My experience is that managers who are that pedantic about policy generally imply one (or both) of the following: 1) there is a culture of micromanagement and paranoia that employees are basically thieves or children who have to be monitored all the time; 2) one (or more) employees are no longer desired on the payroll, so instead of being adults and letting them go management instead chooses to make their lives hell by enforcing petty technicalities in policy in a childish, passive-aggressive way.
Neither of these is an indicator of a quality company to work for. Both are strong indicators that the company is not good to work for.
... and the second is called "constructive dismissal" and ends up in compensation for the employee in most jurisdictions, where the employee knows his/her rights.
In which jurisdictions in the US is the burden of proof for constructive dismissal permissive enough to include enforcement of company policy as detailed in the Employee Handbook, no matter how onerous, (unless the policies are not uniformly enforced or are arbitrarily enforced)?
Neither of these is an indicator of a quality company to work for. Both are strong indicators that the company is not good to work for.