A little history about this woman....she worked her before and got let go for the same thing: failure to follow directions, non-compliance. They hired her back for some reason and she and I used to be friends, but she has fought me on just about everything. I've finally gotten my bosses to see how difficult she is, and it's getting to the point where my boss is getting tired of her. We have bi-weekly meetings and for the last three months every meeting topic was instigated to put into writing the rules that she has not followed.
Now you're asking, why do they keep this woman aboard, especially since she has a reputation for not respecting authority and doing things her way despite what she gets told to do? I dunno. Really. The only thing I can come up with is that the job takes a bit of training, and since we are almost always on crunch time throughout the year they don't know if they can find a qualified applicant, let alone want to have a new employee who will take months to get up to speed. Then again, you're absolutely right, 15 minutes of my time wasted because she couldn't simply say "okay" is not condusive to a productive environment.
Everything with her is at least 6 emails back and forth, once the boss's boss even got involved and flat out told her, "Michael told you to do it this way, he is your senior editor and I expect you to follow his direction". Finally...she followed my direction. Would you believe that time she was listing a panel as being "Red" when it was clearly gray on the 2 dozen product images I presented her with?!? She got it in her head that the component was red because she does not know how to properly read the manufacturer's catalog.
When she gets her stubborn mind made up you cannot convince her the sky is blue, she will fight you tooth and nail until you finally get so tired of it that you say, "fine, it's green" and walk away.
Last review I was fair but honest, she went to the boss and said, "I don't feel like I'm appreciated". I told my boss, "how can I appreciate someone who fights me all the time?".