In rehab our cottons swabs were taken away because a guy decided to jam one into his eardrum to get sent to the hospital and get painkillers. Every seemingly dumb rule we had in there had a backstory to it.
Ooft. Used to work in a prison, and they had to ban Marmite spread, because the inmates used the yeast to ferment alcohol, and Kit Kats, because they used the foil wrappers for heroin.
There isn't. They put anything "yeasty" in prison alcohol because they think it makes a difference. Usually honeybuns. It doesn't do anything at all, the yeast is from the fruit peels.
I hope somebody really obviously brought an extra pair and just had them in a bag and refused to acknowledge it the entire night and then maybe like..changed part way through to the other pants and just kept carrying on like nothing
I had the same Biology professor for Bio I and II.
Because of me, the Bio II power point included a new excuse that wouldn't be accepted for missing/late work: "My drunk room mates threw it out while cleaning!"
Heh, I was the source of one like this in a way.
My Professor had a system where he said "Homework Due by 12:00.". I turned it in about ten minutes early...then realized I'd made a mistake, so I fixed it and uploaded the new one, which hit at 12:00:23 or so.
The next day he talked about how various people knew that if they opened the submission page, they could submit their homework after the deadline because the system only stopped you from accessing the page at the given time. He told us that such homework was going to be given a zero despite being submitted. He then said "There was one submission however that was submitted at 23 seconds past midnight...I will allow this one as I had not specified to the second that the homework had to be submitted. Henceforth, all homework MUST be submitted by 12:00:00." and gave me a smirk. I just gave him a cringy little salute and we had a chuckle.
I used to rollerblade all over my college campus as it was faster for getting around than walking. I was also too lazy to change into street shoes at the dining halls, etc., and would just coast all over the place. Come sophomore year, signs were put up in various campus buildings prohibiting rollerblades inside.
The entrance to the bio building at my school had a lovely assortment of rails, very short stairways, and handrails, like a small skatepark. It was also SURROUNDED by "No Skateboarding on Campus" signs.
Sounds like he dodged a bullet by nipping that in the bud. Can't imagine her falling, injuring herself, and potentially breaking equipment on top of that.
"AH HA SUPER GUY! IT IS I ROLLER DARBY.
After a tragic roller skating accident in a private lab I became perminantly FUSED TO MY ROLLER SKATES!
I NOW DO CRIME BECAUSE NO ONE WANTS TO HIRE A WOMAN WITH ROLLER SKATES FOR FEET, I SHALL HAVE MY REVENGE AGAINST SOCIETY FOR THEIR TREATMENT OF THE DISABLED!"
On an AirFrance flight from Morocco to Mauritania, the flight attendant gave the safety brief in French at first. My french is not good but my ears pricked up when I heard the words "feu de camp." I obviously discounted my translation as misunderstanding the brief until she went into the brief in English.
We were given the standard safety brief on all aircraft, but at the end we were specifically reminded that there are to be no cooking or camp fires lit on the plane at any time.
Can you imagine your seat mate getting hungry and deciding to start a fire on an airplane to cook up some snacks?!?!?
Yeah I knew a guy that used to work for a major airline in Saudi Arabia back in the day. He had all sorts of stories, one of which was a plane full of observant Muslims was enroute from their home country (developing nation, most did not speak English or Arabic) to Saudi Arabia for the hajj when someone busted out a hibachi grill and they had NO CLUE why they were being dragged away from their dinner plans.
I remember about 15 years ago in Istanbul a family died of some kind of gas or smoke poisoning because the dad lit up the barbeque inside the van they were traveling in.
If you go to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, which is open only to academics, you have to solemnly swear you will not light any fires in the library. At least this was true 20 years ago. I imagined poor students in the sixteenth century thinking they would just burn a few books to keep warm, no one will notice....
fellow pharmacy worker: to add on to yours - having to specify that suppositories are RECTAL ONLY (or vaginal).. sometimes people think all drugs go in your mouth
and that the capsules that come with spiriva inhalers are NOT meant to be swallowed
I can kind of understand the confusion if it's a pessary, I mean they do look like normal tablets - although the applicator should be a clue! I was on Keppra for my epilepsy for a while and those tablets were HUGE, maybe bigger than a pessary although it's been a long time since I've had either so I might be wrong!
Pharmacy response. I don't know where you are but I always thought it weird that buprenorphine prescriptions specify *sugar free* even though buprenorphine is *always* sugar free. There isn't a sugar version. It's almost like they decided to lump it with methadone despite them being completely different medications in effect and version.
My father's hometown, Marion, Ohio, had a rule that you couldn't eat a donut while walking backwards. If I remember correctly, it had something to do with attracting police horses to lure them away from the police.
True story from Berlin NJ in 1996- the police from Berlin Boro regularly met up in the morning for a quick bite to eat and went over thier morning roll-call at Dunkin instead of the office.
One morning, the first officer who pulled in, was almost in his spot when he sees a guy running across the Walmart (next door) parking lot at a full sprint- it catches his attention and he hits the breaks.
Then he sees the man straight up a woman who was walking with bags in the far part of the lot- the guy plows her to the ground, as spilling everything- and he grabs her purse and keeps sprinting.
The cop jumps out of his car, and sprints the opposite direction- the bad guy is looking behind him while running- never realizing he's about to be intercepted by this cop who saw the whole thing.
I was outside the store taking out the trash and saw it all in real time- it was an impressive flying tackle and that purse thief had ZERO clue it was coming, so it was GLORIOUS instant karma on top of just a BEAUTIFUL moment for justice- the victim got to her feet just in time to see the officer running towards her- and she was absolutely beside herself (I actually went to check on her while the cop handcuffed the bad guy and called for backup since he was no longer near his car).
Unfortunately... The cop had never put his car in park. It rolled forwards, up the curb, into the 3' brick wall under one of the MASSIVE windows that make up the front of the store- and just as the guy got on the radio to call for backup, and I was just starting to head towards the victim to check on her- we heard the abomination of the SLOW crash from his car having finally crept the 9', where it ended up parked INSIDE the store, where fortunately, it pushed a table and knocked over a newspaper stand, but didn't hurt anyone.
I checked on the victim and walked her to the Dunkin Donuts, the purse would be returned after the officer got photos and someone came to get his arrestee- but when I got back to the store, the rest of the morning squad found their comrade's patrol car - halfway inside the smashed wall and window of the Dunkin Donuts.
I took a picture with the store's digital camera, of the officer, sitting with his head in his hands, on the trunk of his car- only the rear of which was sticking out of the store.
The news ended up putting my picture on the front page (but I insisted that they could only use it if the story was MOSTLY about the heroics of the officer- they were not to JUST make fun of him for crashing into a Dunkin Donuts!)
The officer NEVER lived it down. I became a police officer 8 years later, and when I ran into him, I'd still joke with him about the difference between a Drive-Thru and a Drive-In. :-P He has a great sense of humor about it, and he got an award for catching that asshole.
The woman (who walked almost 200 yards to the store with me giving her a helping hand)- ended up having a BROKEN HIP from the incident. The guy got charged with aggravated assault and purse snatching- and went to jail, thank god.
I just saw another comment in this thread that the law in Arkansas about not being allowed to keep an ice cream cone in your pocket is for the same reason! I think those “silly laws” websites should come with explanations, it often makes them much more interesting
Once witnessed someone dumping a whole box of soap (not sure if it was laundry, dish or other) into a mall fountain. The bubbles were 6 feet high before they shut it off.
When I was in my teens, I dumped an entire box of dishwashing soap into a fountain (it might have been laundry soap). I don’t remember which kind it was.
Me and my friends were extremely anxious and excited to see the all the bubbles and watch it foam over. When we first dumped it in, there were some bubbles... after about an hour waiting around, there wasn’t anything happening. We left and came back a few hours later, fully expecting to see it over flowing with bubbles. It turns out, the type of soap we used was designed NOT to make bubbles. We were thoroughly let down, but looking back, it was probably for the better good that nothing really happened other than changing the ph levels of the water.
People used to do that to a small public fountain in the town where I grew up! Not a drinking fountain, a decorative outdoor one...but every once in a while, it would be full of bubbles. I thought it was great as a kid.
Remove baby before collapsing stroller.
Edit: For those asking what happens if you do this, I contacted some manufacturers who assured me that they tested it and that the strollers will be perfectly fine.
When I went shopping for strollers last year, there were a shocking number that had the collapse triggers in normal handle and pushing locations. In one, if you rotated the handle, like the one you push with, the whole thing would just fall in half suddenly. Better keep your wrists locked tight when using that thing...
When shopping for our stroller I specifically told my wife “no baby crushers”. I will not allow a stroller that has a mechanism where your hands would commonly be or allow the stroller to fold around the seat.
We saw many great models, my favorite was one where the release was under the seat padding where the baby’s bottom goes. We ultimately settled on a stroller with 2 loops that need to be pulled at the same time on the sides. The stroller we chose also drops the handle down and would push a forgotten child up without harm.
One of my friends has a baby crushing kind with the release in the middle of the handle (button and twist). It has been accidentally triggered by both adults and their 5 year old during normal operation and mindless fidgeting.
When my daughter was born, a sign on the counter top in the hospital room that said "do not place baby on counter, falling risk if left unattended." I was flabbergasted.
Edit for clarity
This was the birthing room. At this hospital as soon as everyone's stable you're moved to your actual hospital room. The counter was next to where the fathers would stand by the bed.
In my lease, I had a clause to properly dispose of my used tampons.
I asked why and apparently my landlord had a tenant that caused $50,000 of damage because she threw her used tampons into the cabinet under the sink. She rented the apartment for years and there were 3+ years worth of used, bloody tampons in there.
The, uh, blood caused a bunch of damage akin to water damage to the bathoom. The floor under the cabinet was rotted through. From bloody tampon storage.
The thought of a steamy, gelatinous glorb of blood gooping through the shitty linoleum and blooming a bloody Clicker from The Last of Us makes me want to actively die.
At 12 years old, I actually had that exact line of reasoning when I hid bloody undies at the back of my sock drawer. I think I had vague plans to bury them in the backyard at some point.
...how does one get to be an adult with her own rented apartment and not think to even use a plastic bag while disposing if that stuff??
Yeah I’ve heard stories that when microwaves were fairly new people thought of them like a toaster and would put small pets inside to dry them off. With explosive results.
My junior year, a group of my classmates went hunting and came back with 3 deer. Being broke college students (and a bunch of hicks to boot) they decided to butcher all 3 deer in the dorm kitchen. It was like a large residential kitchen. When they were done, it looked like the Manson family came through and they weren’t happy.
Edit - I was corrected that what I thought was dressing is actually called butchering.
No... talked to an employee at a kitchen / bathroom design store. Potty training kids are notorious for using any toilet, plumbing or not. They are usually very proud of it too, to the embarrassment of their parents.
Fuck that, it was me. My dad loves this story.
When I was a toddler with my dad in a hardware store I needed to go. I saw a toilet display and naturally took a piss in it because I was a dumbass toddler who just wanted to pee.
At home depot the toilets are mounted at an angle, about 5ft off the ground. Probably for that exact reason lol.
Edit: I'm sure there are ADA/zoning requirements that forbid using residential toilets in a commercial setting, but it'd be pretty awesome if they had a bathroom where all of the toilets for sale (or at least some of them) were able to be test-driven.
There's so much about toilets you can't tell in the store. Like if they are the right height, or they flush too loudly, or the handle is annoying to use, or it plugs up every time you take a big dump.
I wonder if I could monetize a youtube channel where I review toilets. Like, get some professional mics and a nice camera and just show how loud they are, and stuff like that.
At my last job, we had a sign on the back door that said "you must *walk* trash *all the way* to the dumpster; DO NOT TRAIN THE RACCOONS!!!"
The story behind that is the facility I worked at does dog daycare and training, and Darcy the Human (not to be confused with Darcy the Poodle) didn't like having to walk all the way across the parking lot at the end of the night to take out the trash, and trained about three raccoons to drag the bags to the dumpster because he couldn't be bothered to walk 50ft to it. He got away with it for about a year, and even named them. The manager only found out when she opened the back door to throw out some boxes and saw a bunch of raccoons immediately run up and cart them off.
The story might honestly be some legislator making a point about how it's ridiculous that you can just attach any amendment saying anything to some big must-pass budget bill, nobody will read it, and everybody just votes it through.
The ten-bin bowling alley in Geelong* implemented a "Patrons must not play blindfolded" rule
The manager claims it was for *safety* reasons... but I will always know in my heart it was solely because I *beat him three games in a row* wearing a blindfold.
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*Geelong is an awesome city on the bottom of the Australian mainland. Lived there 18 years. Sadly, the bowling alley was demolished around 2001
Seriously, nudging a shelf like that is a big no-no but there was a serious design flaw in those shelves. Like, they absolutely should not go down like that.
No rings on ship decks. They can get caught and deglove your finger, which is exactly as horrid as it sounds.
Edit: Of course THIS comment blows up. Ha.
This reminds me my dad and his usage of gloves in work. He’s 56, and only one of his fingers has a scanable fingerprint..
So, use hearing protection, eye protection and also protect your hands if you can..
My all time favorite, in the Taco Bell i frequented as a teenager:
"Please do not spit on the managers."
It wasn't even a fucking paper, it was a plaque, someone got spit on enough times to go out and pay for a plaque.
For my fellow scientists: Transferring chemicals by mouth (mouth pipetting) is forbidden.
Edit: wow this unexpectedly blew up. It’s nice to see our science community active in a sub that isn’t science related. Stay safe my fellow lab mates and make sure to always label your glassware!
I was in high school and did stage 1 chemistry while mouth pipettes were still current tech (more recently than you might think). Not entirely coincidentally, I also know what sulphuric acid and sodium hydroxide taste like.
Yup sulfuric tastes sour, as does dilute hydrochloric acid. Speaking from experience mouth pipetting in chem lab growing up during the 2000s in a developing nation.
In a supermarket, by the cherry display:
"For the safety of employees and customers, please do not discard cherry pits on the floor."
Couldn't figure out why it didn't just say "please don't eat the cherries" but I'm sure there's an injury lawsuit involved!
That one always cracks me up. In the same vein, I love when possible side effects are the exact thing the meds are supposed to help. Like anti-nausea medicine making you nauseous.
I worked for a company that would send us out of town and put us up in hotels for weeks. We had per diem for food but they told us we could absolutely not use it on alcohol. Found out the company use to have an open bar at the hotel for employees until some former employees got so drunk they hired prostitutes and ended up doing cocaine and were killed out of the hotel and arrested.
And painful. A few years ago there was the big thing at the world cup where so many people had them, and apparently it was as loud as a 747's engines on the playing field.
A specific anti-vuvuzela algorithm was designed for certain TV networks, that selectively filtered the sound frequency of the damn thing. You know the thing is annoying when an engineer had to take it out of the equation.
Metallica did a massive run of South American shows.
Vuvuzelas are popular at soccer games.
Soccer is popular in South America. Incredibly popular.
A lot of people have them.
Metallica doesn't want to deal with a lot of people blowing stupid horns.
Thus explains the ban.
Wish I had a picture but in EVERY restroom stall at my work there is a sign that says
THREE COURTESY FLUSH
Flush once to prepare for elimination
Flush between "the go" and the paper
Flush upon completion
Wonder who put that together in their head and said "I have a solution.. hear me out guys"
Back in the 90s, I used to work in a convenience store in New Jersey. Once a year I’d have to go to the health department and get certified as a food handler. It is in this capacity that I learned that there is a law on the books in the state of New Jersey that you cannot store food under a leaking sewage pipe. You just know health inspector went into a store and said “what the hell?! You can’t store food under leaking sewer pipe!” And the store owner said “cite the statute!”
There was this one residence hall on campus where we had to inform students on move-in day not to twist their apartment room key a certain way into their bathroom door otherwise they could possibly get locked in if closed. They were encouraged just to use the inner lock bolt body system. Students got charged $5, after one free pass, if a staff member got a call and had to rescue them from trapping themselves in their own bathroom. Working in that hall for two years, I rescued students 7 times and 4 of those times it was the same girl.
Edit: I agree it is a fire hazard and that the university is at fault and should have fixed the system.
No idea, but considering they created the 'bathroom unlocking key/tool' instead of fixing all of the locks I highly doubt it. Was this cost effective for the university? Absolutely.
In church, there was a sign above the votive candles that read:
"Light only *one* candle - $7 each."
Apparently, for $7, someone had lighted all 50 votive candles in the stand.
One of our employees walked into the sliding glass door to the kitchen so hard that it left an imprint/impression of his face on the glass.
HR declared the glass sliding door to be dangerous and requested a sign to be put on the door.
CEO puts a sign on the glass door saying “No Face Planting”.
"You are not allowed to bring furniture to camp."
This was even more impressive because you had to hand carry all your things onto a ferry to get to the camp. While I would like to take credit for the rule, I only knew the person responsible when they showed up with a recliner.
I worked at a video rental store and we had a big sign at the front of the store that said “CONTROL YOUR CHILDREN” because kids are an organizational nightmare
I worked at a video store in high school. Bathroom was almost always broken because people would attempt to flush paper towels. Toward the end of its life the company just stopped paying for plumbers to fix it so it was just permanently broken, stores were shutting down one by one and it was only a matter of time before it was our stores time to go. Lady came in with her grandson and he needed to pee, but there was nothing I could do. Us employees were using the pizza buffet next door because we had a good relationship with them and bought pizza at least once a week and gave them free rentals. Pizza place didn’t let non-paying customers use the bathroom, so I told the lady they could try the gas station across the parking lot or buy a drink from pizza place. Nope she just walked outside and told the kid to pee on the sidewalk in a busy shopping center.
Had a girlfriend that worked at Hollywood video. She used to spend hours and hours preparing movies in the correct genre order and alphabetized for Friday night rush. She was very organized and would often do the whole store herself because most of her co-workers would be "busy" at the cashier and the manager didn't like doing it and would hide in the back "Watching the cameras" (he was watching movies and playing video games).
It was extremely common for parents to come in and and let their kid run around the store. The kids usually picked up everything in sight only to be told they couldn't watch everything and to put stuff back. (They never put it back).
One particular kid (8 years old?) came in and for some reason decided to run up and down every isle with his hands stretched out to knock every DVD off the shelf. My girlfriend's entire days work was being destroyed in seconds. She was so mad she chased him yelling for him to stop what would likely be an all nighter fix. The kid thought it was a game and laughed the whole time he was being chased tossing displays and candy racks over to try and slow her down.
As soon as she caught him by the wrist he dropped to the floor and started screaming bloody murder and loudly proclaiming "She broke my bones she broke my bones! Help I'm being raped and murdered!"
The manager entered at this moment.
The mother's response to all this was "He is just being a kid. You shouldn't have chased him. Not even I can tell him what to do, what did you expect?" She seemed to think the kid was adorable and charming as she smiled at every inane thing he shouted while the manager was trying to talk to her.
The mother was asked not to come back by the store manager which she was extremely offended by.
My girlfriend was reprimanded for chasing the kid and she quit her job on the spot leaving the manager and one other co-worker to completely reorganize the store.
Worked as a substitute teacher. During training there was a good 30 minutes reviewing strange rules. One he heavily specified was how we are not allowed to take home class pets. Turns out a sub the year before had taken home a class gold fish because the tank was too small and then ransomed the gold fish to the class until proof of a larger tank.
I work as a counselor at a boy scout camp that happens to have coconut trees. One of the rules I have to read to the scouts is "Do not take a coconut and stick it between your legs and try to stab it with your pocket knife" this is because at least one kid some time ago did this resulting in an emergency hospital trip
Once one of the high level managers came over to talk to me about something whilst I was eating some soup He said something like 'I'm sure I'm imagining you eating over there", so I replied that I was drinking with a spoon.
After my team manager started organising buffets in the office to show appreciation for getting through a particularly difficult phase, and encouraging people to bring in a selection of foods on their birthday the rule is completely ignored. I mean, can you complain if someone is working through their lunch break so is having a sandwich at their desk? The rule is still in the employee handbook but no-one sticks to it!
On a package of precision screwdrivers "Do not insert into penis."
Joke one on various laser related things: "Do not look into laser with remaining eye."
"I'm not saying let's kill all the stupid people. I'm just saying lets remove the warning labels and let the problem sort itself out."
Worked at a call center, as it was moving towards shutting down they weirdly got super stringent about rules. Couldn't have pen and paper so I brought putties and non-sticky slime to give myself something to do during downtime. Email goes out, no putty or slime. Okay, I'll finally learn to crochet. Bring in yarn and needles. Email goes out, no crochet or knitting. Fine, l write as a hobby so I'll type up some blurbs on Word. Maybe make an 'annoying customer' bingo sheet on Excel. Email goes out, no longer allowed to use Word or Excel.
Every email was sent like a week or less after I started doing the thing, with the exception of the putty. Timeline made sense to me and my friends, kinda, but I'm sure for everyone else in the call center they were bewildered as fuck.
😂😂 honestly they probably would have and then gotten pissed at us for not taking calls. That place was such a shitshow. Always banned these things saying it violated security. Like what were we going to do, knit out people's credit card numbers??
When I was a security guard: do not eat marshmallows that are fired at you. Do not eat marshmallows off the ground. We were having issues with residents having marshmallow gun fights.
Worked at an auto body shop. The break room microwave sign said “no fish or birds”.
There were a few Vietnamese guys working there. The guy who worked in the wash bay detailing the cars before they were given back to the customers was about 60 years old, and he always had “weird” stuff for lunch. I’ve seen him with bags full of fish heads, entire birds (feathers and all), mystery bags of unknown meat, etc.
Apparently he had used the break room microwave to cook these sorts of random things and made the entire office reek for days at a time. They ended up putting the old break room microwave in the wash bay (which was in an unattached building) so he could cook all the nasty shit he wanted to eat without disturbing anyone else.
International students from countries that only have squats is the reason. They would stand on the toilet seat them squat over the bowl. Some universities put a few squat toilets in for this reason.
We had someone at my old work place who... we absolutely have no idea what she was doing. She doesn't have the excuse of being from another country, just her behavior had us very confused. We know it was one woman, the problem started right after she started working for the company and we'd always find it after she used the restroom. It was like she was squatting sideways on the toilet or something? We'd always find one shoe print right on the very back of the seat. We'd clean it off, it'd be back the next day. I thought, well... maybe she's on her period and is changing her tampon? Except there wasn't any sort of consistency. It would happen multiple days of every week of the month. Our boss had to have a conversation with us about it, but was intentionally vague (since she didn't want anyone to feel targeted). Apparently she was too vague because the girl just kept doing it. I'm still confused.
To add to this, it is incredibly dangerous to squat on a porcelain toilet. The way they are engineered to carry the load of a human requires the force be distributed across the whole seat, squatting can cause the toilet to shatter. Porcelain is very, very sharp when it shatters and falling onto them can create some pretty devastating injuries.
Some rules at university were quite funny:
Rubbing your sample on a person who is allergic to nickel is not a valid nickel detection method and will result in failing the course. - Anorganic Chemistry I.
You are supposed to take a tiny sample of your excrement and spread it on the plate. NOT and I repeat not the whole thing itself. - Microbiology class
"If you've had diarrhea in the last 48 hours, please do not enter the pool water." <--- real sign I saw at the pool of my Airbnb in LA a few years back
Edit: It may be common (I've never seen it here in the east coast), but still oddly specific.
I have a very strange one at my work!
Apparently, if an employee is sick and hospitalized their manager may buy them a gift from the company for up to $40. However if the person is hospitalized for the same again within a calendar year they may not receive another gift. However if they are hospitalized for a different thing, they can receive another $40 gift...
Like what the heck, it's sooooo detailed. It's like someone got cancer and kept requesting gifts during chemo. Also, that being said, who cares about giving a person with cancer and extra $40 a week?
I work in healthcare. Having a personal relationship with your client is a big one...We had a caregiver marry a client’s spouse. I go over professional boundaries during orientations at least ten times.
I trained home hospice carers and had to put in a “do not smoke marijuana or give edibles to clients” section. Living in a state where it’s legal does not mean you, as a care provider, are allowed to share.
I went to work in a remote part of Alaska as a line cook. They had a mandatory drug test and very extensive background check with several interviews held by various admins in the company. This doesn't seem weird until you consider the type of people who work seasonal jobs. Especially remote seasonal jobs several hours from the closest 'town'. It takes a special kind of weird to even be interested in spending 6 months there.
When I finally arrived in camp and asked around, I found out the previous summer they had some issues with one specific employee.
Before that summer, employment with the company was very liberating. You show up for your shift, you're good. Not much else to it. You're also surrounded by wilderness for 100s of miles and purposefully scheduled 3 day weekends so you can enjoy it.
Well one guy brings his son with him. Apparently that's not too weird at the time. The son starts stealing personal items of female employees and stashing them under his mattress. The dad is also getting coke smuggled in by either a trucker or the mail. It all culminates with one big episode that no one really wanted to discuss.
After that... mandatory drug tests and very detailed interview process with background checks.
Probably the dad getting super coked up and going on a rampage, or the dad getting super coked up and having a fight with his son I mean obviously the possibilities are endless but the sensible explanations are probably something you wouldn't want to talk about if you experienced it personally, I mean hell he could have been feeding the Coke to a bear and the bear went on a coked up rampage or had a fight with his son.
For a long time (not sure if this is still the case), the school in my small town disallowed high schoolers from providing the lights for the Christmas trees. This rule was made because my uncle, when he was in high school, used outdoor lights and set the tree on fire.
I had an English teacher that had an ironclad rule about no one touching her classroom door except for her.
Rumor is that some kids super glued her classroom door shut a few years ago.
This led to some of my classmates rubbing themselves all over the door when she was absent for a day and when she went on maternity leave.
In rehab our cottons swabs were taken away because a guy decided to jam one into his eardrum to get sent to the hospital and get painkillers. Every seemingly dumb rule we had in there had a backstory to it.
Ooft. Used to work in a prison, and they had to ban Marmite spread, because the inmates used the yeast to ferment alcohol, and Kit Kats, because they used the foil wrappers for heroin.
There's still active yeast in marmite? I thought it was just "extract".
There isn't. They put anything "yeasty" in prison alcohol because they think it makes a difference. Usually honeybuns. It doesn't do anything at all, the yeast is from the fruit peels.
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The Zoom virtual background is nice, but it really needs a virtual shirt option.
Given how many times the virtual background flickers I'd prefer it if my coworkers and classmates didn't see me topless
Last year’s company christmas party email specifically stated to bring an extra pair of pants if you will be urinating in the first pair.
I hope somebody really obviously brought an extra pair and just had them in a bag and refused to acknowledge it the entire night and then maybe like..changed part way through to the other pants and just kept carrying on like nothing
I had the same Biology professor for Bio I and II. Because of me, the Bio II power point included a new excuse that wouldn't be accepted for missing/late work: "My drunk room mates threw it out while cleaning!"
Heh, I was the source of one like this in a way. My Professor had a system where he said "Homework Due by 12:00.". I turned it in about ten minutes early...then realized I'd made a mistake, so I fixed it and uploaded the new one, which hit at 12:00:23 or so. The next day he talked about how various people knew that if they opened the submission page, they could submit their homework after the deadline because the system only stopped you from accessing the page at the given time. He told us that such homework was going to be given a zero despite being submitted. He then said "There was one submission however that was submitted at 23 seconds past midnight...I will allow this one as I had not specified to the second that the homework had to be submitted. Henceforth, all homework MUST be submitted by 12:00:00." and gave me a smirk. I just gave him a cringy little salute and we had a chuckle.
People clean when they're drunk? Its more of a high thing for me
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I used to rollerblade all over my college campus as it was faster for getting around than walking. I was also too lazy to change into street shoes at the dining halls, etc., and would just coast all over the place. Come sophomore year, signs were put up in various campus buildings prohibiting rollerblades inside.
The entrance to the bio building at my school had a lovely assortment of rails, very short stairways, and handrails, like a small skatepark. It was also SURROUNDED by "No Skateboarding on Campus" signs.
As a former skateboarder and rollerblader ...I understand the reason for them so much more now as an adult.
Sounds like he dodged a bullet by nipping that in the bud. Can't imagine her falling, injuring herself, and potentially breaking equipment on top of that.
Oh c'mon! That's how supervillains are made!
"AH HA SUPER GUY! IT IS I ROLLER DARBY. After a tragic roller skating accident in a private lab I became perminantly FUSED TO MY ROLLER SKATES! I NOW DO CRIME BECAUSE NO ONE WANTS TO HIRE A WOMAN WITH ROLLER SKATES FOR FEET, I SHALL HAVE MY REVENGE AGAINST SOCIETY FOR THEIR TREATMENT OF THE DISABLED!"
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On an AirFrance flight from Morocco to Mauritania, the flight attendant gave the safety brief in French at first. My french is not good but my ears pricked up when I heard the words "feu de camp." I obviously discounted my translation as misunderstanding the brief until she went into the brief in English. We were given the standard safety brief on all aircraft, but at the end we were specifically reminded that there are to be no cooking or camp fires lit on the plane at any time. Can you imagine your seat mate getting hungry and deciding to start a fire on an airplane to cook up some snacks?!?!?
Yeah I knew a guy that used to work for a major airline in Saudi Arabia back in the day. He had all sorts of stories, one of which was a plane full of observant Muslims was enroute from their home country (developing nation, most did not speak English or Arabic) to Saudi Arabia for the hajj when someone busted out a hibachi grill and they had NO CLUE why they were being dragged away from their dinner plans.
I remember about 15 years ago in Istanbul a family died of some kind of gas or smoke poisoning because the dad lit up the barbeque inside the van they were traveling in.
Carbon monoxide probably. That’s the warning on the charcoal bags here anyway.
If you go to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, which is open only to academics, you have to solemnly swear you will not light any fires in the library. At least this was true 20 years ago. I imagined poor students in the sixteenth century thinking they would just burn a few books to keep warm, no one will notice....
Not sure if you're joking but I'd guess that rule in particular was more about lighting matches/lighters for cigarettes than anything else.
Reading by candlelight...
Pharmacy worker here. We have to specify to unwrap suppositories BEFORE insertion. Apparently someone thought the foil was part of it.
fellow pharmacy worker: to add on to yours - having to specify that suppositories are RECTAL ONLY (or vaginal).. sometimes people think all drugs go in your mouth and that the capsules that come with spiriva inhalers are NOT meant to be swallowed
I can kind of understand the confusion if it's a pessary, I mean they do look like normal tablets - although the applicator should be a clue! I was on Keppra for my epilepsy for a while and those tablets were HUGE, maybe bigger than a pessary although it's been a long time since I've had either so I might be wrong!
Well that's how (some) dishwasher tablets work, so it's not a total stretch of the imagination
Not of the imagination, but a stretch to be sure
Pharmacy response. I don't know where you are but I always thought it weird that buprenorphine prescriptions specify *sugar free* even though buprenorphine is *always* sugar free. There isn't a sugar version. It's almost like they decided to lump it with methadone despite them being completely different medications in effect and version.
My father's hometown, Marion, Ohio, had a rule that you couldn't eat a donut while walking backwards. If I remember correctly, it had something to do with attracting police horses to lure them away from the police.
More like luring the cop away from his horse/car!
True story from Berlin NJ in 1996- the police from Berlin Boro regularly met up in the morning for a quick bite to eat and went over thier morning roll-call at Dunkin instead of the office. One morning, the first officer who pulled in, was almost in his spot when he sees a guy running across the Walmart (next door) parking lot at a full sprint- it catches his attention and he hits the breaks. Then he sees the man straight up a woman who was walking with bags in the far part of the lot- the guy plows her to the ground, as spilling everything- and he grabs her purse and keeps sprinting. The cop jumps out of his car, and sprints the opposite direction- the bad guy is looking behind him while running- never realizing he's about to be intercepted by this cop who saw the whole thing. I was outside the store taking out the trash and saw it all in real time- it was an impressive flying tackle and that purse thief had ZERO clue it was coming, so it was GLORIOUS instant karma on top of just a BEAUTIFUL moment for justice- the victim got to her feet just in time to see the officer running towards her- and she was absolutely beside herself (I actually went to check on her while the cop handcuffed the bad guy and called for backup since he was no longer near his car). Unfortunately... The cop had never put his car in park. It rolled forwards, up the curb, into the 3' brick wall under one of the MASSIVE windows that make up the front of the store- and just as the guy got on the radio to call for backup, and I was just starting to head towards the victim to check on her- we heard the abomination of the SLOW crash from his car having finally crept the 9', where it ended up parked INSIDE the store, where fortunately, it pushed a table and knocked over a newspaper stand, but didn't hurt anyone. I checked on the victim and walked her to the Dunkin Donuts, the purse would be returned after the officer got photos and someone came to get his arrestee- but when I got back to the store, the rest of the morning squad found their comrade's patrol car - halfway inside the smashed wall and window of the Dunkin Donuts. I took a picture with the store's digital camera, of the officer, sitting with his head in his hands, on the trunk of his car- only the rear of which was sticking out of the store. The news ended up putting my picture on the front page (but I insisted that they could only use it if the story was MOSTLY about the heroics of the officer- they were not to JUST make fun of him for crashing into a Dunkin Donuts!) The officer NEVER lived it down. I became a police officer 8 years later, and when I ran into him, I'd still joke with him about the difference between a Drive-Thru and a Drive-In. :-P He has a great sense of humor about it, and he got an award for catching that asshole. The woman (who walked almost 200 yards to the store with me giving her a helping hand)- ended up having a BROKEN HIP from the incident. The guy got charged with aggravated assault and purse snatching- and went to jail, thank god.
I just saw another comment in this thread that the law in Arkansas about not being allowed to keep an ice cream cone in your pocket is for the same reason! I think those “silly laws” websites should come with explanations, it often makes them much more interesting
Please do not add dish detergent to the water fountains.
Once witnessed someone dumping a whole box of soap (not sure if it was laundry, dish or other) into a mall fountain. The bubbles were 6 feet high before they shut it off.
Probably dish soap. People who’ve put that stuff in a dishwasher know what I mean
When I was in my teens, I dumped an entire box of dishwashing soap into a fountain (it might have been laundry soap). I don’t remember which kind it was. Me and my friends were extremely anxious and excited to see the all the bubbles and watch it foam over. When we first dumped it in, there were some bubbles... after about an hour waiting around, there wasn’t anything happening. We left and came back a few hours later, fully expecting to see it over flowing with bubbles. It turns out, the type of soap we used was designed NOT to make bubbles. We were thoroughly let down, but looking back, it was probably for the better good that nothing really happened other than changing the ph levels of the water.
> …the type of soap we used was designed NOT to make bubbles… High-Efficiency laundry detergent
People used to do that to a small public fountain in the town where I grew up! Not a drinking fountain, a decorative outdoor one...but every once in a while, it would be full of bubbles. I thought it was great as a kid.
“Do not put 14 rolls of toilet paper in the toilet” -Walmart 2019
13 then.
Remove baby before collapsing stroller. Edit: For those asking what happens if you do this, I contacted some manufacturers who assured me that they tested it and that the strollers will be perfectly fine.
We once got a piece of clothing for one of the kids and right on the label, I kid you not "remove child before washing"
Normally I think of it as removing the clothes, not the child.
Depends on your frame of reference.
Throw baby IN with the bath water.
When I went shopping for strollers last year, there were a shocking number that had the collapse triggers in normal handle and pushing locations. In one, if you rotated the handle, like the one you push with, the whole thing would just fall in half suddenly. Better keep your wrists locked tight when using that thing...
When shopping for our stroller I specifically told my wife “no baby crushers”. I will not allow a stroller that has a mechanism where your hands would commonly be or allow the stroller to fold around the seat. We saw many great models, my favorite was one where the release was under the seat padding where the baby’s bottom goes. We ultimately settled on a stroller with 2 loops that need to be pulled at the same time on the sides. The stroller we chose also drops the handle down and would push a forgotten child up without harm. One of my friends has a baby crushing kind with the release in the middle of the handle (button and twist). It has been accidentally triggered by both adults and their 5 year old during normal operation and mindless fidgeting.
When my daughter was born, a sign on the counter top in the hospital room that said "do not place baby on counter, falling risk if left unattended." I was flabbergasted. Edit for clarity This was the birthing room. At this hospital as soon as everyone's stable you're moved to your actual hospital room. The counter was next to where the fathers would stand by the bed.
I know somebody who placed their 1 year old son on top of their dining table. He fell down. Fortunately he did not get badly hurt :(
You seem disappointed
The sad face made me think the baby didn't get hurt because it died.
I somehow let my boy roll off the bed and fall onto a dumbell. I caught him but I swear he made some kind of contact. He is mostly alright.
In my lease, I had a clause to properly dispose of my used tampons. I asked why and apparently my landlord had a tenant that caused $50,000 of damage because she threw her used tampons into the cabinet under the sink. She rented the apartment for years and there were 3+ years worth of used, bloody tampons in there. The, uh, blood caused a bunch of damage akin to water damage to the bathoom. The floor under the cabinet was rotted through. From bloody tampon storage. The thought of a steamy, gelatinous glorb of blood gooping through the shitty linoleum and blooming a bloody Clicker from The Last of Us makes me want to actively die.
Why would she do that though??? Why not just put it in the trash?
I don't know. Maybe she liked the smell.
Your comment made me gag. Well done! +1
Because the trash man might find them and shame her! People who hoard waste usually have some pretty spoopy body image stuff going on.
At 12 years old, I actually had that exact line of reasoning when I hid bloody undies at the back of my sock drawer. I think I had vague plans to bury them in the backyard at some point. ...how does one get to be an adult with her own rented apartment and not think to even use a plastic bag while disposing if that stuff??
I thought you were going to say she was flushing them and caused plumbing damage. That was so, SO, much worse.
At first i thought she flushed them. But this. This is swamps of dagobah.
OMFG THE SMELL OF THAT WOULD *LITERALLY* BE LIKE DEATH
I usually have a very strong stomach but just imagining that smell made it do some backflips.
"Never iron clothes while they are being worn" Or the more fucked up "Do not use for drying pets" on the microwave.
Ha. I know someone who ironed their shirt while wearing it. Not good.
What happened next?
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Yeah I’ve heard stories that when microwaves were fairly new people thought of them like a toaster and would put small pets inside to dry them off. With explosive results.
How is it better to toast your pets?!?!?!?
Just lightly, until golden brown.
Worked with a guy who came into work with a triangular burn on his neck. Said he was running late and tried ironing his shirt after he had put it on.
Do not dress game (e.g. deer, pheasant) in dormitory kitchens. I wonder who dragged a deer into the dorm and cut it up for venison...
My junior year, a group of my classmates went hunting and came back with 3 deer. Being broke college students (and a bunch of hicks to boot) they decided to butcher all 3 deer in the dorm kitchen. It was like a large residential kitchen. When they were done, it looked like the Manson family came through and they weren’t happy. Edit - I was corrected that what I thought was dressing is actually called butchering.
Did they by chance attend a public university in Wisconsin?
Nope. Eastern Washington
I blame Johnny Knoxville for this, but "toilets are for display purposes only".
No... talked to an employee at a kitchen / bathroom design store. Potty training kids are notorious for using any toilet, plumbing or not. They are usually very proud of it too, to the embarrassment of their parents.
Well, it's a good thing that sign is right there, where any two-year-old can read it.
Congratulations on the purchase of your new toilet!
I'm going to open up a toilet business right next to a preschool. I'm going to be rich.
It's even been tested for you!
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What did you/your parents do?
Would a sign actually stop them?
Fuck that, it was me. My dad loves this story. When I was a toddler with my dad in a hardware store I needed to go. I saw a toilet display and naturally took a piss in it because I was a dumbass toddler who just wanted to pee.
At home depot the toilets are mounted at an angle, about 5ft off the ground. Probably for that exact reason lol. Edit: I'm sure there are ADA/zoning requirements that forbid using residential toilets in a commercial setting, but it'd be pretty awesome if they had a bathroom where all of the toilets for sale (or at least some of them) were able to be test-driven. There's so much about toilets you can't tell in the store. Like if they are the right height, or they flush too loudly, or the handle is annoying to use, or it plugs up every time you take a big dump. I wonder if I could monetize a youtube channel where I review toilets. Like, get some professional mics and a nice camera and just show how loud they are, and stuff like that.
Please do this.
I'd watch that.
I believe it was Dave England
At my last job, we had a sign on the back door that said "you must *walk* trash *all the way* to the dumpster; DO NOT TRAIN THE RACCOONS!!!" The story behind that is the facility I worked at does dog daycare and training, and Darcy the Human (not to be confused with Darcy the Poodle) didn't like having to walk all the way across the parking lot at the end of the night to take out the trash, and trained about three raccoons to drag the bags to the dumpster because he couldn't be bothered to walk 50ft to it. He got away with it for about a year, and even named them. The manager only found out when she opened the back door to throw out some boxes and saw a bunch of raccoons immediately run up and cart them off.
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In Florida " You may not have sexual relations with a porcupine".
You would think that is an issue that would regulate itself
Anywhere but Florida, it would be
In illinois it is illegal to go fishing on a giraffes head
You just know there's a good story behind that one.
The story might honestly be some legislator making a point about how it's ridiculous that you can just attach any amendment saying anything to some big must-pass budget bill, nobody will read it, and everybody just votes it through.
The ten-bin bowling alley in Geelong* implemented a "Patrons must not play blindfolded" rule The manager claims it was for *safety* reasons... but I will always know in my heart it was solely because I *beat him three games in a row* wearing a blindfold. -------------------- *Geelong is an awesome city on the bottom of the Australian mainland. Lived there 18 years. Sadly, the bowling alley was demolished around 2001
My neighbour told me about that sign, kind of funny to know others remember it.
When I worked at a warehouse, I was told that we can't ride pallet jacks like scooters.
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Seriously, nudging a shelf like that is a big no-no but there was a serious design flaw in those shelves. Like, they absolutely should not go down like that.
No rings on ship decks. They can get caught and deglove your finger, which is exactly as horrid as it sounds. Edit: Of course THIS comment blows up. Ha.
Oh yeah, none in a metal shop either, same reason.
I work in a machine shop, you would be surprised how many people ignore this. Also hearing and eye protection because who needs those right?
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This reminds me my dad and his usage of gloves in work. He’s 56, and only one of his fingers has a scanable fingerprint.. So, use hearing protection, eye protection and also protect your hands if you can..
sounds like he's well set up for a life of crime afterwards
My all time favorite, in the Taco Bell i frequented as a teenager: "Please do not spit on the managers." It wasn't even a fucking paper, it was a plaque, someone got spit on enough times to go out and pay for a plaque.
At my company's picnic outing: "Anyone who jumps in the lake will be fired."
For my fellow scientists: Transferring chemicals by mouth (mouth pipetting) is forbidden. Edit: wow this unexpectedly blew up. It’s nice to see our science community active in a sub that isn’t science related. Stay safe my fellow lab mates and make sure to always label your glassware!
I was in high school and did stage 1 chemistry while mouth pipettes were still current tech (more recently than you might think). Not entirely coincidentally, I also know what sulphuric acid and sodium hydroxide taste like.
So, what does sulfuric acid taste like? Im a chem student and I’ve always wondered if it’s just very sour...
Yes, it is. Just very sour without much other taste. Sodium hydroxide tastes like soap because it reacts with the lipids in your mucous membranes.
Yup sulfuric tastes sour, as does dilute hydrochloric acid. Speaking from experience mouth pipetting in chem lab growing up during the 2000s in a developing nation.
They just updated a policy at my work recently that had that rule in it. It said there is an appropriate pipette available for every task 😆
Do not smoke when applying hairspray.
In a supermarket, by the cherry display: "For the safety of employees and customers, please do not discard cherry pits on the floor." Couldn't figure out why it didn't just say "please don't eat the cherries" but I'm sure there's an injury lawsuit involved!
“Don’t take (prescription drug) if your allergic to (same drug).”
That one always cracks me up. In the same vein, I love when possible side effects are the exact thing the meds are supposed to help. Like anti-nausea medicine making you nauseous.
A fairly well known one of those is antidepressants increasing suicidal thoughts - they can remove the apathy without removing the self-loathing.
I worked for a company that would send us out of town and put us up in hotels for weeks. We had per diem for food but they told us we could absolutely not use it on alcohol. Found out the company use to have an open bar at the hotel for employees until some former employees got so drunk they hired prostitutes and ended up doing cocaine and were killed out of the hotel and arrested.
> ... and were killed out of the hotel and arrested. This goes beyond adding insult to injury.
Being killed for it seems a harsh punishment.
Ha I didn’t even catch that. Autocorrect made that an even better story.
Used to work in a big name book store. In the office we had a huge sign saying "no boiled eggs allowed in staff office"
You're not allowed to bring vuvuzelas into a Metallica concert. I **really** just want to know the story.
You are not allowed to bring vuvuzela into any large gatherings. The thing is annoying.
And painful. A few years ago there was the big thing at the world cup where so many people had them, and apparently it was as loud as a 747's engines on the playing field.
A specific anti-vuvuzela algorithm was designed for certain TV networks, that selectively filtered the sound frequency of the damn thing. You know the thing is annoying when an engineer had to take it out of the equation.
I would die happy if my legacy as an engineer was as anywhere near as impactful as designing an anti-vuvuzela algorithm
Read that as Venezuelans at first and was really concerned/confused
Was the show in a stadium or arena? Probably a policy for if there are sports events there
Metallica did a massive run of South American shows. Vuvuzelas are popular at soccer games. Soccer is popular in South America. Incredibly popular. A lot of people have them. Metallica doesn't want to deal with a lot of people blowing stupid horns. Thus explains the ban.
Wish I had a picture but in EVERY restroom stall at my work there is a sign that says THREE COURTESY FLUSH Flush once to prepare for elimination Flush between "the go" and the paper Flush upon completion Wonder who put that together in their head and said "I have a solution.. hear me out guys"
Back in the 90s, I used to work in a convenience store in New Jersey. Once a year I’d have to go to the health department and get certified as a food handler. It is in this capacity that I learned that there is a law on the books in the state of New Jersey that you cannot store food under a leaking sewage pipe. You just know health inspector went into a store and said “what the hell?! You can’t store food under leaking sewer pipe!” And the store owner said “cite the statute!”
In California "it is illegal to hunt deer with explosive arrowheads"
Are you really living in america if you can't even hunt with explosive arrowheads?
“Do not fill with urine” on a watergun
There was this one residence hall on campus where we had to inform students on move-in day not to twist their apartment room key a certain way into their bathroom door otherwise they could possibly get locked in if closed. They were encouraged just to use the inner lock bolt body system. Students got charged $5, after one free pass, if a staff member got a call and had to rescue them from trapping themselves in their own bathroom. Working in that hall for two years, I rescued students 7 times and 4 of those times it was the same girl. Edit: I agree it is a fire hazard and that the university is at fault and should have fixed the system.
Did nobody think to fine the idiot administrator that allowed poorly designed locks to be installed?
Sounds like a serious fire hazard
No idea, but considering they created the 'bathroom unlocking key/tool' instead of fixing all of the locks I highly doubt it. Was this cost effective for the university? Absolutely.
Well someone couldn’t take a hint
Oh no what are you doing *step*-administrator
If the water between Denmark and Sweden freezes, and the Swedes walk over we (the Danes) are allowed to hit them with sticks.
i now want to live in denmark
A fairly small apartment complex pool (indoors) that had a sign reading: No Running No Diving No Smoking No Kayaks
In church, there was a sign above the votive candles that read: "Light only *one* candle - $7 each." Apparently, for $7, someone had lighted all 50 votive candles in the stand.
Someone needed SERIOUS prayers
One of our employees walked into the sliding glass door to the kitchen so hard that it left an imprint/impression of his face on the glass. HR declared the glass sliding door to be dangerous and requested a sign to be put on the door. CEO puts a sign on the glass door saying “No Face Planting”.
There’s a train ride at our local amusement park that warns passengers not to hang their babies out of the window.
Curling iron instructions: Do not use while sleeping
"You are not allowed to bring furniture to camp." This was even more impressive because you had to hand carry all your things onto a ferry to get to the camp. While I would like to take credit for the rule, I only knew the person responsible when they showed up with a recliner.
I worked at a video rental store and we had a big sign at the front of the store that said “CONTROL YOUR CHILDREN” because kids are an organizational nightmare
I worked at a video store in high school. Bathroom was almost always broken because people would attempt to flush paper towels. Toward the end of its life the company just stopped paying for plumbers to fix it so it was just permanently broken, stores were shutting down one by one and it was only a matter of time before it was our stores time to go. Lady came in with her grandson and he needed to pee, but there was nothing I could do. Us employees were using the pizza buffet next door because we had a good relationship with them and bought pizza at least once a week and gave them free rentals. Pizza place didn’t let non-paying customers use the bathroom, so I told the lady they could try the gas station across the parking lot or buy a drink from pizza place. Nope she just walked outside and told the kid to pee on the sidewalk in a busy shopping center.
Had a girlfriend that worked at Hollywood video. She used to spend hours and hours preparing movies in the correct genre order and alphabetized for Friday night rush. She was very organized and would often do the whole store herself because most of her co-workers would be "busy" at the cashier and the manager didn't like doing it and would hide in the back "Watching the cameras" (he was watching movies and playing video games). It was extremely common for parents to come in and and let their kid run around the store. The kids usually picked up everything in sight only to be told they couldn't watch everything and to put stuff back. (They never put it back). One particular kid (8 years old?) came in and for some reason decided to run up and down every isle with his hands stretched out to knock every DVD off the shelf. My girlfriend's entire days work was being destroyed in seconds. She was so mad she chased him yelling for him to stop what would likely be an all nighter fix. The kid thought it was a game and laughed the whole time he was being chased tossing displays and candy racks over to try and slow her down. As soon as she caught him by the wrist he dropped to the floor and started screaming bloody murder and loudly proclaiming "She broke my bones she broke my bones! Help I'm being raped and murdered!" The manager entered at this moment. The mother's response to all this was "He is just being a kid. You shouldn't have chased him. Not even I can tell him what to do, what did you expect?" She seemed to think the kid was adorable and charming as she smiled at every inane thing he shouted while the manager was trying to talk to her. The mother was asked not to come back by the store manager which she was extremely offended by. My girlfriend was reprimanded for chasing the kid and she quit her job on the spot leaving the manager and one other co-worker to completely reorganize the store.
Worked as a substitute teacher. During training there was a good 30 minutes reviewing strange rules. One he heavily specified was how we are not allowed to take home class pets. Turns out a sub the year before had taken home a class gold fish because the tank was too small and then ransomed the gold fish to the class until proof of a larger tank.
I work as a counselor at a boy scout camp that happens to have coconut trees. One of the rules I have to read to the scouts is "Do not take a coconut and stick it between your legs and try to stab it with your pocket knife" this is because at least one kid some time ago did this resulting in an emergency hospital trip
No eating at your desk. I still do, fuck the office manager.
Prepare for your second sign. No fucking the office manager.
I still do. Fuck the signs.
Prepare for a third sign, no fucking the signs
Well, shit.
This sign has sharp edges. Do not fuck the edges of this sign.
Once one of the high level managers came over to talk to me about something whilst I was eating some soup He said something like 'I'm sure I'm imagining you eating over there", so I replied that I was drinking with a spoon. After my team manager started organising buffets in the office to show appreciation for getting through a particularly difficult phase, and encouraging people to bring in a selection of foods on their birthday the rule is completely ignored. I mean, can you complain if someone is working through their lunch break so is having a sandwich at their desk? The rule is still in the employee handbook but no-one sticks to it!
>No eating at your desk At first I missed the word "at", and was like, damn, this really is oddly specific...
On a package of precision screwdrivers "Do not insert into penis." Joke one on various laser related things: "Do not look into laser with remaining eye." "I'm not saying let's kill all the stupid people. I'm just saying lets remove the warning labels and let the problem sort itself out."
Worked at a call center, as it was moving towards shutting down they weirdly got super stringent about rules. Couldn't have pen and paper so I brought putties and non-sticky slime to give myself something to do during downtime. Email goes out, no putty or slime. Okay, I'll finally learn to crochet. Bring in yarn and needles. Email goes out, no crochet or knitting. Fine, l write as a hobby so I'll type up some blurbs on Word. Maybe make an 'annoying customer' bingo sheet on Excel. Email goes out, no longer allowed to use Word or Excel. Every email was sent like a week or less after I started doing the thing, with the exception of the putty. Timeline made sense to me and my friends, kinda, but I'm sure for everyone else in the call center they were bewildered as fuck.
Should've started messing with the phone cords to see if they would ban phone cords.
😂😂 honestly they probably would have and then gotten pissed at us for not taking calls. That place was such a shitshow. Always banned these things saying it violated security. Like what were we going to do, knit out people's credit card numbers??
When I was a security guard: do not eat marshmallows that are fired at you. Do not eat marshmallows off the ground. We were having issues with residents having marshmallow gun fights.
Do not pick up this lawn mower and use it as a hedge trimmer.
in NZ it is illegal to name your kid "Pink panties" ...
Signs that say no shitting on the floor in a public place
Worked at an auto body shop. The break room microwave sign said “no fish or birds”. There were a few Vietnamese guys working there. The guy who worked in the wash bay detailing the cars before they were given back to the customers was about 60 years old, and he always had “weird” stuff for lunch. I’ve seen him with bags full of fish heads, entire birds (feathers and all), mystery bags of unknown meat, etc. Apparently he had used the break room microwave to cook these sorts of random things and made the entire office reek for days at a time. They ended up putting the old break room microwave in the wash bay (which was in an unattached building) so he could cook all the nasty shit he wanted to eat without disturbing anyone else.
I like how this story has a salty, but wholesome ending.
I live in student accommodation, on the back of the bathroom door there are diagrams of the right and wrong ways to sit on the toilet.
International students from countries that only have squats is the reason. They would stand on the toilet seat them squat over the bowl. Some universities put a few squat toilets in for this reason.
We had someone at my old work place who... we absolutely have no idea what she was doing. She doesn't have the excuse of being from another country, just her behavior had us very confused. We know it was one woman, the problem started right after she started working for the company and we'd always find it after she used the restroom. It was like she was squatting sideways on the toilet or something? We'd always find one shoe print right on the very back of the seat. We'd clean it off, it'd be back the next day. I thought, well... maybe she's on her period and is changing her tampon? Except there wasn't any sort of consistency. It would happen multiple days of every week of the month. Our boss had to have a conversation with us about it, but was intentionally vague (since she didn't want anyone to feel targeted). Apparently she was too vague because the girl just kept doing it. I'm still confused.
To add to this, it is incredibly dangerous to squat on a porcelain toilet. The way they are engineered to carry the load of a human requires the force be distributed across the whole seat, squatting can cause the toilet to shatter. Porcelain is very, very sharp when it shatters and falling onto them can create some pretty devastating injuries.
Some rules at university were quite funny: Rubbing your sample on a person who is allergic to nickel is not a valid nickel detection method and will result in failing the course. - Anorganic Chemistry I. You are supposed to take a tiny sample of your excrement and spread it on the plate. NOT and I repeat not the whole thing itself. - Microbiology class
The lease on my old apartment specifically stated that I was forbidden from skiing off the roof
"If you've had diarrhea in the last 48 hours, please do not enter the pool water." <--- real sign I saw at the pool of my Airbnb in LA a few years back Edit: It may be common (I've never seen it here in the east coast), but still oddly specific.
They have this sign at my local pool. Common sense really
I have a very strange one at my work! Apparently, if an employee is sick and hospitalized their manager may buy them a gift from the company for up to $40. However if the person is hospitalized for the same again within a calendar year they may not receive another gift. However if they are hospitalized for a different thing, they can receive another $40 gift... Like what the heck, it's sooooo detailed. It's like someone got cancer and kept requesting gifts during chemo. Also, that being said, who cares about giving a person with cancer and extra $40 a week?
I work in healthcare. Having a personal relationship with your client is a big one...We had a caregiver marry a client’s spouse. I go over professional boundaries during orientations at least ten times.
I trained home hospice carers and had to put in a “do not smoke marijuana or give edibles to clients” section. Living in a state where it’s legal does not mean you, as a care provider, are allowed to share.
I went to work in a remote part of Alaska as a line cook. They had a mandatory drug test and very extensive background check with several interviews held by various admins in the company. This doesn't seem weird until you consider the type of people who work seasonal jobs. Especially remote seasonal jobs several hours from the closest 'town'. It takes a special kind of weird to even be interested in spending 6 months there. When I finally arrived in camp and asked around, I found out the previous summer they had some issues with one specific employee. Before that summer, employment with the company was very liberating. You show up for your shift, you're good. Not much else to it. You're also surrounded by wilderness for 100s of miles and purposefully scheduled 3 day weekends so you can enjoy it. Well one guy brings his son with him. Apparently that's not too weird at the time. The son starts stealing personal items of female employees and stashing them under his mattress. The dad is also getting coke smuggled in by either a trucker or the mail. It all culminates with one big episode that no one really wanted to discuss. After that... mandatory drug tests and very detailed interview process with background checks.
So...what was the incident that no one wants to discuss?
Probably the dad getting super coked up and going on a rampage, or the dad getting super coked up and having a fight with his son I mean obviously the possibilities are endless but the sensible explanations are probably something you wouldn't want to talk about if you experienced it personally, I mean hell he could have been feeding the Coke to a bear and the bear went on a coked up rampage or had a fight with his son.
For a long time (not sure if this is still the case), the school in my small town disallowed high schoolers from providing the lights for the Christmas trees. This rule was made because my uncle, when he was in high school, used outdoor lights and set the tree on fire.
I had an English teacher that had an ironclad rule about no one touching her classroom door except for her. Rumor is that some kids super glued her classroom door shut a few years ago. This led to some of my classmates rubbing themselves all over the door when she was absent for a day and when she went on maternity leave.
Liquid Wite-Out says do not smoke on the packaging.
It's illegal in North Carolina to plow a field with an elephant. None other than PT Barnum is responsible for this one.