My mom used to do faux decorative wall painting for rich clients. They would pick a sample and she would paint the walls to match but she found that they often complained after the work was done, even when it was exactly what they wanted.

She ended up getting a spray bottle with water that had a bit of food coloring and called it a “toning layer” that she would spray on the wall. It didn’t change anything but it made the clients think their feedback mattered, she said it almost always worked and they’d be elated afterwards.

Bikeshedding - where people feel the need to give feedback even when none is needed, resulting in inane comments about things that don't matter.

Pro tip, if you're a software engineer, especially working on UIs - leave something annoying on your UI in the demo. Something small enough to not be a huge deal but big enough so that an exec or director would notice it. Make a button slightly too big, or the width of a divider too large. They'll call that out, feel like they contributed, and likely the entire demo will be spent talking about the inane thing on the page. Then go fix the 2-ish lines of code and move on with your day.

producers and engineers do this to musicians too, pretending to turn up the monitor mix on the console while looking at the artist until they signal "ok"

I've had it the other way around, not even on purpose. As the designated nooby sound engineer for the evening I had to mix the bands monitoring as well as the live mix for the audience. During the sound check one of the band members wanted their vocals to have a bit more "pop" in the mix, and not knowing what that exactly meant I asked them what they wanted. I don't really remember what it was they said, but it was something about boosting certain frequencies. Now, I have never had to do this before, and while I in principle knew how to do it the request kind of took me out of the flow so in the moment I completely forgot. So while this musician was looping his vocals so I could make the change, I was just selecting random menus on the console hoping I would end up at the right one. And, at some point, the guy was like, "oh yeah that's perfect!"

I had not changed any EQ at all. I wasn't even close to the right buttons, so to speak. But he still liked it, so I shut up and let them do their thing. Honestly I think it might've been his on inflection into the mic that made him change his mind, not the actual EQ, but whatever, he was happy with the mix and I was happy that I did not look like a total noob (even tho I was)

This leaves out the tidbit that Leeland says he flips the switch and plucks the strings from a different position, which does significantly change the tone. He just doesn't want to turn the knobs, which he might reasonably be reluctant to do for any number of reasons. It's not "I'm just gonna do what I want. Fuck the recording engineer" its "Ok. You want a different sound, but I know the better way to change it, so here, I'm gonna flip a nothing switch so we don't have to argue about it".

I work as an appliance repair technician, servicing household appliances such as refrigerators, dryers, and washing machines. Most of my work comes through home warranty companies, so the homeowner isn't paying me directly. My responsibility is to diagnose the problem and perform the necessary repairs.

Every so often, you encounter a customer who has convinced themselves that a particular part needs replacing, and no amount of professional explanation will persuade them otherwise. As a technician, I have a few options. I can simply refuse to replace a part that isn't defective and justify my decision to my supervisor, or I can replace the part the customer insists on having replaced without actually changing anything. I can bring in a component, make it look as though I've performed the replacement, and call it a day.

Sometimes, people just want to feel vindicated. They want confirmation that they were right all along, regardless of whether they actually were. And occasionally, it seems easier to give them that satisfaction than to spend an hour arguing with someone who has already made up their mind.

I once worked at a place that had a piece of equipment that still had one of the old analog drives and a few operators would complain and complain until they found an electrician to adjust it and then it would run like crap until we hooked up a scope to it to fix it. So I told one of the senor electricians to mount a potentiometer to the panel and run the wires to ground and just tell everyone to use that to make adjustments. Worked great for years.

Heard a similar story from bassist Chuck Rainey about being asked by a producer before session not to play slap during a certain section of a song. Same guy kept saying "something is missing but I don't know what" and kept making them retake. Then the one time Chuck decided to slap again, the guy said "yes that's exactly what I'm looking for"

I have a friend that is a producer. They've had people try stuff like this before.

They just assume the artist/client is... Uh...Eccentric, and politely move on, making a note of it for later.

Yeh, this is common.
I've heard of PPI (Producer Pleaser Indicator) which is a mixing desk channel not routed anywhere but can be fiddled with to meet client demands.
And there is the DFA (Does Fuck All). Similar concept

My father would tell a story about an IBM tech from back in the pre-PC days. She had one of those Dick Trickle kind of names, where the name parses as a phrase? To not outright dox her I'll call her Robin Banks.

Robin would be at a customer's site working on an IBM minicomputer or unit record equipment, when a secretary would flag her down and ask her to adjust the "tension" or "weight" or something on a Selectric typewriter. IBM Selectric typewriters don't have any kind of adjustment on the key travel or typing feel. What she would do is walk up to it, type a little, agree that it felt off, take a small flathead screwdriver, stick it through an opening in the side or back of the case, pretend to adjust something, she'd take a cloth, damp it with some of the light oil they used on all the intricate little mechanisms in old computer hardware, wipe the key caps with it. Then say "Okay, try that" and inevitably they were happy with it.

Another story from Robin, in an office with a good size secretary pool, one of the secretaries kept bitching about her typewriter. It doesn't type right, it doesn't work right. Robin noticed that this particular secretary had been issued a blue Selectric, all the other secretaries had red ones. She swapped out the case with one of the other typewriters, just the shell, same machine, and wouldn't you know it typed much better!

I heard in the film industry back before drones that directors would get the scripts to how they want them and then add in a shot from a helicopter. Then the execs whose job it was to cut unnecessary expenses from the film would obviously nix the shot and the director was left with their original vision intact.

Leland never realizing the producers were just invisibly throwing up their hands and thinking ‘that’s just what this guy sounds like…’

He's played with everyone. Just take a look at his Wikipedia page. He knows how to handle producers.

Game developers used to be weeks or months ahead but only reveal pitiful, inch-at-a-time progress. As long as the "producer" believes progress is being made they're happy. No time to add a new feature, we have barely even made spec as it is (the project is complete you just don't know).

Similar story, not mine: TV repairmen back in the day would have frequent in-home callbacks, with the TV owner stating the TV picture wasn't as good as before the repair.

So, after a repair the repairman would adjust the v-hold so the image would slowly rotate. "Tell me if the picture is getting better or worse." If it was getting worse, they'd flip it back the other way until the customer was satisfied they were seeing the best picture.

Apparently cut callbacks to near zero.

As a writer, I wish I could do this. But they'll notice if the text is still exactly the same.