It's an atmosphere. An air of dismissiveness that is hard to pin down. It comes out in various ways. Dismissal of estimates. Removal of autonomy, micromanaging.

It's an atmosphere. An air of dismissiveness that is hard to pin down. It comes out in various ways. Dismissal of estimates. Removal of autonomy, micromanaging. Transparent attempts to buy productivity with token gestures like, pizza or beer, when management is at risk of looking bad. Not having retrospectives, if they are held, nothing is ever taken on board and there may be slight eye rolling going on. Fictitious deadlines, that arise roughly every 2 weeks, plucked out of thin air to try and stress everyone out to get them to work harder. Just a very faint whiff of contempt hanging in the air, the developers never really belonging in the company. Like we are interlopers, a necessary evil, like... like an air conditioning unit in a boutique hotel. You cant build it into the wall because it's not a purpose built building and theres no space, but you also cant not have it in the room. So it just kind of sits there clashing with the otherwise well thought through and lovingly created decor. Something to be tolerated but also to be avoided. I mean developers dont help themselves, they tend to let their desire for purity and craftsmanship get in the way of getting the job done. They over state the case for various development practices and management can sense it. Somehow the two kinds of personality just tend to lose faith in each other and it all unravels, until there is no trust left and all but the thickest skinned developers roll off.