Logic

See what I do is juuuuuuust, not give a fuck. I do things my way, and when the bosses say "No, you gotta do it THIS way" I just say "OOOOOOOOH, ok. I'll do that".
As if it's the first time they've ever told me. Then I just act like I'm learning it for the first time, and then....this is the key.....I still do it my way.
And then the bosses say "No no no, remember? We gotta do it THIS way!"
And I say "OOOOOOOOH, ok. I'll do that."
And then......key moment.....I still don't give a shit, and still do my way.
And then the bosses say "Hey, remember, we said we were doing it this way?"
And I say "Yeah, I was doing that,but then I remembered we also do it this other faster way, and then I did that instead."
"Well, we don't do that anymore. We do THIS! THIS! THIS is the way we do it. THIS!!!"
"OOOOOOOOOOH, ok. I'll do that."
And then......I do it my way.
And the boss above the boss doesn't give a shit because it doesn't matter either way. So the only one losing their shit is middle management.
See the key here is to drive them slowly insane, until they get so angry, and so full of hate that they turn to drinking. Which inevitably gets them to become an alcoholic at work, as that's the source of their stress. Which in turn gets them fired for being drunk on the job.
That's when you go out and find a handsome muscular man with a big penis. And you pay him to seduce this guys wife. Multiple times. Eventually he gets addicted to sleeping with her, and you stop paying him. It'll be easy since her husband is now an unemployed alcoholic.
So now you've been promoted at work, because there's been a recent role to fill, everyone around you knows you're not the one to fuck with, and now management above you is saying "Hey, we need to do things THIS way now."
"OOOOOOOOOH, ok. I'll do that."
- Username doesn't check out, I think you've got a tried-and-tested plan here
  
  Not too sure about the 'tried' or 'tested', but 100% agree otherwise.
- I directed an engineer to check something done in the field by a contractor to see if it was ok. Because it was an edge case not typically done, I said they had to do the check by hand as it would be easier.
  They "knew better" and used a computer program instead.
  The beam that was bending in the computer program was bending in a different direction than what the field issue was. All of their work was worthless.
  
  "But the GPS said turn here," he said with his car in a pond.
- Ah yes, a plan with literally no drawbacks. Not even if the boss is as crafty as you are, no sir, there's no way they'll find some equally devious way to oust you before this plan comes to fruition for not following their directives, nuh-uh.
  Of course, you could always take more direct action, but for legal reasons, that's not a suggestion, and I recommend you don't. Find another job. (Or lose your mind and quit without a plan. Also not recommended.)
- Instructions unclear, now an alcoholic with dick stuck in middle manager.
  I'm sympathetic to instructions like "you need to do it this way BECAUSE perfectly valid reason". Maybe that pointless paperwork is needed for some compliance documents I'm not aware of; maybe what seems like pointless busywork in preparation is actually essential for one of our biggest customers.
  Alas, at my work, it's quite often BECAUSE someone tangentially related to the project likes a certain output, and we can never go and speak to them to confirm, nor ask if maybe there's something else we could get them that could be even better.
  
  At one of my jobs there would be like Important Requirements because someone said something to someone, but if you actually skipped the layers and just asked "is it important this be like this?" they usually didn't care.

my favorite corporate logic: "let's do it this extreme way," then "it backfired, let's do it the opposite extreme".... when the answer was always in the middle
- I hate it. People have no discipline/paitence, so if something didn’t work out, corporations want to turn everything upside down, instead drilling down and fixing a few small boring issues

This is my work insisting on using people's roles for their email addresses "so the accounts can be reused when they quit." Thats, not how any of this works.
- You might want to look into letting them reuse yours, that place sounds painful.
- Do... do they think email accounts are a rare resource? Of all the things to be concerned about, they're worried about conserving something so intangible, cheap, and abundant?
  Not sure how that's supposed to help Line Go Up, but okay.
  
  It makes sense for some outside facing roles. For instance, you may want all vendor billing going to billing@company.com rather than an individual.
  I wouldn't do it for the whole company, but it could have some uses.
- I think I see the logic that you might want to give say customers for product X the email techsupport@productx.com to contact, but that should map to your actual email addresses, not replace them!
  
  Its every fucking role.
  Receptionist@fuckinghell.com
  ar2@fuckinghell.com
  pm
  it
  scheduler
  am
  pr
  Like what the fuck am I looking at. I just want to fucking email Beth in accounting.
  
  Yeah this is the way. Most companies will have aliases for departments that mass send into a managed inbox or if its one person they have an actual email and then their role is an alias that redirects to their email.
  position changes are as easy as just moving the alias to the new person in the position, this let's your externals be able to use the same email without having to keep the same email account for everything.

HIPPO logic. HIggest Paid Person's Opinion. Whatever the boss says goes, even when it's a stupid idea.

If the managerial caste decides things need to be done a certain way who am I, a lowly peon to say otherwise. When the inevitable fuckup occurs, I can shuffle my feet any say "aww shucks, mr. Bossman, I was only doing thing what you told me to do". I am paid to work, not to think.

Often the stupid shit we see at work is legitimate for reasons above our pay grade, don't need to know. A manager that will openly and honestly explain those things is a treasure.
- Indeed, but sometimes those reasons are legitimately stupid.
  Case in point, any call center that wants to optimize handle time. The reason they pick it is because it's a very easy and straightforward metric to improve.
  You just hang up on people. You can make the number go down super easily. Tell them to call back, so they spend two or even three times as long cycling through a new agent each time. Then it's 3 short 5 to 10 minute calls + time on hold which looks better than one 20 minute call.
  
  Are drive thru restaurants still doing basically the same thing by telling people to pull forward to a parking lot stall, to make it look like their time to complete an order is faster than it actually is?
- don't need to know.
  It is fine enough to ask. You may not get the full answer, but you should get enough direction to know the basics of why or how important the request is.
- Sometimes it's for legal reasons. Sometimes it's for big picture reasons you aren't privy to. Sometimes it's because some dumbass middle manager thinks they're a genius. And sometimes it's because some dumbass middle manager didn't have a team member say "Hey what about this instead."
  Having fumbled my way into a management position of sorts, I've seen all of these. Sometimes I get to say "oh yeah, that works way better, do that instead." Others, "it sucks but it has to be this way because (big picture stuff)", and of course "yeah it's fucking retarded but the powers that be have decreed it, do what you can and enjoy the shit show."

"Work logic" is the best expression I never noticed I needed a name for.

That's why you should always request instructions in writing, and always document your objections in a polite but clear way.

Businesses still operating on factory work playbooks and just cramming in creatives like a monkey wrench.

I just had a conversation like this about 10 minutes ago at work. And by that I mean the mutant work logic showed up and well... Now I'm putting together a project team.

I love working for reasonable people with shared goals and life circumstances
- Pick 2?

They must be working with SAP
- "HANA needs it for analytics purposes, so the actual purpose of your job isn't to sell things or keep customers happy, but to gather metrics."

Sorry, we're going to have to bring safety and compliance in on this one.

Logic is just a trap