. This must be the same for every single parent with 2 children, which is hardly unusual!

I work in a hospital. Every room is risk assessed for size...including the individual staff toilets that are risk assessed for max 3 people??? Wasn't planning on sharing a toilet seat with my colleague.

Breakroom only allowed 3 people max...no other provisions put in place. The suggestion is walk to your car (10 mins) and sit there for 5 minutes to then walk back (10 mins). Covid covered uniforms all over your car. Then straight back into caring for your patients.

No instructions to change before and after shift even though that's been a massive known infection risk for years and other trusts strictly implement it.

Men's loos at a country pub last summer. There were 4 hand basins and two were cordoned off "because Covid." But not alternate ones! They taped off the furthest two next to each other (nos 3 and 4), leaving punters right next to each other using nos 1 and 2.
Dh still goes on about it.

I run an early years setting...we are religiously cleaning all high touch areas and toys or rotating hard to clean ones. It really really hard work and we do it so we can say we are doing everything we can.

However...children sit on my lap, sit on each other, sneeze on me (very little), need cuddles for comfort and constant close attention obviously. The DFE say that we don't need PPE...apparently the greatest risks to us in this scenario are the farm animals and duplo blocks...

Meanwhile 3,000 people are crammed into our nearby football stadium to watch a game. I know it's an experiment but it did somewhat grind my gears.

A pub in Manchester- I went in to use the loo and was told by staff to go out through the fire exit afterwards. I'd never been inside the pub so I found the toilets, then saw the open fire exit right next to them. As I went to leave the bouncer was refusing to let a man enter, telling him to go back to use the main door. I then tried to exit, and was told it wasn't an exit either, and to go back through the pub to a 3rd door. I did ask why he was stood at an open door nobody could use rather than just locking it but the answer was predictably 'covid'.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

We had staggered drop off times at various gates at school. Very logical. Except for the parents who had to drop two children at once to classrooms which internally were next to each other... But externally the furthest points apart. Before Covid they could use the connecting footpath... But the rules said they had to leave the grounds, Wal around the narrow pavement Surrounding the whole grounds, re-enter through another gate and end up 20m away from where you started. They could have easily made the footpath one way, especially since only a handful of parents needed it.

You see...in these cases I feel an overwhelming urge to go in and point this out. This is of course why I am the popular parent at my children's schools.

Interestingly, no rules seem to apply on trains? I spent 3 hours on a packed train this week, every seat taken, people standing and sitting by the doors.. the announcer even acknowledged that socialising distancing was impossible so please wear your mask a bit harder to make up for it

Some of these just make your mind boggle!

(Not in the UK) Reduced numbers at the swimming pool.... so that everyone had to stand for up to an hour in an unventilated corridor.

Garden centre cafe: ordered food with wait staff. Said wait staff then brought food to us and left it on a nearby table so we could get it ourselves.

But then we had to queue to pay.

Had to cancel ds’ swim lessons as I wasn’t allowed to be in the pool area as I previously was. They have a no exceptions to the rule where it’s strictly the child having the lesson in the pool area unless they need a parent in the pool with them. Ds is 3. Changing area is poolside. And he can’t quite change himself yet. I asked if I could go in after the lesson was finished but nope. Because I had Dd with me. Dd is almost 2. And can’t really be left outside on her own.

Also the dcs nursery. The kids are in two different rooms. Babies and pre school. The rooms are strictly not allowed to mix. Except ds and Dd obviously mix because they live together. Nursery couldn’t grasp this initially. But now are ok with it.

@frostyfingers that's awful, almost vindictive stupidity on their part. And yet at a friends mums care home, a carer cheerfully informed her she won't be getting the vax, no way 'they can' t make me' etc etc...

Some are definitely loving the chance to enforce the roolz especially to those they consider beneath them. I had a manager of another department complain about me and a colleague as we were too close (while in PPE and transporting a heavy bit of kit that meant we had to get close), she personally dressed us down and treated us like dirt in front of members of the public. I took great pleasure when walking into that departments break room to find that despite the sign saying 5 maximum there were 10 including her. So no I couldn't fix the hot water boiler they were desperate to have back, it was unsafe you see due to Covid and I was disappointed as they should know better. The look on her face was a picture!