25 Corporate Policies People Didn’t Know Existed Till They Started Working

After working for some time you realize that most corporate policies are in place to protect the company. These policies are usually pretty standard practices used across the board that are in place to protect the interests of the organization rather than any individuals. However, some companies have chosen to do things differently by enforcing extraordinary company policies that you don’t always find in other places of work. Examples of such unique instances came to light when one Redditor asked, "What's the most surprising company policy you've encountered that the public doesn't know about?” The interesting thread quickly went viral, and we’ve shared some of the most unusual answers the thread received, in the gallery below. 

#1 Theres a company in the UK which will dry clean your suit if you are unemployed and have a job interview. And despite their business being key cutting, they still actively recruit former prisoners, and have developed training programmes for convicts.

Their boss has become the new prisons minister following the recent election. He genuinely believes in reform. Thanks Timpsons . Image source: Lochearnhead

#2 At a hotel I worked at, somebody f****d up the employee handbook: during fires we were to huddle indoors away from windows and during tornadoes we were to wait outside in the parking lot.

Image source: UnhappyJohnCandy, Aleks Magnusson

#3 During COVID times, if we tested positive for Covid we weren't allowed to send proof, and we weren't allowed to discuss it over the phone. You had to go in, show them the test then you were sent home.

Image source: YaretFace, Mika Baumeister

#4 I work for a small family run bakery. They own 2 shops. If you have cancer, they keep you on the payroll. You get full pay for 2 years, then half pay for another 2 years.

Image source: lika-kiki-no, Thirdman I've heard a lot of people s**t on family owned workplaces. Yes, some of them deserve it, but not all of them. I've honestly never heard of any place else that has done anything like that for their people.

#5 I work in healthcare. During COVID, we were so shortstaffed that employees who tested positive but were asymptomatic were denied PTO/sick leave. They just made you wear a mask.

Image source: Square-Raspberry560, Laura James And if you wanted to be off because you were sick with something that wasn't COVID, you had to call the agency nurse, describe your symptoms, and she would decide if you got to stay home or not. Even if you felt like death, if you were not deemed contageous, you were fully expected to come in. Because of that policy in several healthcare agencies, I think a lot of patients would be surprised and possibly disturbed to know that they were being taken care of by staff actively ill and even COVID positive.

#6 At PNC Bank, if you transfer money from one of your accounts with them, for example from money market into checking, they put a hold on the money for several days so if you are writing a check w using the transferred money you can incur an "insufficent funds fee". They tried that c**p on me but when I threatened to pull everything they waived the insufficient funds fee.

Image source: PupperMartin74, Pixabay

#7 I never worked there, but Discount Tire has a policy of never letting a customer drive off the lot with potentially dangerous tires (bald, poor condition, etc.). There are many stories of people who can't afford tires going in there and just begging for what they can get. They'll replace them for free.

Image source: Wazzoo1, Mike Bird Edit: this post got a lot of traction. I'm not editing the original post because that was my original comment, but using the word "begging" was inappropriate. Please replace it with the word "asking" as you read it.

#8 I worked in IT for an insurance company. Whenever anyone filed a claim on their automobile policy, before the company did anything, they sent a letter that said they had investigated the claim and determined it was without merit. However if the claimant wished to have the decision reviewed, they could, but should be aware of the specific penalties for insurance fraud in their state.

Image source: JustSomeGuy_56, Ryan West Most people called screaming about how the accident was not their fault. Those claims were handled promptly and professionally. But they assumed some percentage of the claimants were too intimidated to complain.

#9 My favorite one was that if a customer sexually harassed us we should deal with it because the customer is always right and it keeps them coming back.

Image source: SunnxBunny, Ketut Subiyanto

#10 I work at a smallish company. We have ~50 branches. Each branch has an associate of the year winner. That winner gets airfare for two anywhere in continental US, hotel paid for, a week PTO, and spending cash for the trip. Best company I've ever worked for.

Image source: twsmith23, Armin Rimoldi

#11 I used to work for an internationally known bank (but I was low in terms of pay and rank). If a customer got charged for exceeding their overdraft limit we could not refund it. UNLESS... they had money.

Image source: kitjen, energepic.com If the customer had savings or a large mortgage then then the charge was refunded. But if they were poor... no refund. I later got promoted where I was authorised to refund up to $250 without question. So if a poor person was charged $30 three times in a month and I felt it was unfair, I'd refund the $90 and then put words in their mouth like "I imagine you've spent a lot of time phoning us over this and your phone bill might be about $50? So I'll credit an extra $50 to your account for that. And you know what, you mentioned you have your daughter's wedding coming up? I would love it if you could buy people a round of drinks but as long as you say this is because Carblays Bank made it happen? And then I can justify crediting your account with another $110.".

#12 Many airlines intentionally overbook flights, betting that some passengers won't show up. When too many people do, they offer incentives for volunteers to give up their seats. It's a calculated gamble, prioritizing profits over customer convenience and satisfaction.

Image source: luminous-beam, Oleksandr P

#13 I worked for a company where all men had to wear suits Monday through Thursday, 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. He lived an hour away.

Image source: Tony-Flags, RDNE Stock project

#14 When I was a F&B department head for a large golf resort, I was tasked with "bringing new blood" into the department. Problem was that I could not increase my head count and if someone left I could not place a request in until after their last day. The process of hiring someone new took about 10 weeks. In which time I would be short handed.

Image source: princesstiinaa, Karolina Kaboompics I would get s**t from my boss that certain people were still there, then get s**t for paying overtime. When I would bring this up to my HR recruiter she would just give me a knowing look. Basically middle management hell.

#15 If a Google employee dies, their surviving spouse or partner receives 50% of their base salary for 10 years, and any child receives an additional $1k/month. This is in addition to a life insurance base policy of 3x one's annual salary, and the immediate vesting of all unvested stock units.

Image source: Sub_Umbra, PhotoMIX Company

#16 I recently broke my phone like a moron and had to go get a replacement at t- mobile. Upon talking to the guy, I was told that my drivers license had expired, and therefore I couldn't access my account. No amount of argument from me could change this, never mind having the credit card that has paid the bill for the last 10 years, etc.

Image source: skike, energepic.com Long story short luckily I had my gf as an authorized user on the account and we were able to get a new phone later that day, but afterwards I asked the manager, "what if I didn't have anyone, or say I just moved here and knew no one", to which he replied that I could call t mobile customer service, give them my user pin or whatever, and add someone as an authorized user. I then asked if I could add that guy over there, and he said yes, anyone with a valid ID. Because somehow that's more secure than using a secondary form of ID. Asinine.

#17 American Airlines began offering $400 per ticket to take the next flight out, then $500, then $600. I saw the next string of flights could hit a connection and land my family of four only 90 minutes later. Offered $800 each, and we scored $3200 that covered the hotel, meals, and entertainment for the whole vacation.

Image source: BariatricPressure

#18 High end European car company offers leases to all employees. Said leased cars come with included fleet insurance. Company policy is that you can let literally any licensed driver, even some rando walking down the street, use your lease car for up to 7 days, fully covered by insurance, to promote the experience.

No down payment, discounted lease payment, no insurance or registration costs, you get a brand new car with ~8 miles on it every year (or less depending how many miles you put on it), and you can let almost anyone drive it. Image source: Ayitaka

#19 There is a wedding venue company in San Diego that makes their clients and all vendors sign basically an NDA, disallowing them from speaking ill of the company, venues, or their experiences.

I will never understand how that isn't a red flag for people. Image source: Human-Historian-6675

#20 I work for a utility company and we have "storm duty".

Image source: timtucker_com, Andre Furtado The basic idea is that whenever there's a big storm and enough people lose power, everyone in the company drops what they're doing and has a role to play to keep the public safe and get people restored faster. Some examples: - Office workers may get sent out to put caution tape up around down wires or to help with triage efforts - Call center workers may switch from taking customer calls to do dispatching for all the extra people who get sent out into the field (both employees and repair crews from other utilities who get called in to assist) - Extra IT workers may get called on to monitor systems related to outage reporting or dispatching crews 24/7 while they're under load.

#21 I worked for a very large corporation. We were not allowed to ride in hot air balloons. I have no idea why, but it was in the employee handbook.

Image source: jvlpdillon, Pixabay

#22 In the US, flood zone maps are modified by Congress and lobbying. It’s not a pure science & engineering map.

Image source: ikonet, nytimes.com

#23 At AutoZone, answering the phone was priority over the customer standing in front of you. The idea was the customer standing in line is already a guaranteed sale while a phone call is potential for more.

Image source: shok_antoinette, Armin Rimoldi

#24 I worked for an insurance company. Insurance companies are the **worst**.

People would call and ask why their rates were raised. The closest thing I got to a real answer was, "Because they'll pay more, and if not, they'll threaten to cancel. If they do that, then we'll send them to retention, who will then lower their rate." Rates were being raised simply because they could. Also, when signing up for an auto policy, your mileage directly correlates to your risk rating and will either lower or raise your rate. The company I worked for would allow your mileage to be what you said for the first 6 months. At renewal, your mileage per month always jumped for 12k. Or higher if your initial mileage estimate was already over 12k. It'd be about a $50 increased a month, depending on your state. F*****g criminals. Image source: dudeimjames1234

#25 At a retail chain I worked for, they had a policy where employees had to clock out for bathroom breaks. This wasn't common knowledge outside the company, and it felt really unfair and demeaning. It made a lot of us upset and frustrated, as we had to carefully plan when we could use the restroom without losing pay.

Image source: Sofie_Kitty, Tim Mossholder