Ooops! What a bloomer
But I can imagine how it happened! And there’s a useful lesson here in how to ask for what you want.
The person painting the warnings would most probably say that he was following instructions to the letter. (Well… almost. I don’t know how Arbic slipped in.)
The same might be said of the husband who began leaving his office earlier, at the request of his wife. The only trouble was that he then spent much more time on the golf course. Imagine the conversation: ‘You said I shouldn’t work such long hours. You were right. So now, I’m taking your advice. What’s the problem?’
How could his wife have expressed herself more clearly?
She could have said how much she would like to spend more time with him, then explain the specific things she would like the two of them to do together, and finally, check what he had understood her to be saying. Once she was satisfied that she had been heard in the way she intended, she could then suggest a particular activity on a particular day and ask if he would be willing to leave work in time to engage in it with her.