NCO orders Air Force Information Manager to track their completed jobs, quickly abandoned when results stack in their favor: 'I had over [6 times] the jobs'

There's something about stories of time in the military that just really tick all boxes. For one thing, you have archetypical authoritarian figures aplenty who have a very real and absolute authority over their subordinates, the kind of power that a overstepping assistant retail manager or wizened doctor's office receptionist would salivate buckets over. The thing is, in this type of environment, you're going to be ordered to do things that you don't agree with or that just plain old don't make any sense. Disobeying those orders would have serious consequences—but the brilliance at which subordinates get back at these high-ranking power-tripping commanding officers or NCOs by following their order to the letter will never cease to amaze you.

When this Information Manager (IM) was assigned to a maintenance squadron they found that they alone, of the seven IMs, were handling IT tasks—the others seemed to be allergic to it. Their duties began to expand and soon they were fielding a large amount of requests which earned them the respect of the squadron and the nickname "Bill Gates"—but not the respect of management. In a classic effort to improve effciency the first sergeant ordered the IMs, to track their jobs for the week, which netted results that would see the tracking swept under the rug and never mentioned again, in true managerial fashion.