‘What’s the most pointless workplace policy you’ve come across’ – 17 corporate rules clearly made by an utter jobsworth

Certain workplace rules obviously make total sense. If you’re working in a cave, it’d be foolish not to enforce mandatory hardhats.

Other policies, however, don’t make a lick of sense. This prompted ggssmm1 to turn to r/AskUK and ask its users to share the most pointless workplace policies they’ve come across.

‘What’s the most pointless workplace policy you’ve come across?’

They even got the ball rolling with one of their own.

‘Just remembered one from an old job. It was a large company, and there was an actual policy that no team could have two people with the same first name.

‘The explanation everyone had heard was that some of the company’s older internal systems only showed first names. Apparently there were enough approvals, tickets and emails sent to the wrong Nigel or Mohammed that, instead of fixing the software, management decided it was easier to stop teams having duplicate first names.

‘I’ve no idea if that’s actually why the policy existed, but everyone seemed to accept it.’

These top answers were clearly made by bosses who took their job far too seriously…

1.

‘My old employer bought a water dispenser that only management could use. Everyone else had to use the lukewarm tap. They had the receptionist write down the names of people that would use it and we’d get a genuine talking to. Multimillion pound business btw.’
-erniellie

2.

‘Deducting the cost from your salary of insuring your laptop or mobile phone if you take it with you when you go abroad. So you can deal with urgent issues that arise in your absence. Unpaid. In your own time. While you’re supposed to be on holiday!

‘Guess how many people take their laptops or phones with them now?’
-C2BK

3.

‘I once asked IT for a long network cable, 4m, for my desktop machine as I was moving my setup around. I was refused it on health and safety grounds. Instead I was told I could be given two 2m cables but definitely not 4m incase someone tripped over it.

‘Just couldn’t make it up.’
-moreidlethanwild

4.

‘Employee of the month gets the parking space by the front door. So far not one person who has won it can drive, they all get a lift to work 🤣’
-madcheco

5.

‘We had to wear suits and ties to work. Would get sent home if we forgot our tie.

‘Yeah it’s a bank, but it’s not a customer facing one. The office was on an industrial estate. No foot traffic other than the industrial workers.
The building didn’t even have windows. We got out of our cars in the car park and entered the office. The only people who would see us was industrial workers when we went to the same butty van as them. We did pay to wear casual clothes on a Friday tho.

‘They later removed the tie rule after about 5 years. Then a year or so later when AC broke that we could wear casual clothes’
-D0wnb0at

6.

‘I had to answer all phone calls as the most junior member of staff but I wasn’t allowed to sit somewhere at a terminal with a phone next to it as more important people may need to use the phone.’
-Murka-Lurka

7.

‘Care home – wasn’t allowed to dye our hair unusual colours which isn’t an unusual policy overall but the management insisted it was because older people viewed things like red hair as evil. Utterly ridiculous, never once had that issue in any other care home. 😂’
-Careless_Ad_2811

8.

‘I worked in a call centre (inbound) where you weren’t allowed to read between calls, except on Sundays. Weird. Tbf, we didn’t have much downtime anyway.’
-cragglerock93

9.

‘I worked in a call centre for a while and the dress code policy specifically noted that beachwear, including sarongs, were prohibited.’
-pu55yobsessed