Question designed to expose irrationality

I was reading a curi blog comment about a situation and recalled a similar situation. Here's the blog comment:

> And then, because he couldn't refer me to a person or literature that'd be adequate, he kept talking. Because if he says "i won't explain it and also there are no other people and there's no literature" then he looks irrational and is basically saying there is no way to learn SENS stuff, no way to get questions and criticisms answered, etc. So he didn't want to do that.

The similar situation is this:

A sales person partially paid by commissions sold something and didn't get the commission he was expecting. He complained to his boss and got a response like "you did it wrong and don't deserve the commission as a result". The sales person then asked, "I thought I did it right, so what should I have done instead?" The boss didn't really reply to this. So the sales person clarified, "I need to know what I should have done instead so that I avoid this problem going forward." At this point the boss didn't reply and paid the commission to the sales person instead. 

I think this is similar to the quoted situation above in the sense that the boss didn't want to reply with an irrational answer, and he didn't have a rational reply to give, so he was left only with the option of paying the commission.