Least favorite scenarios at work?

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A few things come up for me regularly that either frustrate the heck out of me or get me utterly paranoid:

1) 30% directions - with deeply Machiavellian implications as to how at least another 30-40% of critical information gets made up. This has a way of turning a one hour task into a seven or eight hour task if you don't quid-pro-quo (IMHO this should be just as inappropriate whether it's request for sexual favors or simple status mugging). Also I've talked to other people about this and it's not just people not liking the office aspie or autie, seems like almost everyone does it to everyone else.

2) Situations or problems that land in that magic sweet-spot where it's politically impossible to do what you need to do. For example the client doesn't or can't be brought to understand the problem, they'd need to be invoiced for that same thing and would most likely challenge paying it, worst of all worlds - both your client and your supervisor can't understand the problem because their understanding of what's involved is surface-scraping at best.

Thankfully I'm only dealing with a partial instantiation of 2) today but it got me thinking.

Does anyone else have situations like these where you feel like you're utterly trapped/cornered? Something of a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't?' and if so - what's your way of dealing with them?

Seems like the hardest part of any job, far and away, isn't the work itself but the people, power plays, and even simple exploitation of people just getting caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.