If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved. You aren't there to solve their problems. You're there to make them happy. While related (and sometime

If everyone just sucks it up then nothing gets solved. You aren't there to solve their problems. You're there to make them happy. While related (and sometimes intersecting), fundamentally these are vastly different things. And at the end of the day, "making them happy" is what takes precedence. Even if it means holding your nose while you wade through that big giant mess of legacy code that could have been made into a much smaller mess by the time you got around, "if only, if only". And learning, finally, to STFU until it's time to GTFO. Rather than waste your breath (figuratively or literally) telling them things they don't want to hear, and wouldn't be able to grasp the import of anyway. It took me forever and a day and then some to figure this out. Granted, it shouldn't be this way, and sometimes we actually do get to work with who are fully functional adults, who know their limitations and can handle disagreement have, you know, empathy. And who have not completely lost themselves in the game that is their "role" to the point that they are incapable of dealing with their organizational underlings as people, let alone as equals. Alas, these situations are few and far between. Most of the time, it's pretty much as I described up above. Not that we shouldn't at least try to make a difference. Of course we should. But when we get the sense that our efforts are going against the grain -- they're going against the grain. And all we can do is step back, breathe, and say to ourselves "OK, this isn't my problem". And remember why we're there in the first place.