Space Corp Directives – Whats Yours ?

I’m always coming across or getting them imposed on me. You know the home type ones. Pointless rules.

Eg.

Such as the toothbrush must set vertical and the bristles facing North.

The cat can only be cleaned on Tuesday at 15:00 hours.

The car can only be put in garage facing outwards or it’s the end of the world.

Irksome little home or work rules for no reason.

I call them Space Corp Directives to the annoyance of the creater or and imposer.

What’s yours?

Clean desk policy at work

Sometimes they get laminated as well and appear various location. At work, at home or out on the street. Councils excel at them as well.

Driving on the left.

I mean why? Man, people are so up tight.

The car can only be put in garage facing outwards or it’s the end of the world.

I had this on a site visit to the AA (which is a deeply weird organisation in many ways).

“You have to reverse into parking bays.”

Oh, sorry, I didn’t realise.

…

“Well?”

Uh… well what?

They point blank refused to let me into the building to attend to a major service outage until I’d gone back outside and turned the car around.

“You have to reverse into parking bays.”

It’s so if the building needs to be evacuated in a hurry, everyone drives out and there are no crashes. A common policy anywhere that explosives are used or stored or high security installations.

Also, because when you reverse *into* a space you have better visibility throughout the manoeuvre, and better manoeuvrability because the wheels that do the steering are at the front of the car.

similarly on the way out you have better visibility at all times compared to backing out, which is likely a guessing game as to whether other cars are coming, given the obstructed view from cars parked either side.

backing in is *almost* always better, safer and easier, when you include getting out of the space as well in your assessment.

A common policy anywhere that explosives are used or stored or high security installations.

… it’s the AA, not Sellafield.

I strongly suspect that it’s policy simply because everything has to be proper. They think they’re a military operation, they don’t have team leaders and managers, they have sergeants and corporals. It’s a deeply odd place. The amount of paperwork I had to complete to gain access to the site was nuts, it took me two hours to get past security and as I said I was there to respond to a MSO. I’d sign something and they’d hand it straight back to me because whilst I’d signed it, I hadn’t had it long enough for them to conclude that I’d actually read it. Which makes sense but FFS, it was like being forced to read a 27-page EULA word-by-word before you can install a printer driver. Meanwhile, a good chunk of their infrastructure was on its arse. The sole reason I’d parked nose-first – typically I always reverse into bays anyway – was to save time.

backing in is *almost* always better, safer and easier, when you include getting out of the space as well in your assessment.

I don’t disagree. But being sent back out to turn it around after I’d already parked doesn’t undo that, it just adds extra steps.

Yes, but you’ll back into the bay next time, if you ever get called there again won’t you? As will every other visitor.
If everyone knows they’ll get sent back to fix it, and not even get into the building until they do, everyone will do it. It’s better. It’s safer. It’s easier.

And I suspect you either didn’t read, or didn’t bother obeying some signage.

a building doesn’t need to be full of explosives to require good practice to be followed. Further, it is not unreasonable for a an organisation focussed squarely on vehicles and driving to expect good driving practices to be enforced.

it’s the AA, not Sellafield.

Giving up the booze is hard enough without reversing into other cars.

They’ll have some statistician who’s proved that 98% of car park crashes are due to people reversing out of spaces or something.

I’ve had that exact experience of the AA in Basingstoke. On top of the nuts parking regime (which was disrupted by the fact I was on a motorbike), we had to extend the schema of our software to incorporate “Rank” into it despite having a number of other empty attributes we could have just re-named in the front end. No “rank” had to go in the database in a custom column that was definitely called “rank”

I reckon it might be the local environment: it’s a truly dystopian building in a pretty dystopian town. The kind of place you might get bundled to in a van by odd people with spiral patterned umbrellas.

Our timesheet system.  It’s based on salesforce, you select the project, put some time down and record some notes for the time used.  This has to be approved by the customer. Except there’s no way to get the data out, no export function or way to grant them access to that timesheet.  So you have to manually duplicate the data to an excel spreadsheet that you then email to the customer and who, until this year, would have to print the sheet out and fax it to our office in Bracknell.

you’ll back into the bay next time, if you ever get called there again won’t you?

No, I’ll send some bastard else to site. 🙂

I do get it, and you’re right, I’d know for next time. But there’s a time and a place, I could have started triage and then come back out to move the car whilst I was waiting for reboots or whatever.

They’ll have some statistician who’s proved that 98% of car park crashes are due to people reversing out of spaces or something.

But,

I still had to reverse out anyway in order to turn the %^&*ing thing around. I’d messed up sure, but sending me out like a naughty child changed precisely nothing besides point-scoring.

I’ve had that exact experience of the AA in Basingstoke.

I couldn’t say where it was now but it’s likely the same site. Did they have the AA-branded TARDIS in reception?

Toilet seat down. (The missis’ rule)

Paper recycling bin on the left, plastic on the right, (my rule)

Edit – that’s toilet seat down after use, I’m allowed, Nay encouraged, to lift it during.

Clean desk policy at work

My old boss always used to say ‘A tidy desk is a sign of tidy mind’

I call it an empty desk.

Also, whilst I understand the benefits of reversing in, how do you get stuff out of the boot? Van with barn doors, backing up to a wall/other car isn’t an option, if I’ve left enough room to open the doors and extract the thing the front end is half way across the car park

The wearing of hard hats without a chin strap. It’s driven by uber strong H&S, but no one dare suggest a chin strap so they actually stay on when bumped…

how do you get stuff out of the boot?

Side sliding door. 🙂

I’m a reverse parker usually, but yeah, if you’re putting big stuff in the back, sometimes unavoidable.

I think I’d be Rimmer to everyone else’s Lister in this thread.

Recycling goes in the recycling bag, not in a little pile in the utility room (one door-open from the recycling bag).

Shoes go on the rack, not in front of the door/stairs/hallway where they were taken off for me to trip over.

Etc.. etc..

Genuine question, are buildings ever evacuated by people leaving in vehicles?

the amount of paperwork I had to complete to gain access to the site was nuts, it took me two hours to get past security and as I said I was there to respond to a MSO

Where as at actual sellafield some one got a usb stick into the network

https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/28/sellafield-nuclear-waste-dump-to-be-prosecuted-for-alleged-it-security-offences

Clean desk policy at work

“if a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?”.

A. Einstein (reputedly)

Genuine question, are buildings ever evacuated by people leaving in vehicles?

Good point, most have assembly points where all the staff/visitors gather for a roll call by the nominated fire marshal or whoever… I can’t imagine a company evacuating by having a free for all ‘Tokyo midnight drift club’ style event in the car park, hahah!

AA carpark when the fire alarm goes off!!! :

Ooh, I think like Einstein!
.
.
Maybe they need the car park clear for fire engines? I’ve still never known that to be a thing though

Sometimes they get laminated as well and appear various location. At work, at home or out on the street. Councils excel at them as well.

Councils are but amateurs at this, for pro-level passive agressive signage head to any golf club and marvel at the trivalities that are discouraged by laminated signs all in arial 48 point type!

I can’t imagine a company evacuating by having a free for all

Any UK civil service establishment has a dispersal policy after evacuation to avoid any follow-up bombing on a concentration of aparatchiks.

My old boss always used to say ‘A tidy desk is a sign of tidy mind’

He/she is wrong! It’s the sign of a warped mind.

It’s the sign of someone stuck for something to do.

You clean the cat once a week?

… it’s the AA, not Sellafield

The real reason for the reverse parking rule is that it’s easier to get jump leads under the bonnet.

I think I’m lucky in that me and Mrs F don’t have any. We’re both fairly chilled and with two young kids, trying to enforce rules is the very definition of a Sysiphian task.

Loads at work. Some of which are for genuinely good reasons and some which are mental. My favourite being that I have to push my bike across the carpark but people on motorbikes can ride across it. There’s a laminated sign on the wall next to a fridge that states ‘Never leave milk sideways. Always stand it up!’ so I always lay it flat in the knowledge that someone, somewhere is getting. Disproportionately upset about it.

There’s a wrong way and a right way for venetian blinds to be closed, apparently, depending on which way the slats are facing.

This is the ‘correct’ way:

SSE likes a good reverse parking rule. They were also total militants about the “all users of the building MUST hold the hand rail when going up and down stairs” rule. This is to be enforced both in SSE buildings and more amusingly for SSE employees visiting other buildings/companies. Always fun to observe a properly institutionalised friend when walking into/out of a building when on his day off looking for a handrail. Even more fun to walk the wrong side of him so he cant access it! And this is a tough as old boots bloke who makes his living climbing up trees with a chainsaw in a storm, yet he’ll go yards out of his way to make sure he’s got his hand on a rail climbing 4 or 5  steps into a building.

Oddly during COVID when everyone got weird about touching stuff they dropped the rule……..and SSE death rates from stair related disasters didn’t go through the roof quite as much as you’d imagine.

We’ve got the reverse parking rule too. Imposed by the previous boss. She’s been gone 4 months but I’m yet to see anyone break it. Maybe it’s my challenge for Monday. We also have a ‘no parking within 1m of a building’  rule. Not sure why, not sure anyone does…do vehicles in the north of Scotland catch fire more than normal. We all obey it mind, or get a Sturm email from security and a note on ‘your file’.

There’s a wrong way and a right way for venetian blinds to be closed, apparently, depending on which way the slats are facing.

This is the ‘correct’ way:

Surley it depends what you are trying to accomplish? ‘that’ way would let more heat out and look dustier faster

This is the ‘correct’ way:

That’s weird given that if you’re closing blinds you’re presumably trying to block out the light, and the primary light source is high up so you’d want the slats perpendicular to that.

The volume level on the TV must be even!

All clothes must be put away neatly in the wardrobe.

Except hers.

We’ve a coercive controller at work (untouchable it seems, as a recent bullying investigation resulted in the complainant being “invited” to take a couple of weeks off to calm down, and no further action) who is so deeply offended that I keep putting the scrap wood pallet 50cm away from where he believes it should go that he spent two days painting  a yellow hazard-striped acceptable zone with WOOD stencilled on it, so that I’m officially in the wrong.

And got management to agree it was a good idea.

And now has his own pallet in a different place because I don’t load the scrap wood neatly enough.

We also dance this dance with the scrap metal bins and cutting oil drum. And let’s not get into the war over whether the changing room/place where many workers and lorry drivers shit should have the small window open (me) or closed (him as soon as it’s less than 20c outside)

The joys of engineering eh?

The cul de sac where I grew up in the burbs was so **** Hyacinth Bucket. People would close their Venetian blinds so that they looked tidier from the outside. 😀

Toilet seat down. (The missis’ rule)

Toilet lid down as it’s equally inconvenient too everyone. Wife tried to impose the seat down rule when we first lived together. I pushed the lid suggestion and after a while (year or so) she stopped bothering so I also did. Win (though now we have two daughters so it goes down again after finding them sat on the rim in the middle of the night!).