Some bosses have rules that make sense, but others make you wonder if they’ve thought things through at all.

Imagine your boss banned you from using the one tool you needed to finish your job.

How would you handle it?

Would you use it anyway?

Or would you just not do the work?

In the following story, one construction laborer finds himself in this exact situation and follows the rules.

Here’s how it played out.

Don’t touch the DeWalt!

For this little story, I’m going back through the mists of time to the days of working with my father-in-law as a builder’s labourer.

To start, my FIL/boss had a habit of going to B&Q for [insert random non-critical item], which was actually a handy excuse to go to a cafe for a sausage and bacon sarnie while the rest of us got on with the work.

He had one golden rule: all other tools were whatever, but his precious DeWalt drill was his baby. Never, ever, ever touch the DeWalt!

The FIL left the employees to their specific tasks as he went to grab some food.

He decided to toddle off this fine morning, leaving me, the plumber, and the plasterer to our various jobs.

My task was to sort out the arcatrave and hang a door. After getting the hang of builders’ banter while being a gasp girl (give as good as you get, and you’re sorted), I thought I’d sort out the cheeky bugger.

You see…don’t touch the DeWalt. The only drill in the building.

Fine, suits me.

The FIL waltzes in, suspicious stains on his shirt, and what looked to be ketchup on the corner of his mouth.

When he got back, he was shocked that the work wasn’t done.

‘Why the **** isn’t the door done?!’

‘Well, I did what I could, but you said I wasn’t to use the DeWalt.’

He spluttered a fair bit, the plasterer fell off the steps from ******* himself laughing, the plumber quietly giggled, and I stood there pulling the most angelic face I could manage.

And then I was finally given permission to use the **** drill.

Wow! He sure changed his mind pretty quickly.

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit feel about this story.

This reader felt the need to explain the details of the story.

Here’s another person who explains what the store is.

Well, that’s an interesting way to look at it.

According to this reader, he handled it perfectly.

That worked out well!

But it does seem like he would’ve loved going to the store to buy a new one if needed.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.