I supervise a number of employees and I'll tell you how it works here: Every rule we have was established after-the-fact. Somebody did something that common sense or common decency should have prevented them from doing, and voila, another rule is born.
About half of our rules are the result of one unfortunate hiring decision made some years ago.
I'll bet if you asked the right person at Amazon why they had a certain rule, they would say, "Well, it's because of this guy named 'Bob' who came in one day and...."
