Stupid Rules
Saturday October 31, 2009
There's an old saying, "There's the right way, the wrong way, and the military way." When I was on active duty, we enlisted members would often gather together and discuss stupid military rules we'd encountered, and what we would do to change things if we were ever put in charge.
I'm sure many of you have seen stupid rules during your military service. How about sharing them? What stupid rules did you see, and what would you do to change them if you could?
The whole reason the military has stupid rules is because there was that one dumbass at one time that made a stupid mistake so they had to make a rule for it.
Right on, Derek! There are rules upon rules within any community, military and civilian alike.
Am I in favor of ignoring the rules which are deemed stupid…certainly not; I’m sure we’ve all, at one time or another, rolled through that stop sign at oh-dark thirty, etc. What’s important is understanding the rule’s origin and purpose, and adjusting behavior accordingly. Someone once observed that the vast majority of rules are indeed behavioral guidlines; the reason they have to be presented as rules is due to the fact that too many people fail to exercise that little commodity with which (supposedly) we were all born…JUDGEMENT…failure to separate cast-in-bronze directives from the “ya’ll oughtas”.
As a parting word: the writer states that, if in charge, he/she would discuss how to go about changing things (paraphrased, of course). Obviously, the writer has not had the experience of being responsible for a number of people and their physical welfare and safety.
Wow, Sarge sounds like a retard. Obviously doesn’t know anything about the author of the article he just read. I think we found the origin of many stupid rules right here.
Anyways, i’m glad you wrote this article. I’m also a little suprised. I think everybody has experienced these rules in their career. I’m curious to see what kind of responses this article gets.
this is not the rule. some dumb in charge sailor thinks he knows how to do someone elses job, and they themselves have never done it, but feel they are experts in the subject matter so they write the manuals of how to…half the time this leads to mishaps.
Well, there are dumb rules to distract dumb mistakes but for me “I never made a mistake in my life – once I thought I did but I was wrong!”.
You usually don’t know how important a rule is until you flout it and are in trouble. I agree with sarge on finding out the origin of the rule and it’s importance. For the seemingly stupid rules, i hope suggestions can be made to discuss and or review them.
So this was a complete waste of my time.
Nice feed back guys.
I thought someone would at least have a little good feed back.
I think I got the most from Derek, and he only wrote what, like 1 sentence….
plus-is there a reason for all the name calling?
I hope my 18 year old brother (who is considering the Air Force by the way) doesn’t sound this ignorant if he decides to join.
Having to call in to make appointments at the hospital seems like a stupid rule. I found that one out when a buddy of mine tried to make an appointment for his wife while we were there on routine business.
The airman behind the desk informed us of the rule so we asked about a phone we could use. He pointed out a phone they had set up in the same room specifically for appointments (there was even a sign saying so) due to the large amount of traffic they got from people showing up to make appointments in person.
Obviously stemming the flow of traffic wasn’t the reason behind the rule, and if it was it obviously wasn’t a very good reason. The kicker was when my buddy called, we could hear the airman we had just talked to answer the phone from across the room.
Dean, it’s called standardization. To you, the “customer”, it may appear rather silly (and it could well be). However, more times than not, these rules, stupid as they may seem, were established with but one purpose. Oftentimes, this singular purpose may collide with other interests; the rule then becomes viewed as “stupid”.
I don’t know what seat you occupy on the military totem pole, but if I were you, I’d learn to abide by what you may feel are stupid rules. When the day arrives that you occupy a leadership position, with leadership responsibilities, and that seat on the totem pole affords you a broader view of the operation, then you can assess all the stupid rules in your life and determine if they should, or should not be changed…Charlie Mike!