This modern-day feudalism with corporations is really the root of the problem. Managers "patch" broken IT systems with lots of manual labor to actively avoid po

This modern-day feudalism with corporations is really the root of the problem. Managers "patch" broken IT systems with lots of manual labor to actively avoid pointing out how some other manager's system is borked. They doom the company to spend hundreds or even thousands of man hours a year to work around these processes, refusing to allow it to be fixed, keeping the "power" and influence of the broken system with some other manager. They do this hoping to curry favor for the sake of their career prospects. After 25 years, I'm an expert at making small, efficient software tools to fix local IT workflows. God knows, in the Fortune 250's I've worked at, there are endless opportunities. And, while I've written many solutions, I've seen this political game of thrones thwart my efforts many times. This is how you get the kind of 20-year legacy mess described in the original post: People sacrificing long-term success of the company for short-term success in their careers. I guess there are 2 kinds of people. Those that think this is just how the world works, and find this to be a perfectly-cromulent way of getting through it, and those, like me, who find it odious. Luckily, I now work for people like me. We do what we can.