That's in my management experience as well. You don't believe it's a real thing until it happens, and then you're still left wondering, "Seriously, am I really dealing with this shit?"
If you want my anecdote, I've seen it a lot. I'd suggest asking your managers, directors, CEOs if they've experienced it themselves -- I bet they have and that it happens all the time.
Dismissing this as mere signaling (as others here have) is ironically almost as bad.
At a company that has secrecy and "jobsian" leadership at its core, it's not difficult to believe that this kind of stuff happens.
The question that's more important: is it common, and is it an accepted tradeoff in the company culture.
To those that are expressing disbelief that this happened: even if half of it is made up, its still unacceptable. The reason to not ignore this is that one day, this superteam of arsehole might be in your life.
It is but it also happens often enough in business that you have to wonder what it is that drives it?
Is it some business school process or management training BS? It usually only happens when "trained" business people get involved that this sort of BS happens.
Does this ever not happen? I am being serious... Have any of you worked at a company for any substantial period of time where some for of this has not become the norm?
That stuff can happen but I've mostly worked at companies where it wasn't like that at all, not even close. And the one exception was a recently privatized ex-government org.
Especially pre-Wannacry, since then things have improved somewhat, when top management woke up to the thought that these things do in fact actually happen.
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