well, when someone gets pedantic it is because they cannot argue their case and try to throw you off your roll. Lawyers are famous for that.
I quick story, early in my careen my company hired a consultant who told them that they were paying $3,000/yr too little and that is why they had so much turnover. Giving everyone a $3k raise would actually save money. So my boss called me in. He knew I had already had $2,000 in merit raises my first year. He told me he was excited to let me know he was giving me a $1,000/yr raise. This really just got me back to the company's base salary and I was losing my merit raises. So I pushed back. He himmed and hawed for several minutes. Finally, he said "Oblviax, you are a young man. And you will learn that money is secondary to your happiness. Things that make you happy will be your faith, your spouse, your family." So I said "Walt, and you can help me by adding to my discretionary income so I can add more to my faith, my spouse and my family." He was stunned, started asking about my wife, my mom/dad....everything except for the money. He was trying to change subjects. He knew he was stuck and needed to change the subject or get my off my line of reasoning. Finally, he said something like take the grand and be happy. I told him that if his position was to take away my merit raises then I had to take that under consideration. I left six months later. But I realized, at that moment, the value of trying to throw people off of their reasoning and that this meant you were winning. I don't get mad about it, I see it as surrender.
