> If you cannot state your need without judgmental comments (blaming others, etc), you are not going to get far in solving the problem. Your problems are valid,

> If you cannot state your need without judgmental comments (blaming others, etc), you are not going to get far in solving the problem. Your problems are valid, but you have to be able to communicate them in ways that don't trigger defensiveness. I think this is true in certain contexts where you don't have much power over the situation itself (which ranges from resolving conflicts between family members to resolving conflicts between leaders of non-allied countries). But the engineer has a BATNA here - find another job with a better boss. It's such a common BATNA that "people don't quit jobs, they quit bosses" is a catchphrase. The engineer can get extremely far in solving their "unmet universal needs" like fun and safety by finding another job. It's in the company's interest, one would hope, to keep them. And this still isn't being judgmental: the engineer simply needs management who understands the process that they are managing. The engineer is not only allowed but expected to exercise technical judgment in determining whether that's happening, same as an engineer should exercise technical judgment in determining whether a proposed vendor product fills the need (and would not be doing their job if they refrained from analyzing the vendor product for fear of being judgmental). Perhaps the manager doesn't have the requisite technical background to make proper product decisions. That doesn't mean "the manager is a bad person" - that means that the manager isn't (by themselves) the right person for the role. Maybe they should seek a technical team lead, or promote a manager within the team, or something.