- you were a chef. you went to culinary school and know about cooking and best practices.
- you are asked to forget everything you learned in school and flip burgers with overly reused oil and unwashed equipment.
- you are told that there's no time to clean the kitchen, or wash your hands. just flip as many burgers as possible to maximize profit.
- the ones that cook the most burgers are rewarded, treated well, promoted. as soon as cooks realize this, they start making half-cooked burgers that make people sick.
- the customers get sick all the time from the lack of hygiene. you talk about it, and you are told to keep doing what you are doing, or that you don't understand what being a chef is, or what the business is.
- in the end the only source of gratification is getting a paycheck, or doing something in your spare time. you are not cooking real food, just part of a machine that makes money for a self-serving company while ripping off the customer.
This is what it feels to be an engineer in many companies.