Every aspect of our participation in society is governed by rules, and good for every one of us. Unless you call yourself an anarchist, you most probably agree that they are the basis of law, order, or security, and that we all benefit from them, whether we like them or not.
But some rules, whether rushed or unthoughtful, may cause more harm than good. And if you want proof, let’s take a look at this thread from the Ask Reddit subreddit. “What's a rule that was implemented somewhere, that massively backfired?” asked someone, sparking a heated thread with 52k upvotes and 21k comments.
From a city putting up decibel meters to deter loud vehicles and realizing reckless drivers were competing for the highest decibel count to implementing a strict no-alcohol policy and giving your staff an emergency way out if there’s a staff shortage, some rules have surely brought some regrets to whoever implemented them.
#1
My company has a strict no-alcohol policy. You can't begin work within 10 hours of having had a drink.
So whenever there's a staff shortage and they need me to come in right away, guess who just cracked open a cold one?
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313points
#2
One summer in Sweden, bus drivers in some counties started wearing shorts due to the heatwave. After being denied to continue doing so by management, they started wearing skirts instead. Dress code policy had banned shorts, but not skirts.
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278points
#3
In French Indochina, there was a major problem with rodents eating supplies and bringing disease. Given the plentiful supply of cheap unemployed workers, the colonial authorities thought they could be used to kill the rats and bring their numbers down. The French had a somewhat racially prejudiced view of the work ethic of the locals, so decided to pay them per rat killed rather than per hour worked. Each was compensated for every dead rat they handed over.
A year or so later, the colonial authorities discovered the peasants had set up rat-breeding farms in the jungle.
277points
Policies and punishment can have a direct effect on people’s urge to break them, researchers found. Rice Business professor Marlon Mooijman and colleagues Wilco W. van Dijk and Eric van Dijk of Leiden University along with Naomi Ellemers of Utrecht University studied 883 people to understand the links between deterrence, threats and rule following.
So they conducted a series of games in which participants reported or hid taxable income depending on whether they were threatened with fines, fined with an explanation, or fined with no explanation.
#4
My work has an infraction system. If you're a minute late that's half a point, if you're up to four hours late that's half a point. So if you're going to be a minute late you might as well be four hours late because it's the same penalty.
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249points
#5
The previous school I worked at decided that all shirts needed to have the school name or emblem (which was a fancy letter 'E') on them to be dress code appropriate. That's all the handbook said. No clarification on how the name or emblem was designed or the color or if it had to be permanently affixed to the clothing. The students hated the policy and, being in high school, looked for any loophole possible. They found one due to the lack of clarity of the handbook policy. The kids would make paper 'E's and pin them to their shirts. Thus, they could wear whatever they wanted and by pinning the 'E' to the shirt, were still dress code compliant. I thought it was pretty genius. The administration did not.
233points
#6
I used to wait tables in college. It was a very popular hangout for business professionals, movers, shakers, etc. The restaurant/bar was always very busy and the "in" place to be. After work, the staff would frequently drink in the bar. We paid full price for drinks and any food we ate. We shared tables, danced, and socialized with the patrons and everyone was happy.
Except for the owners.
The owners decided we were cluttering up the place and "reserved" a special table for us. Upstairs behind the dirty laundry pickup station. So we all decided we really didn't need to spend our money there if we weren't wanted so we moved to another bar for our after-hours fun. And we took all those movers and shakers with us.
The restaurant went out of business about six months later.
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228points
As you may have suspected, with adults as with children, the researchers found, threats and punishments often backfire. This can be explained by the fact that they signal distrust by the authorities of the very people they're supposed to control. Therefore, the immediate response to such distrust is an urge to rebel.
The researchers concluded that the more perceived distrust people feel, the less likely they are to follow the rules. Moreover, the researchers discovered, justifications and threats of punishment leave a bad taste, overall. Instead, they suggested that people respond way better to rules that have zero justification.
#7
I worked at Macy’s one Christmas and found out the reason why you can never find anyone at the registers is that they don’t allow employees to stand at the register because it’s “intimidating.” I can’t tell you how many times I gave up trying to purchase something there because I couldn’t find anyone to ring me up.
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198points
#8
The middle school wanted to create a "trash-free environment" so they removed the trash cans from the parking lots, halls, and cafeteria. Then just told the kids to "toss your trash when you get home or in a classroom"
The amount of litter skyrocketed overnight, after a week or so they brought back the cans.
195points
#9
Zero Tolerance Policy for no violence at school. Punishing the victims for getting bullied... yea, THAT was a smart idea...
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189points
#10
My city has issues with loud bikes/vehicles. So as a deterrent, the city put up decibel meters that displayed how loud your engine is(similar to those signs that read your speed and display it to you) but instead of deterring anyone, people would pull up to these signs and rev the heck out of their engines to see who could get the highest decibel count. The city took the counters down within a week.
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178points
#11
Washington State made it mandatory for schools to drop their room temperatures to save on electricity. The result: teachers brought their own heaters into their offices and the use of electricity increased.
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169points
#12
When a daycare started charging a small fine for parents who picked up their children late. Instead of resulting in more on-time arrivals, the new policy actually caused more late pick-ups. This is because the parents were originally worried that a late pick-up would be a significant burden on the daycare employees, but because the fine was so small (only a few dollars), they decided that it must not be a big inconvenience for the daycare.
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165points
#13
One of the high-rise blocks I have to maintain has a sign saying "Anything left here will be removed due to it being a fire risk". People just dump the s**t there they don't want like fridges and sofas and by law, we have to take it
162points
#14
The one-child policy in China has led to a serious gender imbalance in the population.
159points
#15
During prohibition, the US Government decided to add poison to industrial alcohol as a deterrent to people drinking it since booze was illegal. Except they didn’t tell anyone that they were doing it... so the public had no idea there was poison in the alcohol. AT LEAST 10,000 people passed away.
155points
#16
Air pollution became a big problem in late-80's/early-90's Athens, mostly due to the number of old, heavily-polluting cars on the roads. So the Greek government made a law where only cars with odd-numbered final digits on their number plates (1, 3, 5, 7, and 9, etc.) could be driven on odd-numbered days (1st, 3rd, 5th, etc.)- and only evenly-numbered cars could drive on evenly-numbered days. Sounds great doesn't it, they'll halve the number of cars on their roads right - nope, they doubled it - everyone bought one old, highly-polluting car that had an odd-numbered plate and another with an even-numbered plate - nobody could park and the air was worse than before.
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145points
#17
A failing school district in Colorado last year decided to get rid of the recess so the students had more academic time which would hopefully increase test scores.
Except without recess, the kids had no outlet for their seemingly endless kid energy, and afternoons became a s**t show. Disruptive behavior increased, suspensions increased, and test scores remained incredibly low. It was a horrible idea.
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142points
#18
When Domino’s said all pizzas would be delivered in 30min. or less or your pizza was FREE.
All the delivery drivers kept getting in car accidents to get your pizza to you on time, so it wouldn’t come out of their paycheck. It was a short-lived venture.
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138points
#19
I worked somewhere with a clean desk policy on Friday afternoons. The common way around this was that everyone would just sweep all their paperwork into an envelope, stick it in the internal mail, and then it would arrive back on your desk on Monday morning.
137points
#20
December 3, 2018. No cellphones at work, company-wide policy. They have to be left in your vehicle. On December 3rd the boss asked me why I wasn't answering his calls. This rule lasted less than an hour.
137points