[Rally]

Back in the 1950s, the army gave my father a pay raise he knew he wasn't entitled to. He contacted several different offices, pointing out what had happened, and was told in various different ways that the army didn't make mistakes. He finally gave up, and after about nine months used the extra money as down payment on a house. A couple of months after that, the army accountants discovered the leak in their accounts and wanted their money back. Their position that the army didn't make mistakes, however, remained unchanged, and they threatened my father with a court-martial for theft. Only the fact that he had been wise enough to put all his attempts to return the money into writing saved him. He did have to return it, via reductions in his regular salary checks over the next  nine months.

One of the few constants in life is the collective insistance of any bureaucracy to ever admit error.

[Rally]

Back in the 1950s, the army gave my father a pay raise he knew he wasn't entitled to. He contacted several different offices, pointing out what had happened, and was told in various different ways that the army didn't make mistakes. He finally gave up, and after about nine months used the extra money as down payment on a house. A couple of months after that, the army accountants discovered the leak in their accounts and wanted their money back. Their position that the army didn't make mistakes, however, remained unchanged, and they threatened my father with a court-martial for theft. Only the fact that he had been wise enough to put all his attempts to return the money into writing saved him. He did have to return it, via reductions in his regular salary checks over the next  nine months.

One of the few constants in life is the collective insistance of any bureaucracy to ever admit error.