Manager approves ridiculous new policy before writing up every employee for enforcing it. She was fired in no time (Exclusive)

Managers easily enforce policies and rules without understanding how they will play out in reality. An employee who goes by u/SomethinCleHver shared a post on February 17, 2026, highlighting how they were called out for following a ridiculous policy that was pre-approved. The rule was that every employee, even higher-ups, had to be responsible and cautious about personal information when away from desks. As a team lead, they were given the onus of doing mandatory checks. When they decided to do as instructed, they ended up getting called out for following the policy. Speaking exclusively to Scoop Upworthy, the employer said the incident happened while they were working at what they described as a large national bank and asked not to be named due to ongoing job searches after recently leaving the company following more than two decades there.

The initial policy “required any personal information for ourselves or customers be locked up along with the obvious things like passwords anytime we weren't at our desks.” The team leads were asked to conduct regular checks and write up those who didn’t comply. One of the colleagues wanted to add to this rule and make it tighter. “One of my peers had the suggestion that NO personal information, including photos, knick-knacks, that sort of thing, should be allowed out,” the post revealed.

Since the employee was close to the woman, they mentioned that no one would actually follow such a stringent rule. They explained that compliance teams were meant to catch potential risks before regulators did, calling the process essentially “self-regulation in order to identify issues that could put the company at risk before government regulators identify them.”

Calling it the “dumbest f**king” thing ever heard, they added, “That's an overcorrection and no one is going to follow the policy, and it's just making our jobs more difficult.” Nevertheless, the rule was approved by her manager, and the worker was given a warning to abide by it. “I observed nearly no one outside of my team was complying with their ridiculous policy,” they mentioned. However, after being forced to follow instructions, they decided to conduct the checks and write up the employees for violating the rule. “When it was my turn for desk checks, I wrote a detailed breakdown of every single violation,” they wrote. 

They told Scoop that they had already spent nearly eight years in the department and were often considered a subject matter expert. "During that brainstorming session, I was with peers with whom I'd worked for many years and had strong personal relationships. It felt like a safe space to be frank. Clearly, I was mistaken," they said.

There were several violations as expected, but the employee decided to follow the rule to the T and ended up getting called out for it again. “Monday, I was put on a formal warning. That manager wondered why everyone hated her, wasn't sad when she left, or empathized when she was laid off,” they concluded. The only acknowledgment their report received came from their direct manager, in the form of that warning. They recalled that the manager did not identify any specific language in the report as inappropriate but believed the intent behind it was “spiteful versus an earnest desire to enforce the policy.”  

According to Legal Dive, a report from research and technology advisory firm Gartner revealed that many employees find it hard to comply with senseless or strict rules that hold no meaning. 87% of employees revealed they had no idea how to comply with pre-defined rules in certain situations. 

Rod Matthews, trainer, author, and HR expert, revealed that imposing harsh rules does more harm than good. Regarding rules about work roles and tasks, having too many instructions can stifle creativity and give off the impression that there’s no room for mistakes, thus restricting learning and experimentation. Moreover, stringent rules like the one in this employee’s case can lead to reduced interactions and engagement and affect the internal morale and bond among colleagues and employers. u/PeterGriffen565 wrote, “That is a fine example of corporate bullshit. All companies want you to follow their policies exactly…till they don’t.” u/ShadowDragon8685 added, “Sounds like you need to take that ‘formal warning’ along with a copy of the stupid policy to HR and tell them you are not taking kindly to being written up for following company policy.”

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This article originally appeared 1 month ago.