My inclination when I consider my work history in the Valley hasn't been terrific and they simply know too much about how our servers and code work would be to suspect that the silly, pointless things that you're disagreeing over might not actually be nearly as silly or pointless as you think they are. And perhaps in the process of figuring out how to do those things reliably, you can improve yourself.
Of course that depends very much on what the silly things are, and what the person is like. Which I obviously don't know. If the silly things are things like unit tests, check-in comments, maintaining the existing coding style, or maintaining documentation, then I'd consider my suspicion confirmed. Those may all seem silly and pointless, but they're not.
If the things complained about are things that I'd consider truly silly and pointless, then I'd agree with you. But if they're not actively harmful, then I'd try to figure out how to adapt myself to the rules, because that is easier (and more likely to lead to productivity) than initiating conflict.