Every workplace has its specific culture, and employees are expected to fit into that culture without asking too many questions.
Yet some aspects of company culture are strange or counterintuitive. Employees came together on the subreddit r/AskReddit to discuss some of the odd things they’ve been asked to do — or not do — at work.
One former AutoZone employee shared that they were expected to pick up the phone first before attending to customers who were at the store. “Answering the phone was priority over the customer standing in front of you,” they said.
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This policy seems inattentive and rude, and the reasoning behind it was, of course, all about profits.
“The idea was the customer standing in line is already a guaranteed sale while a phone call is potential for more,” they explained.
Another Redditor on the thread shared their experience with a similar policy, saying that their director explained, “The customer in front of you can hear the phone ringing and how busy it is. But the customer on the phone doesn’t know what’s going on.”
“I’ve worked for other companies where this was the explanation,” someone else added. “You were to answer the phone, ask if you could place them on a brief hold, and then finish with the customer in front of you.”
While customers might be in the dark as to why they’re seemingly being ignored, the companies bet on their purchases as a sure thing, so in some ways, answering the phone first could be a solid business practice.
“I worked for a very large corporation,” one person said. “We were not allowed to ride in hot air balloons. I have no idea why, but it was in the employee handbook.”
Another person added that their company didn’t allow employees to go skydiving.
The general consensus on the rule was that the companies provided life insurance and health insurance and didn’t want to cover a high-risk activity.
“Hot air balloons are a known risk so if they can officially ban all employees from doing it, they get a cheaper insurance rate,” someone explained.
Dress codes are common in schools, where they often act as a way to control how young women present themselves.
One employee explained that their company dress code enforced very strict rules for their male workers.
“I worked for a company where all men had to wear suits Monday through Thursday,” they said. “Shirts could only be white or light blue, ties couldn’t have any graphics on them aside from lines or dots.”
“One guy wore a tie with teeny golf clubs on it and the owner sent him home to get a different tie,” they said. “He lived an hour away.”
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Another employee shared their company dress code, which was “fairly relaxed,” except for banning one particular item of clothing.
They explained that at their job, “Exposed tattoos are fine… (and) T-shirts and sweatshirts are permitted as long as they have the company logo.”
“Sandals are allowed if you wear socks,” they continued, a rule fit to make dads and residents of New England incredibly happy.
“But the one thing I find ridiculous is that we cannot wear anything with a hood on it,” they said. “If it has a hood on it, don’t leave your office, you will get in trouble for it.”
“I work for a small family-run bakery,” one person said. “They own two shops. If you have cancer, they keep you on the payroll. You get full pay for two years, then half pay for another two years.”
Someone else shared their experience working for a company that provided for sick workers, saying, “I know several employees who were kept on payroll (full pay with benefits) for a year or more while fighting a disease.”
“It is not publicized, it is not a benefit noted in the company handbook, it is handled on a case-by-case basis, but I know several employees over my time there that were able to concentrate on getting better rather than worrying about money and health insurance thanks to the generosity and compassion of the company owner,” they continued.
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These businesses’ sheer kindness without expecting anything in return is strange, in that most companies choose to put profits over people, making policies like this a major outlier.
Almost every worker knows the pain of a meeting that could have been an email, yet nothing is as bad as meetings that don’t count toward your working hours.
One person shared that their former workplace held “a weekly compulsory company meeting that started (and finished) outside business hours.”
Another person shared a similar policy from the cable company they used to work for, which insisted upon holding “mandatory breakfast meetings every quarter.”
“They paid you for them, but they just added onto your workday,” the person explained, describing the meeting itself as “a completely pointless meeting that taught us nothing.”
One Reddit user shared a truly unfair company policy implemented at a retail chain they once worked for where “employees had to clock out for bathroom breaks.”
“This wasn’t common knowledge outside the company, and it felt really unfair and demeaning,” they said. “It made a lot of us upset and frustrated, as we had to carefully plan when we could use the restroom without losing pay.”
The policy highlights how little that company cared about their workers as anything but workers, refusing to see them as people with human needs.
A certain coffee chain had a very particular rule about how one work- item could be used.
“Starbucks has an official policy that the caramel drizzle bottles can’t be used for hand soap at the sink,” one worker reported.
They didn’t elaborate any further, yet a squeeze bottle for flavored syrups and a soap dispenser could look fairly similar, so it wouldn’t be surprising if that rule was put into place after a bottle was used in the wrong context.
While these work policies certainly lie outside the norm, they provide interesting fodder for conversations about how workplaces operate and what companies prioritize most, which sadly, often isn’t the people who work for them.
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Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango’s news and entertainment team. She covers social issues, pop culture, and all things to do with the entertainment industry.
