1. You put them on in the dark after layover where you got 4hrs of sleep.

2. You're new.

3. You're an idiot.

That's the three best answers I could come up with. Wearing your epaulettes upside-down, wrong side out or inside out for that matter just seems plain stupid. Why don't they wear their tie backwards too...and put their pants on backwards while they're at it?

Most of the people I've seen with wrong way epaulettes signified they had 300 hours and were on their first day of IOE!