There was a particularly contrary officer that worked in my area. He wasn’t in my chain of command, but I had to deal with him on a regular basis. His problem: He simply didn’t trust anything enlisted people said. He wanted chapter and verse and a copy of the page where it’s written. And sometimes even when he’s wrong he’ll argue that it didn’t apply to us because we weren’t assigned to the Air Force at the time. He made me tired.

After two plus years and two hours of going around on one issue in particular, I threw up my hands in exasperation and simply said:

“Sir, I’ve come to the conclusion that no matter what I say to you, I’m going to be wrong.”

Without any irony whatsoever his response was:

“Now that’s just not true.”

Luckily we were interrupted by one of the older civilian guys dragging me away because he needed something and I didn’t ruin the rest of my time there by laughing in the man’s face.