This time I could just say: "OK, you guys figure it out, I'll just wait over here".
You could have said that before in other situations. Regardless of what your work situation is, you can always do this. I haven't but in retrospect realize I could have in more situations than I want to acknowledge. The downside to that is you end up having to live with someone else's decisions for far longer than they spent making the decision, which may often stink. But as an independent consultant you still have to do the same thing. The only primary difference I see is that you usually can see an end in sight when you won't have to deal with decision X, whether it's jumping to another client for the afternoon work, or getting a different contract 6 months from now.
You can, and I do. The difficulty is catching yourself in time before you are drawn into the conflict. It's amazing when you see it happening "from the outside" and you realize how much time you were formerly wasting by participating in what are, in the end, usually pointless arguments.
Disengage, then say "let me know by XX:YY when you make a decision" and find something else to work on. Truly liberating.
You could have said that before in other situations. Regardless of what your work situation is, you can always do this. I haven't but in retrospect realize I could have in more situations than I want to acknowledge. The downside to that is you end up having to live with someone else's decisions for far longer than they spent making the decision, which may often stink. But as an independent consultant you still have to do the same thing. The only primary difference I see is that you usually can see an end in sight when you won't have to deal with decision X, whether it's jumping to another client for the afternoon work, or getting a different contract 6 months from now.