One day they sent out a particularly onerous "agreement" that said that we agreed not to use a phone while driving a car and doing so would be cause for termination etc.
I went down to HR and asked them if they were really trying to regulate what I was doing in my personal vehicle with my personal phone and they replied "No, its only meant for when you're in a company vehicle or using a company phone."
But the agreement itself clearly stated any phone any car.
The workaround I came up with was this-- a friend of mine and I swapped forms, and signed each others names. HR had their illegal, unenforceable agreement, and life moved on.
I got my "revenge" 6 months or so later. HR was frantically calling me for some reason-- I was stuck on the freeway as is our custom in Orange County. I ignored them for something like two hours, and explained that "I was stuck in traffic and as they were no doubt aware, we are prohibited by company policy from using our phones while operating a vehicle."
The HR gal was visibly pissed off, but to be fair, I could have been fired for answering that phone call.
I am not a lawyer, obviously, but what I meant was, threatening someone to sign a legal document can't be legal, even if its your employer.
Every company I’ve ever worked at, and that includes very large ones, will have legal, HR, and finance tell you at some point that “you must do X”. Sometimes X is no big deal and you do it. Sometimes it’s hard, and you ask the business to fund it or remove the requirement. Sometimes it’s nonsensical in your context and at that point the job becomes understanding why X is a requirement and how you can satisfy that requirement in some more pragmatic way.
At the end of the day, these functions are there to support the business.