33 Stupid Policies And Rules Retail And Service Workers Have Had To Follow That Prove Those Industries Are Wack
Recently, we asked the BuzzFeed Community about the most frustrating and possibly illegal rules they had to follow while working in service or retail.
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Here are some of the most frustrating rules!
1."There’s a policy at the store where I work called 'customer YES,' which essentially means we can’t tell anyone no unless it’s truly out of our hands. Someone tries to return swim bottoms that are three months past the return policy missing the hygienic liner and have an unknown substance stuck to the inside? 'Yes, of course we can take it!' It’s infuriating."
2."Worked for a retail chain that required us to wear heels/dress shoes. We’re on our feet for 6-8 hours, so dress shoes aren’t particularly comfortable. We also had to dress in the latest clothing from the brand, even though we weren’t given a credit or even that good of a discount. ALSO, the average item was about $100, so when you’re only making minimum wage it doesn’t work out the best."
3."My first summer job was at a cheerfully cheap café that catered to lorry drivers, taxi drivers and the like. One of the rules: I had to use endearments when talking to them. Darls, love, luv, luvvie, hun, dearie, pet."
"The owner's rationale: they worked long lonely hours and deserved a token of warmth in the cafe. Most were nice, polite and generally kept to themselves, but the rule was stupid and awkward."
4."The most frustrating one had to be the bag check rule. All employees had to wait for a manager to check their bags at the end of their shift before they could leave, but we were expected to be clocked out as well. One night I waited almost 30 minutes."
"When the GM finally came she snapped at me for not being patient, and calling her more than once over my 30 minute wait. ... The bag check practice in general is kind of frustrating. Most people need the job they have, and don’t want to jeopardize it by stealing."
5."Macy's just made you carry a clear purse/bag/backpack, whatever, they all had to be clear plastic."
6."Lemme tell y'all about Aldo. They pay less than minimum wage and you have to work off commission. They give you a look book per season. You have to wear one look each day. They must be different looks (there are four) — you can only re-wear one look per week if it's your fifth day. You need to wear their shoes (must be in season); they must be heels. Your makeup and hair must be different each day."
"Your first job is basically to be a barbie/model and your second job is to sell. FOR LESS THAN MINIMUM WAGE. IT COSTS MORE TO BE EMPLOYED THERE THAN YOU EARN."
7."I worked at Maurice’s in the early 00’s and there were so many ridiculous rules ... You had to wear a minimum of seven accessories. Any amount of bracelets or earrings counted as one. So, a typical outfit for me to meet my accessory count would look like: jeans, 'cute' shoes (I was expected to work in heels, or some other sort of dressy shoe. I once slipped in the back room while wearing heels and got a concussion), an undershirt, a top shirt, a sweater or jacket, a scarf, a necklace, a set of bracelets, a set of earrings, and a headband or some other head thing."
"My manager would check my outfit at the beginning of my shift, and of course all of my clothing had to be from the current collection in the store. It was also expected that I wore a full face of makeup and styled hair."
8."I used to work at a major theme park that, until recently, required a certain 'look.' One rule was that we could not wear hair ties on our wrists. I worked outside, and summer temperatures were mid-to-high-nineties most days. I once handled a situation where a guest had a medical emergency. My manager complimented me on how I handled it, saying 'great job, but take that hair tie off your wrist. I don’t want to have to keep reminding you.' We had just sent someone off on a stretcher and they wanted to focus on my wrist."
9."In college, I worked at a pretty well known wing restaurant chain (not Hooters, I swear). At this particular franchise the uniform included the absolute shortest black shorts. Only for females, too. The male employees could wear black pants or any style of shorts of their choosing. These shorts were shorter than any pair of shorts I ever bought on my own."
"The kicker: you had to wear them all year, even during winter where it’s frigid cold and very much the absolute worst winters I ever experienced. (I’m from Minnesota and this was a neighboring state.)"
10."The worst for me was when I worked at a bank and I couldn’t wear certain kinds of makeup. The kicker was that I originally worked at our main downtown branch in the same building as all our higher ups, and NONE OF THEM cared if I had bright or dark lipstick or unique eyeshadow or anything. ... I transferred to a more rural branch, and my manager told me I wasn’t allowed to wear any of that makeup because 'it made the clients uncomfortable.' Seriously?"
"I also had a nose piercing, and while I couldn’t have it in at work, I used a clear place holder that is made for people to wear at work. Same woman tried to tell me I couldn’t even wear that. 'Why can’t you just leave it empty?' 'Because it’ll close.' 'So?' So, like my makeup, it’s part of my personality, and you don’t pay me enough to give that up."
11."I worked in a retail pharmacy in Arizona. We were not allowed to have any drinks in the pharmacy INCLUDING water. They were more worried about someone slipping some codeine syrup into a bottle then us dying of heatstroke in Arizona during 110 degree summer days."
12."I work as a server and we're not allowed to have drinks period (even closed ones). It's a 'health hazard.' However, the cooks can all have drinks right next to the literal food they're making, but god forbid the servers who work six plus hours with no breaks for $2 an hour get a chance to hydrate."
"We're provided cone cups and if those run out and we borrow some to-go cups? Our manager throws them out. We also can't dye our hair, have any kind of facial piercing, or visible tattoos. In 2022."
13."If you called out because you were sick and went to the doctor, they wouldn’t accept a doctor’s note. They’d only accept a note from the hospital explaining why you were out. It never really made sense to me."
14."We had to sell the store credit card to every single customer, no exceptions. We were encouraged to sell it specifically to younger people who looked like students because it was likely they didn’t have credit established yet, so that was our hook to get them to sign up. It had an absurd interest rate of like 32% or something outrageous. I finally put my foot down. As a college student, I told them it made me uncomfortable to ask every single customer three times MINIMUM to sign up for the card that would undoubtedly damage their credit more than it would benefit it, and cause long lasting damage to these poor students financial goals — and I was fired for 'lowering team morale.'"
"Side note: I was an assistant manager when I left, and I was making a sweet sweet $8.50 an hour."
15."I worked somewhere once where we HAD to greet people who walked in by saying 'hey guys.' If you said anything else (like 'hello' or 'hey y’all'), a manager would quickly come and scold you. I remember having a coworker who was incredibly uncomfortable with using the term 'guys' and they absolutely did not care."
16."Worked at a Wawa for six months. I got into some serious trouble once when I had to call out sick. They wanted ADVANCE NOTICE of sick days…literally, they wanted you to schedule your illnesses at least a week in advance."
17."When I waited tables ... if you called out sick you had to get a doctor’s note no matter what, or else it was considered an 'unexcused absence' and you would be written up. Basically even if you just had a head cold they expected you to go to the doctor or to come in, so of course it resulted in people just coming to work sick since that was easier than getting a doctor’s appointment. One time I had an allergic reaction to a medication I was on and had to go to the hospital. I got written up because it amazingly slipped my mind when I was almost fucking dying to ask the doctor for a note to miss work."
"My parents even called in on my behalf because I wasn’t able to call, but my manager was also pissed about that because we were supposed to give a two hour heads up if we were calling out, but my parents weren’t able to call until like an hour before my shift because again, I was suddenly rushed to the hospital. So got written up."
18."When I waited tables ... we weren’t allowed to have painted nails because it was 'unsanitary.'
"God, that place was wild. ... 10 years later I still have stress dreams about working there."
19."When I worked at the Clinique counter (early 2000s) they wouldn’t allow us to wear any nail polish but theirs for fear that it could give a customer a reaction (total bullshit btw — if it was dry, how could it cause a reaction?!?)."
"At the time they only had three colors, an ugly bright orange red, a pink shade and a clear, I believe. They’ve since changed the policy, but I didn’t have painted nails for many years."
20."At my last job, I dressed in all plain black clothes, as per the dress code. But there were no rules about jewelry, so I had a lot of fun wearing pentacles and other cool stuff. I’m a pagan, and the pentacle is a really important symbol for me. It represents connection with the earth and spirituality. About a month or two into the job, I’m told to sign this agreement that includes the sentence 'no statement jewelry.'"
"I’m in shock, and I’m nervous that if I don’t sign I’ll lose my job, so I sign. Mind you this is a food service job, not a fashion job. I talk to the owner multiple times about how my jewelry is my self expression and I love it, and I’m not wearing anything offensive. She goes on to compare my jewelry to wearing swatztikas or swear words, even after I explain to her the meaning of the pentacle. She said she liked it, but she was worried customers wouldn’t. I know this is kind of a weird hippie-dippie new age religion, but it’s still MY religion. It hurts literally nobody, and represents good and peaceful things. I was so disgusted with her from that day forward. I quit a couple months later, and got a pentacle tattoo on my arm. I got a job somewhere else and they never criticize my tattoo or my jewelry."
21."I worked at a big tourist restaurant in a beach town. During the summer season, we weren’t allowed to switch shifts or get shifts covered for weekends. And on big holidays, everyone was forced to work, even if you weren’t usually scheduled on that weekday. You basically weren’t allowed to ever take any vacation time. It felt illegal."
22."I worked at Little Caesar’s during my senior year of high school, and we were ONLY allowed to eat food we bought there on our breaks. I couldn’t afford to buy food every day, so I would sneak a string cheese into my backpack and sneakily eat it for lunch. I was 17 and too shy to say anything about it, but that had to be illegal."
23."When I worked at a theme park, our shoes were required to be a minimum of 30% black, white, or grey. Really not an unreasonable policy, given how many sneakers out there meet that requirement. But it was so ridiculously specific."
24."I worked in mall retail for a time and my boss didn’t want us to ask customers if they 'needed help.' He didn’t want us to use the word 'help' for some reason; we were supposed to say, 'how can I assist you' or 'is there something I can direct you to' or whatever. My poor coworker was so flustered one time trying to come up with some alternate way to say 'help' that she approached a male customer and sputtered, 'how can I service you today?'"
"Red faces all around, me cackling in the corner."
25."No fraternizing at all of any kind, in retail. You couldn’t hang out outside of work, carpool, nothing."
"And it didn’t even work because we were all boning in secret."
26."I had to work at the drive thru window at McDonalds. They required us to stand even though my only task was to take the money. The chairs in the break room were too short so I put a toolbox on top and sat on it."
27."I remember when I worked at a Hollister store in the middle of December in northern Ohio we were forced to wear flip flops to keep up with that lame surfer look, and only the most attractive could work on the floor. If you weren’t up to their standard you stayed in the back. I quit after four days."
28."Gotta love the 'don’t lean' rule (NOT). I worked retail for 15 years and got yelled at for 'leaning' when I was standing with my hand resting on something."
"When I told them 'I’m not leaning, there is zero weight on my hand' and waved said hand in the air to illustrate that I was, in fact, not leaning, they’d say 'BUT IT’S THE PERCEPTION!'”
"'If you have time to lean, you have time to clean.' ... I'm sure everyone has heard that one."
29."When I worked at Sephora, at some point they started telling us to approach clients with 'did you know ___" about products. And they actually threatened us with disciplinary action if we didn’t use that exact phrase."
30."We had to card everyone and couldn’t serve you a drink if you didn’t have ID. The example they gave is an old man wearing a WW2 veteran hat can’t get a beer if he doesn’t have his ID with him."
31."I worked at a retail chain targeted at 'mature' women when I was 23. The clothes were outrageously overpriced and fell apart quickly and the commission was almost unattainable. But the most ridiculous rule was that we had to wear 12 pieces of jewelry. TWELVE."
"Earrings, rings, necklaces, bracelets — it looked so gaudy and cheap. The worst part was that the jewelry that the store sold was cheaply made so it would tarnish quickly and irritated my ears."
32."Stupidest rule, hands DOWN, was when I was working in a local coffee shop. We had the 'Four Pillars of Customer Service.' 1. Say Hi! (not bad). 2. After customer has ordered, try an add-on item (upselling is normal for many places). But number 3? 'The Windows of Contact.' We basically had to point out a specific detail of the customer, like their shirt, or their hair, say something nice to them, TALK to them — full on conversations were encouraged."
"No. Just NO. I'm sorry, I'm not going to try to someone rushing in and out to get a cup of coffee. I hated doing it; so many people did."
33.And finally: "When I was in university and smoking inside was still legal (Canada), I worked in the lounge side of a ‘causal fine dining’ restaurant. The rule they had there was to change out ashtrays after a maximum of two cigarette butts, even if the table had several people so it was constant. The worst part was the customers though who would give so much attitude about a dirty ashtray being on their table when they were the ones smoking. Like, that’s going into your LUNGS, but sure, be upset about the dirty ashtray on your table."
What's the most BS rule you've had to follow in retail or service? Let us know in the comments!
Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.
