# When Your Boss Says "No Rules" But Means "No Rules For Me"

Here’s the setup: guy works as a machinist, has a boss who’s the owner’s brother—which is comedy shorthand for “this guy’s immune to consequences and knows it.” The boss is terrible. But here’s where it gets good: the boss creates this whole system of rules, write-ups, time-clock discipline, the works. Classic middle-management theater. Then—and this is the pivot—the boss gets caught breaking every single rule he invented, and when it lands on his desk, he just… doesn’t care. He’s basically saying, “Yeah, I made these rules. For you.”

One commenter nails it: the boss literally tells this guy during a review, “Now that the review for the company is over, here’s stuff about you I noticed”—which is such a beautiful tell. That’s not management, that’s a guy reading off a list he scribbled during someone else’s meeting while thinking about lunch. The audacity is almost respectable. Almost.

This is the dream of every nepotism hire who ever lived: create accountability theater while remaining completely exempt from the cast. Write yourself out of the script. It’s not even malicious compliance at that point—it’s just compliance watching a guy run full-speed into his own rulebook and bounce off like it’s made of foam. The machinist didn’t have to do anything clever. He just had to show up and watch the guy strangle himself with his own tie.

The real punchline? Once you see it—once you know the rules don’t apply to the guy making them—you can’t unsee it. And suddenly every write-up, every lecture about “professionalism,” every stern meeting becomes a bit. It’s a one-liner that plays for the entire duration of your employment.