standards and rules

I've been thinking about standards and whether they are confining or not. I guess that depends on the standard and the person involved. Where I work we have quite a few standards: food safety, personal safety, and food presentation being the biggest three. But sometimes it seems like a standard is more like a rule, and then it gets to be a little confining. For example, a girl who works with me has a nose ring, which doesn't come out anymore, and since she cannot remove it she has to wear a large, blue, company issued bandaid over it. It looks rediculous and isn't exactly what I would want the person who is serving my food to have on their face. The point is, there is a rule that no one in the food prep or serving area can wear jewelry. There is another standart we have to abide by, concerning cookies. We have to have four kinds of regular size cookies, two kinds of large cookies, and one cookie of the week, in this order from bottom to top, in the cookie rack at all times. This to me seems almost as bad as the bandaid, if we know people only eat two kinds of cookies and ignore the rest, then we are forced to waste the rest. It, in its own way is confining. So what is the difference between a standard and a rule here?

Another thought is that standards, like codes, are created by both society in general and governing bodies. Dress codes could be considered a standard, I guess, so everyone at a company would have to dress in the same type of outfit. This is imposed by the business, but how they wear those clothes is determined by a societal standard. If they dressed in any but the common practice they would be ridiculded, so we mostly follow this same pattern. But, even though some standards could get in our way, I think it is good that we have them in place. In the justice system standards are what makes it "fair" to stand in front of a judge. He is suppossed to view your case and hold it up to a set standard for punishment, keeping his prejudice from affecting your sentance. The example of the traffic lights is a good one. This is a standard that really doesn't affect anyone, but it does make the world a lot easier to navigate. Just like the standards for web page design, I don't think they are there to choke the life out of me, but to help the world navigate the internet easier.

So, the big question is: When , or how, does a standard become a rule (or a law for that matter), and does that standard or rule really affect me? I'm sure there are more standards than I could ever know about, but I've never ran into them because they don't affect me.

I'll step off my little box now so you don't have to read any more of my rambling.

Rob.