I'm just not sure what territory is the right one for this, but at least here is not downright wrong haha!
Just do not follow the rules to solve problems!
I never did in the first place, but playing chess with a friend very late while we were drunk got me to really think in retrospect. When he took my last officer I was left with maybe 3 pawns and the king, he had something the same but his queen... No way he could lose then!
That is what he thought haha... On a hunch I just started talking about random stuff, pretending to give up, while moving my doomed pawns around rapidly.
It worked! He put his queen down right in the track of one of them to get to my king, and it all ended in remis haha!
Rules, regulation and lawfare
Wrangling over a company and accounts
Around 3 years ago I ended up advising my long time friend and business colleague when the other members of our co-op basically pulled off a coup. He did the footwork, I didn't really have any cash in it all, so I felt it was a fair deal to help him get even, or better.
For a few weeks he did all the heavy lifting, we discussed all details and although I did give him input on detail the most important part was to constantly remind him that they would think that we would follow all laws and regulations, simply because they are normies!
It worked beautifully, first it turned out that they had used the wrong regulation to grab control of the bank account, and once that was back in his hands the business register had no problem reversing the rest of the paperwork :-)
Then of course most of that cash vanished in Mali, but that is not really my problem haha!
Bulldozing over a powerful guy
My partner in the other company was the one dealing with accountants. In retrospect I should have done all of it myself, he was too gullible, and in the end we ended up with bloody two accountants that both did not really do their job, other than billing us of course!
For the first one we did have some points to push that were valid, but another guy we had as business consultant shot it down. Then the time came to the second, where we had no good arguments to come up with whatsoever...
The guy was someone locally, loaded and the owner of the firm. Of course he had forgotten all about his promises early on, and my partner was not really up to offering much resistance. In the end he kinda forced an agreement on us that there was really not much to talk about, and we had to go along with that.
Then he wanted to shake my hand when we left... To this day I don't really know what took hold of me, but what I said was so nasty and direct that I later understood that I must have managed to reach something inside this stone cold psycho, we never heard a thing about the bills haha!
Actually I did not feel well about that last one, but still it was probably fair.
Avoiding fines or worse on a highway
I knew that I got out on the highway where motorbikes are not allowed, it was a mistake, and then I saw the lights in the mirror... Now, there is always some room for acting even when shit like this goes down, and of course simply slowing down peacefully is the right choice, trying to give a good impression in every possible way.
Then a truck with a trailer started veering off as well, signaling that he was stopping, thinking that he was the target for the patrol!
I can't even remember if there were any thoughts, but what I did next was pure instinct, I took off, got too close to it, maybe even on purpose, then when the truck got the picture of course I had to give up, pointed to myself with a bewildered look and then stopped.
Next up was of course the ordinary spiel, super polite and so on, especially since I had no drivers license or insurance! ;-)
He must have been a bit concerned, and since the first thing I asked him about was where I could get off he told me "5km", and the deal was close to sealed. Fuck that was close...
Still I had to tell him right after he started retreating that I knew I was in the wrong haha, that a car had blocked me so I could not get into the right lane in time. I could see the regret on his face, but still the original decision stuck :-)
In Asia things are often more humane and flexible, that is for sure...
Those who enforce are ruled by the system
Anyone who works with enforcing laws, rules and regulations has to see things as more or less a black or white thing. At the higher levels there is often more room for nuances, but still you can use this to your advantage in so many ways.
Now, in some cases and jurisdictions you might meet those who simply do not allow any discussion or deviation, you should know if you are in such an environment or not.
Then again in many cases its the opposite, simply by not fitting in you might become a "difficult" case, someone they'd rather want to just let go. Especially if it creates more work for them and you are super polite and likeable at the same time!
The beauty of this mindset is also that you don't even know what cards you might have & play before it happens, so using any opportunity to get used to this is something you should really use. It is a real skill, and once you can get into this groove while also keeping a birds eye view and cognitive process about the whole thing while it is happening then you might be able to pull off some real magic.
When a state that exists in virtual space saved many lives
I'd like to finish off with mentioning a really remarkable story. Laibach the Slovenian band is part of a larger art collective called NSK, that in the late eighties declared that they are a virtual republic that has no physical existence, it is virtual only and based on art.
They even had the Slovenian central bank printing passports for them! Looking like the real thing there were actually quite a number of people who had those and used them to get out of the cauldron where ~5000 were killed during the breakup of Yugoslavia!
Of course the border guards had no idea what "republic" this was, but they probably also knew that if they did not let these people pass they might be dead soon... And if it was a real country, they'd be in trouble themselves...
Also these passports were a good excuse if they'd get flack from any superiors, it could then easily be explained away as a mistake.
And of course not following the rules might be even more important during times of chaos, when things get real bad it is often the only way to stay alive...