> I don’t run a daycare, etc. Non-sequitur. These are obvious statements that don't have bearing. I hope you never actually say "I'm not running a daycare" in

> I don’t run a daycare, etc. Non-sequitur. These are obvious statements that don't have bearing. I hope you never actually say "I'm not running a daycare" in front of your team. It's like having a sign in your fancy restaurant that says "No spitting". Your clientele will slowly but surely become the kind of people who needs such direction. Empathy, transparency, psychological safety are critical for software engineering teams, as well as daycares, to operate well. This is well known in contemporary practice. OP is obviously suffering under some kind of mismanagement. Whether it is fixable mismanagement depends on whether his managers respond well to feedback. As for estimations, the most accurate estimations I've ever seen are when the team goes over the task together and then each member estimates with blind votes, and then discuss outliers together if any. Better are scrum "stories". The least accurate estimates are when a producer wanders over to the desk of the distracted developer and secures a commitment. Which does happen unless there are explicit mechanisms in place to prevent it.