Maybe it should have clicked earlier in life and I'm perhaps that much dumb dumb, but it only recently occurred to me (from experiencing it at two very different companies and discussing with peers having reached a certain seniority level more or less at the same time) how dysfunctional many companies are, and how often they produce incentives that are misaligned with the overall company goals and sustainability principles. I blame in large part a layer of middle management that selfishly puts itself above all else, misguides, misrepresents, because it essentially pays larger dividends (literally and not) to "play the networking game than to be an efficient and effective productive structure". Maybe that's to be expected in a services-driven economy where the value of the work is immaterial and subjective (and the whole phenomenon of bullshit jobs).