'They removed the trash cans... The amount of litter skyrocketed overnight': 30+ Real-world examples of new rules that backfired hard

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Jan 14, 2023 3:00 PM EST

'What's a rule that was implemented somewhere, that massively backfired?' The question was posed to the r/AskReddit community, and they really delivered with some outrageous tales! Whether at the workplace or at school, when new bosses come in and make changes, they often don't know what they're doing. You have to be super careful not to accidentally incentivize your workers to get into bad habits. As for students, they're even more crafty, like one kid who avoided an iPod/MP3 player ban by bringing some old school technology into class! 

Scroll down to check out the absurdity of those who practiced malicious compliance by following new rules to a T. Then, click here to laugh your way through some of the strange text messages that people have shared of the crazy things people have said to them. 

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  • 02
    Font - r/AskReddit Posted by u/Orb_Detsoob 2 S3 What's a rule that was implemented somewhere, that massively backfired?
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    Font - RadixPerpetualis My city has issues with loud bikes/vehicles. So as a deterrant, the city put up decibel meters that displayed how loud your engine is(similar to those signs that read your speed and display it to you) but instead of deterring anyone, people would pull up to these signs and rev the heck out of their engines to see who could get the highest decibel count. The city took the counters down within a week.
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  • 04
    Font - motherofdogmemes When Domino's said all pizzas would be delivered in 30min. or less or your pizza was FREE. All the delivery drivers kept getting in car accidents to get your pizza to you on time, so it wouldn't come out of their paycheck. It was a short lived venture.
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  • 05
    Font - Tenshotshad At my old job, some people abused lunch so they made a few of em text in when they started and finished lunch. One guy specifically would text the start time, place he got food, his order in detail, the address, price, etc. Even when he bought a snack while out. That stopped a week later 5.3k LockoutFFA Share POPCORN (1pc) sent 11:52am POPCORN (1pc) sent 11:52am POPCORN (1pc) sent 11:52am POPCORN (1pc) sent 11:52am
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    Font - nagol93 Middle school wanted to create a "trash free environment" so they removed the trash cans from the parking lots, halls, and cafeteria. Then just told the kids to "toss your trash when you get home or in a classroom" The amount of litter skyrocketed overnight, after a week or so they brought back the cans.
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    Font - StillAFelon I work in manufacturing and we get paid piece rate, so the more I run the more I get paid. We also have a base hourly pay rate of $10/hr, so whichever pays more (the hourly or the piece rate) is what we get paid for the day. On bad days sometimes they bump us to $12/hr for the day and when we train new people we get paid $15/hr to compensate for having to slow down or stop our machines to teach the new people. The big boss, my boss' boss' boss, came in last week. Now he used t
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    Font - So a few of us got together at the end of the day and agreed: if they aren't paying us, we won't train people. We will teach the new people enough to make us some money and leave the training to the designated trainers (2 people split between 15 or so new hires, but they make $17.50/hr) The policy lasted 4 days.
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    Font - TunaCroutons Worked for a marketing firm that often locked you out of the building if you weren't back in your cubicle by the second your break was up. They revoked your break the next day as punishment. This is not legal here in New York State. They got into a lot of trouble.
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    Font - sweetjaaane I worked at Macy's one Christmas and found out the reason why you can never find anyone at the registers is because they don't allow employees to stand at the register because it's "intimidating." I can't tell you how many times I gave up trying to purchase something there because I couldn't find anyone to ring me up.
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    Font - Ermellino School I go to has a rule that says if you come late 3 times, you get an unjustified absence, wich lowers your grade quite a bit. So if someone is late they pretty much always skip class so they can get an absence that can be justified by simply signing it...
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    Font - Hyphz 2 37 Also, the infamous Barbados vs Grenada soccer match. The organisers of the 1994 Caribbean tournament cup had a rather odd change to the rules for extra time. If a game was still drawn at full time, it would go to extra time but the first goal scored would win - this is perfectly normal (the "golden goal" rule). What was different is that they ruled that winning this way would count as having won by two goals for the purpose of tournament qualification, instead of just one.
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    Font - Barbados went into a match against Grenada needing two goals to qualify for the main tournament. If they lost, or won by only one goal, Grenada would qualify instead. Under the regular rule, this would mean that if the match went to extra time, there would basically be no point Barbados playing because even if they scored, they would only win by one goal, and not qualify. But the two point rule would motivate them to play on. Sound good? Well, you might be able to guess what happened. The
    via r/AskReddit
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    Font - The Grenada players quickly realized they could do the same - score an own goal to make the match 3-2 to Barbados, which would have Barbados winning by only one goal, so Grenada would qualify. But the Barbados players realized that too.. and so they began to defend Grenada's goal. So for the last 7 minutes of the match, Grenada were trying to score a goal in either net (since scoring a goal against Barbados would give them 3-2 and they would win the match, and scoring in their own goal wo
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    Font - Amazingly Barbados did actually manage to do so, successfully defending themselves while half of their team were defending Grenada's goal against Grenada, and then scored the golden goal in extra time and qualified!
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    Font - [deleted] My last job got a new facility head. She didn't like the fact that we wore shorts in a kitchen in the summer when Temps would get over 100. She made a new rule that shorts weren't allowed, but skirts were fine. My supervisor told me I didn't have the stones to wear a skirt to work. (I am a male). Guess who showed up to work the best day in a skirt. The new rule lasted about a month before the new leader got tired of "cross dressers" running around the facility. Once I started it
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    Font - [deleted] "You have to eat whatever you touch" was a rule in my kindergarten which led to all the children touching all the food to call dibs on it.
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    Font - TylerJWhit Washington State made it mandatory for schools to drop their room temperatures to save on electricity. The result: teachers brought their own heaters into their offices and use of electricity increased.
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    Font - I once worked at a pizza place. Our manager got tired of the colorful language one day and decided to enact a swear jar. She said she'd charge us a quarter for every time we cussed. My co-worker Jay was the first person to get penalized. She said, "You owe a quarter." He popped a dollar bill in and said, "Take a f dollar, fu bi It didn't last long.
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    Font - or Worked for a warehouse four days a week. 11am-930pm Monday to Thursday. They reiterated many times during the interview process that overtime was optional. My first day my supervisor told me that overtime is indeed optional, but if you don't stay for overtime then everybody else has to stay even later. "So if you do leave on time, don't come back." Eh whatever. I didn't mind the extra hours too much (although a 10.5 hour shift is already long) but the bonus was that we could go early i
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    Cheezburger Image 9726319360
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    Font - Saint_Phoenix S One of the high rise blocks I have to maintain has a sign saying "Anything left here will be removed due to it being a fire risk". People just dump the so there they don't want like fridges and sofas and by law we have to take it. F me right
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    Font - WordStained We didn't have a dress code, but after the principal we had during my freshmen year, who was a super cool guy, left the district, my previous middle school principal took his place. She was... less cool. During my freshmen year, students were allowed to listen to music in the halls between classes, during lunch or free periods, and in class at the teacher's disgression. When the new principal took over, she banned listening to music at all during school hours. This made a lot
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    Font - But, one kid noticed the wording in the policy was a little... specific. It cited that 'Phones, iPods, or other mp3 players are to remain in lockers during school hours and may not be used to play music while school is in session.' Or something to that effect. It said nothing about CD players. Which, granted, are already long out of style at that point, but pretty much everyone managed to dig one up, and a protest week was organized where everyone came in and used their CD players to list
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    Font - PA ShneekeyTheLost Zero Tolerance Policy for no violence at school. Punishing the victims for getting bullied... yea, THAT was a smart idea...
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  • 27
    Font - ecmcn I had a friend in sales who had to fly a lot. The company decided that since they were paying for the tickets they should own the frequent flyer miles. He then decided to only fly during working hours, rather than catching an early flight out or coming home late, or even sometimes flying on a weekend. After his number of sales calls dropped by a third they reversed the policy.
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    Font - mediocrity511 I worked somewhere with a clean desk policy on Friday afternoons. The common way round this was that everyone would just sweep all their paperwork into an envelope, stick it in the internal mail and then it would arrive back on your desk on Monday morning.
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  • 29
    Font - idoitforthelolz3 A famous example from Freakonomics was when a day care started charging a small fine for parents who picked up their children late. Instead of resulting in more on-time arrivals, the new policy actually caused more late pick-ups. This is because the parents were originally worried that a late pick-up would be a significant burden on the day care employees, but because the fine was so small (only a few dollars), they decided that it must not be a big inconvenience for the
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  • 30
    Font - [deleted] I remember they had another one. The Petrified Forrest had a problem taking the petrified wood home. So they did an experiment in how to word the sign. If the sign asked people not to take any because it'll all disappear - more people ended up taking pieces. They figured that if it'll disappear, they should take some. http://freakonomics.com/2012/0 7/03/how-petrified-wood-gives- you-a-guilty-conscience/
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  • 31
    Font - Electronic Bionic Catholic school. This school started out not having a problem with Harry Potter. Library had every available book at the time (not all were even written yet). Some paranoid parent cried satanism and witchcraft so the school banned Harry Potter. Suddenly Harry Potter books are an underground commodity. The school had a black market trade for new and used Harry Potter books and things only got worse when expulsion was threatened for being caught with one: a new Harry Potte
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  • 32
    Font - Back2Bach "Casual Friday" was implemented by a company that had long enforced a strict dress code policy. But soon employees began demanding that casual dress days be increased for at least one other day per week, plus holidays and their individual birthdays. Before long, casual dress became the new norm every day, and employees abused it by wearing clothes and footwear management thought to be "inappropriate." Thus, the strict dress policy was reinstated - not even "Casual Friday" was al
    via r/AskReddit
  • 33
    Font - RadixPerpetualis My city has issues with loud bikes/vehicles. So as a deterrant, the city put up decibel meters that displayed how loud your engine is(similar to those signs that read your speed and display it to you) but instead of deterring anyone, people would pull up to these signs and rev the heck out of their engines to see who could get the highest decibel count. The city took the counters down within a week.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 34
    Font - StillAFelon I work in manufacturing and we get paid piece rate, so the more I run the more I get paid. We also have a base hourly pay rate of $10/hr, so whichever pays more (the hourly or the piece rate) is what we get paid for the day. On bad days sometimes they bump us to $12/hr for the day and when we train new people we get paid $15/hr to compensate for having to slow down or stop our machines to teach the new people. The big boss, my boss' boss' boss, came in last week. Now he used t
    via r/AskReddit

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