They are not all like this . But this is partially due to the labor laws in the us , which are pretty shitty really . They are vague enough to require lots of interpretation but the consequences of non compliance are essentially limitless . Therefore , common sense , just isn ' t a possibility . Additionally , managers receive negligible management training . Almost nothing . HR people are brought in to write and enforce policy that leaves no room for interpretation , because the majority of the HR people and their management teams are forgive me retarded . So , you wind up with an organization composed entirely of adults , that has more rules than high school and less autonomy than kindergarten . Most American business are like this . Occasionally , you get an organization that eliminates all these people and managers from the ranks and it is a great place to work . Then they get sued because a bad employee is butthurt that they got fired for not acting like an adult and the company builds the policy and hires the HR dorks to enforce it .