Strange / silly rules at work

[melpomene]

What strange or silly rules do you have in your workplace?

Here are some examples from the office where I work:

• My colleagues asked if we could have a small bookcase, because we have heaps of reference books on the desks and a bookcase would make it much easier to store and find them. We were told that it is against the policy to have bookcases or shelves, and that "if we got a book case then people would put things on it".

• They provide pencils but not pencil sharpeners, so when your pencil gets blunt you have to throw it away and get a new one.

• In the canteen, they sometimes serve vegetable curry. They also serve rice.

However, you are not allowed to have vegetable curry with rice. You are allowed to have vegetable curry with a baked potato, or chicken curry with rice, but not vegetable curry with rice .

Has anyone else got any silly rules?

[shudder]

- vulval debris

Nothing springs to mind but I am never working in an office again.

OMFG

"Vulval debris" - INCREDIBLE notion & choice of words

I worked in an office with a no trousers rule for women too, but after a while we started ignoring it and gradually got away with it.

One company I worked for didn't allow you to take your annual leave attached to bank holidays. They were sooo stingy about holidays and sick leave. Really annoying as the MD used to be jetting off all the time with various mistresses and making all of us cover for him, difficult as his wife was always phoning and two of his daughters actually worked for the place.

Every year there was a collection for the bosses mother's birthday and woe betide you if you didn't contribute. I didn't one year (too hard up) and got snidey remarks from the boss for ever afterwards. AND this was a public sector organisation.

vulval debris! OMG

The IT department at one of my employers disabled the right mouse button to prevent us from doing damage to our computers.

I actually caused a new rule in our office

It was in a civil service office and they hadn't recruited for 15 years because no-one ever left. I was in the first wave of new recruits. I was 19.

In my first week I was proudly introduced to The PC. It was the one and only PC in the office and was brand new. People talked about it in hushed tones. Most were terribly afraid of it.

I was left alone with The PC for half an hour in order to familiarise myself with it. I was already familiar with computers so I spent five mins checking out the programme designed for my job and the rest of the time surfing and changing the default desktop and screensaver settings to something a little more cheery.

I went to lunch and when I got back, a crowd had gathered around The PC. I went to be nosy and asked what was going on and was told that The PC was broken, possibly as the result of a terrible virus and would have to be repaired etc. Everyone was very sombre. I asked what was wrong and was told 'It's gone.... pink'

Oh the horror when I realised it was me who had caused it all. I confessed right away and offered to change it back. They refused, saying IT support had been called and were on their way, and please just don't do anything.

IT support came and 'fixed' it, laughing madly the whole time.

The next day there was a laminated note next to The PC asking everyone 'please don't change the colour or picture of the PC Computer.'

This was in year 1999 by the way. Oh, the recklessness of my misspent youth.

My DH used to work in the English office of a Californian company. All the computers were set up in the US and shipped over, and they weren't allowed to change the settings (eg desktop colour, font size etc). They also had to show Californian time- 7 hours behind- and not UK time

After reading this thread I have decided to be a SAHM forever!

In one of my first jobs (more years ago than I care to remember) the MD's secretary was a right silly cow tartar.

She had an appointment to see a specialist for suspected breast cancer, and found out that this specialist was also a client of the firm that we worked for.

So, the day before the appointment she went and had her hair done, specially, at the hairdressers (Think shampoo and set, rigid hair etc) and just so that she would not mess up her hairdo, slept sat upright all night so that she would "Look tidy and give a good impression to the client"

Nothing about the fact that she might have cancer (She didn't in the end luckily)

Some real corkers here - brilliant thread!

I'm quite lucky and work for a company with sensible managers, so rules are virtually unheard of (bar common sense ones!), but one of my friends works in the same office as a total nutter, who tried to impose a ban on perfume, hand cream and anything even vaguely 'fragranced', in case it 'caught her throat'. Apparently her email edict provided much hilarity but was otherwise ignored

DH used to work in a very famous designer shop in NY. They had polaroids of the clothes they were allowed to wear, right down to the socks. Polaroids ffs. He once wore some Mickey Mouse boxers under a pair of cream jodhpur type trousers (yes, really) and was sent off to change them because you could see Mickey Mouse. American humour tended not to appreciate this misdemeanour.

I think this is quite common, but the last office I worked in had no bins. WTF is that all about!?

We are not allowed to wear jeans on "Jeans for Genes" day. A "dress code" was once issued, stating "bare legs only if tanned," and some members of another department were banned from wearing 3/4 trousers, as on member of the team was rather rubenesque. Also, women have to wear a sash on certain events, and when i pointed out this was sexist, they made up some spurious rule about how you don't have to wear it if you're sitting behind a desk- this meant all the women (who are meant to give the TandT smile) wear the sash, while the men sit behind the desks, doing the man work. Ugh. It makes me shudder. We are also expected to contribute to 3 different bosses birthday/Christmas presents...

The only sensible thing I've read on this thread is the ban on Poison perfume.

Ooh I forgot my favourite one. Last year it was decided that cleaning products were too expensive so EVERYTHING would now be cleaned with vinegar. This was sold as being environmentally friendly, which it may well be, but the cleaning staff were up in arms. My favourite cleaning lady sneaks bottles of dettol to me to use in my area when noone's looking.

(It's a school...loos, showers, kitchens, science labs...)

I so want to work in an office now.

It sounds like utter madness.
I would enjoy it.

I am almost disappointed that we don't have any weird rules.

Oh yes, the no bins rule. The last place I worked at took all the bins out of our offices so that we were forced to walk down the corridoor to the recycling bins. . . yet if you brought your own bin in that was apparently OK. (WTF?)

We have to share bins in my office. I can't remember why they reduced the numbers but I occasionally have a cardboard box under my desk as a bin when I can't be bothered to walk across the room to use the communal bin.

Yes we are not allowed to wear jeans on jeans for genes day, nor can we have dress down Fridays.

LOlat the morning huddle! Eveny Monday and Friday at 9am we have a 'line up' where all depts come together and take turn hosting it. We all have a card of company values and teh hosts have to say the value of the day, and their reasons why...then they tell us what famous people were born on that day and we sometimes sing a song

HR actually randomly ask us later in the day what todays value is to check we were paying attention.

If you use your car for work purposes you have to park above level 4 of the multistorey car park a short walk away but if you do no business mileage at all you are allowed to park directly outside the building in the ample car park which has lots of empty spaces. Oh and you are not allowed to enter the building through the door nearest the multi storey car park either but have to walk all the way around the side of the building through the empty forbidden car park!

OMG at teh standing up rule!