30 Stupid Workplace And School Rules That Backfired Beautifully, As Shared By People In This Thread

They made a new rule where we had to ask permission to use the restroom during lunch.
We all coordinated and the whole cafeteria would raise their hands at once to request to go. They responded by sending us two at a time. We did this for a few days then changed our procedure to everyone just getting up at once and going to the restroom without permission.
They didn't ever officially do away with the rule, but the teachers on duty in the lunch room eventually just stopped enforcing it.

Edit: it's interesting how many people responded something like "my school had the same rule", and how many people said something like "wtf, that's the craziest rule I've heard of, is this even real?"

If you return a library book late, your parents would have to return it and explain why it's late. It worked about as well as you would think. The rule lasted a few months before they figured it wasn't worth the cost of replacing all the books.

We got a new manager for our office - she was an outside hire and was trying to prove herself quickly, and she was obsessed with efficiency.

So, her first week here she sent out this very rudely worded email about employees eating at our desks (we have a very small break area - 4 tables and we have about 300 employees here) and that we all had to stop eating at our desks, because "it was not efficient to eat and try to work at the same time".

Through a coordinated effort by some of the more sassy people at the office they all had their lunches at the same time and filled the break room with about 90 people. Elbow to elbow and they all ate standing up. Literally, the next day after that happened, she sent out a follow-up email saying that we could eat at our desks but she advised us to take a break from our work from time to time.

It was pretty funny.

My high school put in a policy so that after the 3rd time you were late, you got detention. They didn't change the absent policy.

Tardiness decreased by 52(?) %. Absentees increased 70%.

Edit: The punishment for missing was nothing until social services comes in.

My School banned all balls over a couple of inches in diameter beacuse someone kicked a football through a window during lunch.

Most of us that walked home walked past the woods by the golf course and had a ready supply of golf balls as a result.

Golf balls were allowed under the new rules due to their size.

3 broken windows in one lunch period later they weren't.

I told this story before but in high school they banned backpacks in classrooms. Everyone was pissed. Some girls started bringing bigger purses to put their books in, so a bunch of dudes brought their mom's purses in and were using those for school books.

Administration and teachers got upset because we found a loophole so they banned purses too. At which point a bunch of moms got upset because their daughters had to carry around tampons and stuff in their coat pockets, in addition to all of their books, notebooks, calculators, pens/pencils, and whatever else they have in those purses.

Finally the school let everyone have their backpacks back.

Edit: Knowing that other places banned backpacks makes me feel a bit better. What would make me feel a lot better is going back in time and telling Mrs. Gaines that she can eat a bag of decomposing dongs for suggesting that we get rid of our backpacks. That lady hated teaching, and she hated students - she just loved control. Already having an authority problem, I bucked up at her more than once. I remember one story where me and a bunch of other seniors started "compli-sulting" each other. We'd pay each other compliments, but in an insulting tone, start to act like we were going to fight, then hug it out. We thought it was hilarious, but Mrs. Gaines thought we were being disrespectful to her authority because we'd compli-sult each other a bunch outside of her door. Once we learned this annoyed her we started to do it more until some pink slips started coming out and people were getting sent to the office for "complimenting each other in a loud tone." What a joke of a teacher.

"Don't do anything unless directed by your Boss, any deviation from this will result in write-up/termination."

This was a very literal directive from upper management that took place after an office incident. Our work is very fluid, and our team alone contained 20 people. Needless to say productivity hit unfounded lows.

My middle school had a "no touching rule" which meant you'd get suspended for high fiving a friend. Girls got in trouble for hugging their friends. Our teachers thought this was ridiculous and would have students high five each other in their classes for a minute everyday. So many kids got suspensions that the rule stopped being enforced and only counted if you touched a kid in a bullying situation or sexual harassment.

New manager got rid of the sofa in the break room so people couldn't nap on their hour long lunch break. No one overslept or took the p**s but it was good to have the option on a tough day.

Stoner guy started sleeping in other places, including in-between walls and in the warehouse. That's when we started losing him and couldn't find him as he'd go into a deeper sleep and was less likely to be disturbed.

He didn't lose his job somehow, that place had a hard time hiring.

Edit: To clarify where stoner guy would go, we'd find him in-between walls and shelves. It was a DIY store that had been something else years before so there were random partition walls and oddly laid out shelving units everywhere, a real s**t show of a store lay out. He had quite a few places to hide in and nap.

Our school made it so you couldn't play dodgeball anymore. So what happened was is that the gym teachers came up with this new game called "Fireball." The rules are there are balls in the middle of the gym people go on two seperate teams go for and if you get hit you're out, if you catch a ball you- okay so it was basically dodgeball. Then fireball was banned. So now there's this new game called "Pinball". Which isn't involving the machines unfortunately but it's basically dodgeball/ Fireball but there's bowling pins that need to be knocked over as well. I think they just gave up after a while.