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The original was posted on /r/maliciouscompliance by /u/Adventurous_Tap1700 on 2025-05-27 15:37:45+00:00.
Worked as a supervisor for a blood bank many years ago. We would travel to set up local blood drives in various towns/locations. Went to a community center about an hour away and found out their HVAC system was broken. It was supposed to be a hot day, somewhere in the mid 90's.
FDA regulates the blood donation/collection industry, and they have strict rules in place. One of them is that the temperature in the collection area at a blood drive cannot exceed a certain amount. This is to prevent bacteria growth in the blood collection process, and to prevent donors from having a bad reaction during/after donation (fainting, vomiting etc.). I called our manager (Jess) and said "hey, there's no AC in this building and it's already getting close to the cutoff temp. I think we should cancel and reschedule."
ABSOLTELY NOT. Jess thinks we're just trying to get a day off work. Like we didn't already load all the equipment up and drive out here to waste our time, but whatever. She gets in her car and drives out to the site. She then takes the QC thermometer, which was already out of range by the time she got there, and places it on a window where a fan was blowing. After a minute or so, the temp drops just below the threshold. "It's fine, set up the rest of the site and continue with the blood drive."
"Well, the temp needs to be taken in the collection area, not on the other side of the building by a window."
"The temp is fine; you all need to stay here and do your job."
She gets in her car and leaves.
Ok, let's do the blood drive then. She's the boss!
After each unit of blood collected, I quarantine the units and fill out the proper paperwork per SOP guidelines. We get back to the blood bank that evening and I hand off the coolers of quarantined blood to the lab. They ask me if I really quarantined an entire blood drive and I say "yep." So, they document and incinerate each unit of blood. A 10-hour workday with travel expenses, medical equipment, staff, etc. all thrown out the window. Not to mention wasting the time of all the people that donated.
The next day, the site director calls me into her office, I assume to chew my ass. She was actually confused and wondered if something happened at the blood drive that caused every unit to be quarantined. I told her the reason, and about Jess. Not sure how the conversation went afterwards but unfortunately, she was able to keep her job for a few weeks before being fired.
Don't make a set of rules if you don't expect people to follow them.