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Comment by vbtemp | Hacker News Reader

I think this is a pretty good take. Corporate management hell changes its name and window dressing over the years - in this generation it's called "Agile" - but, it's always the same, and needs to boil down to: micromanagement, sapping individual autonomy and initiative, and homogenizing developers until they fit a mold that can be line-replaceable.

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Honestly, I think the worst part of the self delusion. If you are consciously making the trade off with your eyes wide open and the data to back it up, then sure. That's not what i observe though. I see people who honestly don't see what they are doing wrong, and why their developers aren't making awesome stuff that will make them competitive.

They actually think they are doing everything right.

I started this account when I realized that was what is happening at my current job.

I've been trying to ask for some of the things this suggests, and been told that it's a 'low value use of my time' to have expensive developers talk to cheap service reps.

The entire point of my work is to multiply the value those low cost reps provide. I'm probably deluding myself to hope that will improve their working conditions, but even just eliminating the day to day pain points of their job is more motivating to me than whatever "move this widget 1px to the right cause the design isn't pixel perfect on the CEOs new phone with a strange resolution" type crap I wind up working on.

I frequently think of the brain drain, wherein many people who would have gone on to advance science and technology instead end up having to explain to some ad person why you can't have a "mirror" color on your monitor, in the vein of the first fifty quotes on the old ClientCopia site.

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