Occasionally, my job duties include trying to save my organization from itself. Bad decisions or worse implementations. Times when people who are extremely well-qualified to practice law decide that they are therefore well-qualified to do everyone else’s job, too. Like, they made it through Harvard Law, so how hard could it be to to engineer the space shuttle?

This afternoon, I had a first-time visit from a “senior counselor” to the big cheese. It had to do with recommendations I made for a project. Turns out that he didn’t think my recommendations would fly. Not that they were bad, but that they flew in the face of what the Man wanted. I proceeded to restate my case for the good of the organization.

“Wow,” he said. “This is really refreshing.”

I didn’t know where this was going.

“Really refreshing. Usually, people just say ‘yessir!’,” and he shook his head. He wasn’t mad, just bemused.

The 15-year-old thinks that the guy went home and said to his wife, “I think that is the first time that someone disagreed with me.”

Somehow I don’t think that I will be rewarded for being the first.