“Chris and Jan have broken a Swiss law. What law is it?”
This is a question I use all the time for an improv prompt. The audience then suggests a law and the scene begins.
Now, while Switzerland has all the normal laws about not stealing and not murdering and not speeding (they really mean that last one–there are speed cameras EVERYWHERE), the audience always picks the Swiss laws that we find funny. For example:
🔴 No recycling on Sunday
🔴Garbage cannot go out until 7:00 PM the night before
🔴You have to shake hands with everyone when you walk into a room. (There was a court case about this, by the way, involving a teacher and male students who wouldn’t shake her hand.)
🔴Absolutely no crossing the road against the light.
The scene is always hilarious and fun to play.
But here’s a bit of a reality bite. We make fun of these “silly rules” but they are also the reason people love living here.
Our streets are clean because people take care of our garbage. People can live next to the recycling collection spots because they aren’t disturbed at all hours of the night and weekend by the clanking of bottles.
And I think this is true about a lot of things. The little things that make a country or a company attractive are the very things that people say are silly.
Remove the overly stiff rules and you run the risk of losing the very thing that made your company a great place to work.
This is not me arguing that we should put an old Swiss lady with a cane in charge of every business, allowing her to smack anyone that gets out of hand. But it is me arguing that before you get rid of a policy or practice, ask yourself what that policy or practice leads to and say, “Are we ready to lose this result?”
I can laugh about the overly rigid rules of when you can put your garbage out, but I certainly don’t want to live in a place where people put their garbage out all the time.
(The notes on these garbage bags say, “Please observe the designated times for putting out garbage for collection! Collection days in this neighborhood: Monday and Thursday. Put out garbage the evening before.)
On behalf of overly stuffed bureaucrats everywhere, thank you for this article. You’ve put into words what I’ve struggled for a long time to express.
We have too many people who don’t understand or want to understand the need of rules, especially when they have the attitude that rules don’t apply to them ( an implied privilege) or they get a self-gratification in pushing the limits and don’t care how their actions not following the rules creates consequences on others and themselves.