Managers making decisions that just make workers’ lives harder is a tale as old as time. As just as often, legitimate pushback gets ignored unless the employee can provide some untenable bit of evidence.

But one drug-store manager shared their experience with an older worker who enlisted a doctor to one-up management. Due to a new rule, a 65-year-old employee with a medical condition was not allowed to have water at her workstation unless she had a doctor’s note, as that was the rule. So she decided to take things to the next level.

Upper management sometimes implements rules that go against basic medical logic

Image credits: drazenphoto (not the actual photo)

An older worker who needed to drink water frequently had to get creative to circumvent a new rule

Image credits: Pavel Danilyuk (not the actual photo)

Image credits: redmayapril

Image credits: Tbel Abuseridze (not the actual photo)

Working in a customer-facing job requires a lot of talking

Most readers will not OP’s description of this new rule and likely be able to recall something similar from their own experience. Regulations and changes made by higher-ups who have never worked in the position they are now micromanaging, which will bring benefits so intangible that going through the effort of implementing the new rules seems like a waste of time. The absurdity of the rule is already highlighted by the doctor who finds a way to point out that human beings, surprise surprise, require water. The higher up’s, no doubt trying to justify their salaries, are looking for ways to improve “productivity,” however they define it and settled on removing a distraction.

Somehow, no doubt having never worked with customers over a long period of time, they simply could not imagine that a person would need to drink water frequently. Elderly people, even if not taking special medication, are at higher risk of dehydration by default. While most of us can go without drinking for a bit, a position that requires a good bit of talking will lead to a dry mouth within an hour. As it so often happens, a rule meant to increase productivity would likely cause more issues in the long run, as workers have to get through multiple customers, all with dry mouths and tiredness slowly setting in.

Even if the workers manage to rally through some hours without water, these sorts of intrusive rules do have an overall negative effect on employee morale. Even a cold-hearted manager needs to understand that an unhappy employee will be less productive than a satisfied employee. It’s not hard to see how any, seemingly-random, new rules from “above” will be nothing but an irritation. Particularly when the new rules stop employees from doing something they have grown accustomed to.

Image credits: Aurelien Thomas (not the actual photo)

Limiting an employee’s access to water seems very counterproductive

As OP notes further down in the comments, working in a pharmacy combines all the struggles of retail with a more demanding amount of responsibility. Medication is a lot more regulated and potentially dangerous than bananas and bread. Similarly, in most cases, people are not going to the drug store for fun, they are in need of medicine, and drug store employees are the middleman between a needing customer, an insurance company, and a pharmaceutical company. As it often happens in these situations, the middleman gets the brunt of the abuse and negative emotions, while often having very little they can do about it. Nevertheless, drug store employees have to argue, explain and give instructions all day long. Now imagine them also going without water.

If we take a step back, the requirement to show a doctor’s note for water seems so deeply absurd that its place should be among old jokes about work in the Soviet Union. Hydration isn’t just something that we need on a hot day or when exerting ourselves, humans need to drink frequently, which should be common sense, yet OP’s story demonstrates that this is untrue. This is reflected in our history, take a map of the world and look over it carefully, you are unlikely to find major cities not near bodies of water. And the ones that do exist, Las Vegas, for example, could only grow to that size after modern technology allowed us to move water in such quantities.

Fortunately for all involved, including upper management, that got to feel satisfied with their new rules, the older woman’s doctor created a long-lasting solution for everyone, that could not doubt keep the employees hydrated for years to come. While this story does fit the title of malicious compliance, an argument can be made that there was nothing malicious about it. The rule was that employees needed a doctor’s note, and now they can all provide it. No side is actually “injured” by the outcome.

Image credits: Safari Consoler (not the actual photo)

Readers expressed their enjoyment of the doctor’s solution and even gave some suggestions

Others wanted some more details from OP

A few readers shared their own stories of dumb rules and how people got around them

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