I once had a colleague who had a higher rank than me, and who was not only unconvinced by my rational and articulate arguments for doing a certain thing in a certain way, but he concluded the discussion by stating that --and I am not paraphrasing here, this is what he actually said-- the way he wanted it done was mentioned in a book, so unless I could find a book backing up my proposal, it was to be done his way.
I did not argue with him at that time, (how can you argue with that?), but I would now like to quickly jot down my thoughts on why saying such a thing is incredibly stupid:
