Wouldn’t it be great if the people who made the rules knew how they would affect operations?

Then maybe communication barriers like this one wouldn’t happen. Read it and you’ll see why this worker’s cell phone needed to be on after all, despite the boss having forbid it.

Phone must be off during Work? You’re the boss.

I was working at a pretty large UK betting shop, open from 8am to 10pm.

One big rule was mobile phones were to be turned off during work hours, no ifs or buts.

Cue the morning of the Epsom Derby, a big horse racing event and the start of my 12 hour shift.

During setup, we had a problem with our Internet. All billing was done by the internet, meaning until it was fixed we could take no money.

About 3 hours go by and nothing had improved. I had no way of letting anyone know because my phone HAD to be off.

Now it’s time to find out: how’d your policy work out for you, boss?

At about 5pm, we eventually had Internet back.

Not long after, I eventually got a call from my area manager, as to why there was no money taken.

After a lot of huffs and puffs, he hung up.

I was just following the rules.

It moves from being annoying to being a huge time waster.

20 minutes later, I get another phone call from said manager, asking if I could take pictures of the marketing screens to make sure they had loaded correctly and then send them to him.

No I can’t, sorry, my phone needs to be off.

He had to do a 3 hour drive to the shop to check himself.

Here’s what people had to say.

Haven’t you heard? Giving “Do or die” advice is more fun.

Problem solved! But would he want that bill every month?

Pretty much. Sounds like my doctor’s office.

This is so true. For a lot of people, this would be a huge problem.

It does suck. But do they learn? Maybe. Sometimes.

Everything in moderation, boss.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.