“What’s A Rule At Your Job That Exists Purely Because One Idiot Ruined It For Everyone?” (83 Answers)

The school district I drive for now has these route number signs on the buses, while the buses already have their own numbers. So now whenever you take a spare bus you have to fiddle with this little board to make it say the right number.

It started when a parent complained about a driver showing up in a spare bus, "they couldn't tell what bus it was". My old district would just print out your original number, you'd tape it in a window if you took out a spare bus, and everybody got the idea.

One person spilled coffee on a keyboard and now we have a no drinks policy in the office, such a bummer.

We had 2 microwaves on our floor whereas the cafetorium in the building with the bank of microwaves was a hassle to get to and use and people would waste 15 minutes of a 45 minute lunch break heating their food up or going down there.

But some silly donkey put microwave popcorn in there for way too long and smoked out the floor besides there was another twit who would microwave fish, even though that's the number two rule of microwaves after not putting cutlery in there.

Anyways those idiots ruined it for the floor about 100 people.

#neverforget.

No hoodies at our casual clothing office.

Someone was stealing parts in the hood.

I hate whoever that was forever.

No magic erase pads. Because someone tried to magic erase marker off a child’s face. Kid got injured, staff member got fired.

I work at a restaurant, and we have a rule of Don't hang tongs on the bar in front of the clamshell grill. we have a taylor crown series clamshell grill with touch screens on the front of them, and a bar across the front as well just above them. a few people hung tongs on the bar and smacked them off the screen and essentially wrecking the screen and costing the company 800 bucks per screen. District manager instituted a new rule that anybody caught hanging tongs off the grill's bar is grounds for immediate termination because it was such an issue of people continuously doing it.

When the clean-up crew at my job changes out toilet paper, they have to put new tp in even if the old tp still has a lot left, and there were handful of people who would take those almost full rolls home with them. Didn’t harm anything, sure you could argue it’s gross that other people had their hands on it but it’s not going in your bathroom so why did it matter? It’s going in the trash at the end of the day.

We work in a factory so it’s not like it’s been contaminated by strangers and who knows what. It’s all coworkers.

One woman complained that it looked trashy and that it makes it seem as though they don’t get paid well enough to afford toilet paper, and the next week they notified everyone that all used toilet paper rolls must be discarded on site.

Got asked to come in 2-3x per week.

One guy showed up three days the first week, then proceeded to not show up for three weeks straight. Now we’re all in office 4x per week.

I would buy breakfast for my morning team members on pay day, Mary reported it as favoritism because I didn't buy the night time people dinner, I never worked with any of them.

I was working at a sixth form college a couple of years ago when I was blocked from attending a trip due to the medication I am on (definitely discrimination and against equality act). The thing was there was another member of staff on similar medication but they were going on the trip.


After asking that member of staff if it was ok, I made a complaint asking why I was told it was too dangerous to attend when my colleague was fine.


The next thing I know I am told that thanks to my complaint, they now require every single member of staff to disclose all health issues and medication that they had been prescribed. I still wasn't allowed on the trip and they made it clear to everyone that the new policy was because of me.


If I had never disclosed the medication I was on, none of this would have happened, but the nature of my meds meant I needed to disclose to protect myself if the students ever found out.


That place was so dodgy.

We could no longer directly send contracts to clients for a bit because someone was promising fee rates thar were well under what we offered to make the sale, sending their boss a higher rate agreement for the approval process then using a loophole to put the promised lower rate into the system.

Essentially breaking the rules to get their commission.

My old job has a rule of no sleeping with the owners daughter…I was 19 (daughter was 18), I was pissed at him for making me work unpaid overtime driving her home while he worked late. He ended up going home to check on her after neither of us answered our cell phones and I didn’t return the work truck…well he walked in on us and fired me on the spot, I must say it was worth it. I was planning to quit the following week as I was leaving for Air Force Basic Training in a few weeks and had not told them (figured they’d let me go as soon as I told them).

Extremely strict IT. No employee can install or even update any programs on our computers and we have to get permission to get them to install anything which they often decline. All because old man Ronnie installed malware that destroyed the server. Stupid Ronnie.

Direct from the employee handbook:

"Do not tell (employee mentioned by name) how to do his job. Employees who try to tell (named employee) how to do his job will be held responsible for any fallout caused."

I was the idiot that ruined secret Santa.

I didn’t realize it was a ‘silly’ gift giving thing, and while I was within budget, the gift I got was too nice apparently and we did not do secret Santa in my time there again.

We could bring snacks to share until one guy left open food out and got ants now everything has to be sealed in the fridge.

We can no longer bring beverages on visits with clients because someone spilled their Starbucks on someone's rug.

Several years ago, management demanded that everyone sign a memo stating that they would not operate any personal vehicles except the ones they owned. When asked what prompted this very vague, weird, specific request, our manager explained that an employee on a completely separate team that didn't even work in the same state as us had let another employee try out his new sports car, and that idiot managed to swipe a building.

I run monthly hiring events for my work. We now require RSVPs for all attendees, which has decreased turnout by approximately 50%. Why? Because one man has some sort of weird obsession with us and keeps coming in under different names and using disguises. He has changed his hair cut and color, glasses, worn hats, worn masks, etc. He has made employees feel extremely uncomfortable and is not stable, and made my job so much harder.

I work in a manufacturing facility. The operators have the default option to step through an instruction on their screen if they need to. Lets say something didnt register, but it did get done.

One person was bypassing the most critical step of assembly because he didnt feel like troubleshooting it, or dealing with it. So we took away everyone's ability except low level supervisors.

This person then memorized the credentials of the low level supervisor and kept doing it.

The end result was me making a barcode badge for the low level supervisor of 35 random characters and restricting the system to only accept that.