Leadership is all about consistency, but some bosses prefer to change the rules as they go.

After being reprimanded, one golf course employee followed their boss’ orders to the letter, only to be scolded yet again — this time for doing exactly what they were told!

Read on to find out how it all went down.

If I tell you to spray fairways, you spray fairways. No problem boss!

My first job out of college, I was working as an assistant superintendent on a golf course.

One of the most common jobs I was assigned was to spray pesticides on fairways, greens, tees, etc.

But one day, something unusual happened.

One particular day, I was spraying fairways when one of the crew guys on the next hole over needed help with his machine because it had broken down.

So I stopped spraying and went over to help him figure out what was wrong.

This was the wrong move in the boss’ eyes.

My boss, the superintendent, came riding up on his golf cart and started absolutely blasting me for stopping.

He told me that if my job was to spray fairways, that was the only thing I needed to be worried about.

So I got back on the spray rig and kept spraying.

Then it happened again.

Two weeks later, the same exact scenario happened.

I was spraying fairways, and a crew guy needed help out on the course.

But this time, the employee was determined to comply with the boss’ rules.

I just kept spraying and ignored the crew guy.

My boss was making his rounds on the golf cart when he came over to me and started yelling again.

But this also turned out to be the wrong decision.

This time, he said that if I saw someone who needed help, I needed to break off from what I was doing and assist them.

“I’m a manager, and that’s my job, yada yada,” he said.

Then he asked, “Do you understand me!?”

So the employee was honest.

I said, “No, I don’t. Two weeks ago, I did exactly that, and you told me to keep spraying fairways if that was my task.”

He got all red in the face and drove off in his golf cart.

Finally, the boss seemed to come around.

About 30 minutes later, he came back and told me to just use my best judgment from now on if it looked like a crew guy needed help.

There’s nothing worse than a manager who always contradicts themselves.

Let’s hear what Reddit made of this situation.

It’s clear that this employee can’t just take what this manager says at face value.

Many managers are riddles, but once you crack the code, you’re golden.

“Use your best judgment.” Warning: Results may vary widely.

Compassionate bosses are out there – they are just a bit more rare.

At least now this employee had permission to do what they were already doing: thinking for themselves.

Turns out, the only thing less predictable than the greens was the guy running them.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.