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Some rules sound great until someone actually follows them.

That’s exactly what happened after this store rolled out a new policy to improve customer service.

Management decided no customer should ever wait more than 15 seconds to check out.

The problem was employees also had to keep stocking shelves, and they weren’t allowed to stand around at the register waiting for customers. So one employee asked which job came first.

Management made its answer perfectly clear. So the employee followed those instructions exactly the way they were given.

Read on to see what happened next.

Sure, the longest a customer will ever have to wait is 15 seconds

So I worked in a fairly large store that wasn’t very busy until 3 p.m. and only had 2–3 employees on the floor in the morning.

We were getting complaints from customers that they’d have to wait a minute or two at the register before getting checked out. We were always stocking the aisles and weren’t allowed to “just stay at the register.”

Management decided that the longest any customer should have to wait was 15 seconds before starting checkout.

That’s when she started timing everything.

As I always do when given tasks that contradict each other, I asked, “Hey, what gets priority—getting our stock out or ensuring checkout happens within 15 seconds?”

They confirmed that customer service was the top priority. Perfect.

I had my cart of stock, and I was in charge of the register. My cart was about seven seconds of walking time away from where I could view the register.

So I literally walked for seven seconds, checked the register, walked back for seven seconds, which left me with a single second to stock shelves.

Her manager was not happy with the progress.

Normally, you can get a cart of stock out in about 30 minutes. My cart was still quite full after about four hours.

Management came by and saw me walking back and forth, “barely doing any work.”

I reminded her that what I was doing was the top priority and that, since I wasn’t allowed to stay at the register, I was accomplishing both of my tasks in the most efficient way possible.

The next day, the 15-second rule had been abolished.

Nice! Luckily, the manager saw how dumb the rule was pretty quickly.

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit relate with this story.

This does seem like the best plan.

Yes, they do.

Sometimes, the managers are torn in different directions by their managers.

It doesn’t seem bad when you compare it to this.

What was management thinking?

Apparently, they weren’t. Otherwise, they would’ve realized there’s no way one employee can stock shelves and make it back to the register every 15 seconds.

Instead of making things harder than they need to be, they should’ve fixed the process. Put one person on the register and let the others stock shelves.

The good news is that they figured it out quickly. Some managers would’ve kept blaming the employees instead of admitting the policy never made sense in the first place.