I am going through that right now. For a long time I was working more on infrastructure in the background where we just had to make things working for other engineers without execs paying much attention. Now I am working on a product and the whole process is a nightmare.

- Long meetings with directors and project managers who never read any previous reports so you spend hours explaining the same thing again and again.

- Demanding precise estimates while requirements are nebulous

- There is always one more manager who pops up from nowhere who derails a finally reached agreement with bringing up another nonsense issue

- There are plenty of managers who come into a meeting who monopolize the first half hour asking questions that have been asked and answered a long time ago. Then they monopolize the second half explaining the stuff they learned in the first half with an authoritative voice. They forget everything soon and three weeks later it's the same.

- Creating more teams to make "quick decisions" consisting of insiders who spend weeks deciding how often and when they should meet.

- Some VP inserts another angle into the project that gets refuted several times but somehow keeps coming back.

It's insane. The only explanation I have is that some people are just social and political animals that enjoy talking for hours and getting nothing done. They view work's purpose as having meetings, talking about things and looking good in front of their own manager.

Once you're in middle management, it's all about putting on a show like you're contributing in order advance & not get laid off. Honestly, I think it's a survival tactic.