Somewhere out there, a rule is likely in place as a direct result of something you did. After all, this is kind of how rules come about. It’s like those odd warning labels on products that make you wonder why they’re necessary, and how crazy the backstory could be.
A lively discussion on r/AskReddit asked Redditors what rules were put in place because of them — and the stories are incredible.
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What’s an Uber?
“Uber expense with drinks for clients at my work. Years ago we took a bunch of clients out and everyone had way to much to drink so I ordered everyone Ubers home. Turned in the expense report to our account manager (just under 400 bucks in Ubers) and she had no clue what an Uber was. I explained to my bosses that we expense drinks for clients why not expense Ubers. Now if we pay for drinks for clients we also pay for Ubers.”
If you’re offering $1 margaritas, don’t be surprised when people order $1 margaritas.
“‘No more than 4 margaritas per person’ on dollar margarita (& beer) night…..In college, some friends and I used to go to a mexican restaurant every Thursday (?) and often on Saturdays for $1 margaritas. As a group, we would go through A LOT….then they put the rule in….then they changed it to $2 margaritas (& $1 draft beers).”
The Michael Jordan of radio contests.
“Back in the day a radio station had a weekly trivia contest. The prize was a free pizza and movie rental.
Somehow my mom figured out which book they were using for the trivia questions. She bought it and memorized all the answers.
Each week we would call in immediately. Sometimes we were the first but even if we weren’t it didn’t matter because other people were usually just guessing. We won almost every time.
Even though we changed up who would actually make the call they eventually figured out we were all from the same household. So they made it a rule you couldn’t win if your family had already won in the last month or whatever.”
That one seems reasonable.
“I used to ride on the bottom area of the shopping carts at our nearest grocery store. I thought it was fun to put my hands on the front of it, sliding them along the ground while the cart was moving (yes, I was gross). One sticky spot on the ground later and my hand was pulled back and thumb went right under the wheel. Crunched my little thumbnail and my mom had to remove it. Anyway, the store put up signs after that saying it’s against the rules for kids to ride in the bottom of carts.”
Gotta close that loophole.
“My younger brother was always late to school (small school) and was tardy. He figured out if he just skipped first period and went to second he was counted as being on school and no late penalty because he was at 2nd period on time. They changed this the following year.”
This is how highly specific rules come about.
“Local amusement park added a ‘no blindfolds on rollercoasters’ rule because of me.
When I was in middle school, my friend and I thought it would enhance the overall experience if we blindfolded ourselves on the biggest roller coaster at a local amusement park. We got one of those pictures they take on the ride and there we are, blindfolded in the middle of a tunnel, having the time of our lives. Looking back, we easily could have strangled ourselves or worse because we literally just used scarves tied around our heads. Next year we went back to the same roller coaster and they had added a ‘no blindfolds or loose accessories’ to the list of rules before the ride.”
Get it toasted professionally.
“I put a croissant in one of those hotel toasters. It soon became engulfed in flames and needed extinguishing. Next day at breakfast they made a sign that said ‘if you’d like your croissant toasted, please ask a member of staff.'”
He fought the law.
“Male students are not allowed to wear hair accessories. We had the rule about hair not touching collars, couldn’t be past eyebrows, or over the ears. I grew my hair out and just put it up in head bands. After receiving multiple detentions and fighting them and winning, the next year, they made the rule.”
We all get started somewhere.
“In middle school I would use sharpies to tattoo myself, other kids thought it was cool so I started charging $1 per drawing wherever they wanted. Principal found out and after I wouldn’t stop, she put a ban on sharpies for the entire school. Even the teachers couldn’t bring them in. I’m a tattoo artist now.”
You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.
“At a ballpark I worked concessions at, they had an all-you-can-eat promo day where tickets were more expensive than usual, but concessions around the stadium were free (excluding alcohol). So I worked that day and of course it was chaos, but when the lines started dying down later in the game they started sending some of the hourly employees home, myself included. But of course, I didn’t go home. After I clocked out, I stayed in the stadium and got some cheeseburgers and Philly steak and soda and found an empty seat in the crowd for the last few innings.
Next year, same promo, but new rule for staff: if you get sent home early, you have to actually leave the stadium.”
Turns out HR isn’t your friend.
“I got our HR box taken away at work because the HR lady threatened not to pay us if we missed a clock in or clock out (in our defense the phones didn’t always work and the clock in system was really unreliable) and I printed out the law stating that was illegal, highlighted it, and put it in her box when no one was around.
She threw an unholy fit and tried to figure out who put it in her box, and from them on everything had to be handed in personally lol.”
No more jiggle jiggle.
“Back when Taco Bell had the spinny game where you could win food with a nickel, dime, or quarter. I could feed my whole friend group with $3s because I could win that thing at a 90% clip by jiggling the spinner. Taco Bell then posted a piece of paper stating that individuals could only win once and that no jiggling was allowed.”
A bold new era.
“In history class in high school, there was about 10 of us really close friends. We would take every opportunity to make ‘your mom’ jokes. A couple months into class the teacher made us sign a ‘treaty’ promising to stop making fun of each other’s moms. We signed it, and started making fun of each other’s dads.”
She abused the privilege.
“My mom got a library card at a new place many months before I did. When she got hers, she was welcome to check out however many books she wanted at a time, so she left with her shiny new card and 30 books for a project. When I got mine, those books had still not been returned, and new card holders could only take out like five? books at a time.
She still has those books, so like I definitely don’t blame the library.”
Work smart, not hard.
“Minor one, but when I was in elementary school we had one of those bridge-building challenges using toothpicks and hot glue. My partner and I realized if we just coated the entire thing with a thick ass layer of hot glue it would make our bridge strong as hell. So we used like a full pack of hot glue sticks, like 20 of them, it was more glue than toothpicks. So after that they limited the number of glue sticks you could use.”
Seriously?
“My older brother got a curfew enforced at Boy Scout camp when one of the leaders noticed him walking around the area in the daytime with his eyes closed, counting steps. He may have just been practicing being blind, but the adults assumed he was figuring out how to get around at night without lights so he could get into some kind of mischief. Which, knowing my brother, was also possible.”
– u/[user]
Not too sure what’s going on here, but good story.
“One of my favorite childhood moments sometime in 3rd grade. I got watermelons banned from handball.
Watermelons in our school were when you could duck under the ball in place of hitting the ball against the wall. Only your torso or head were allowed to go under the ball and count as a watermelon.
My fine moment came when I made a diving leap head first on a low hit because I knew my opponent was too far away to recover. Unfortunately I did it face first and I slid along the gritty concrete and skinned half my face off. I had to wear a face bandage for at least a month.”
– u/daloo
No shortcuts anymore at Hamburger University.
“You can no longer skip to the end of training videos at Wendy’s.
I completed about 10 hours of this training when it was implemented, after I’d already been working there a year, in about 45 minutes.
Open, skip, skip, skip, skip, do test, rinse and repeat. I was quite proud of my ‘estimated time 45 minutes, time to completion 2 minutes.’
My store which is a franchise location, got a call from corporate like an hour later. I didn’t have to redo any of it though.”
Check every seat.
“As a kindergartner I once fell asleep in the bus. When I woke up the bus was in the garage and I had to yell to get someone to get me out.
So to this day every bus driver in my school district needs to walk to the back of the bus and check every seat before they park the bus.”
Get out of school with one weird trick.
“My elementary school was located in the center of the neighborhood, and my 5th grade class was the first to get outdoor trailers for classrooms. We’d ask for bathroom passes and then walk home. Next year they built a fence around the school.”
– u/YT4000
