also, the incentives and their structure play a part in how this unfolds.
It’s also very curious to me that only a certain type of person runs into situations like these: either they don’t know better or they have accepted the conditioning that work is more important than themselves. it’s sad really.
i think it’s really really important to have a good mentor with a strong set of values to help you navigate the corporate landscape.
i also think it’s important to pull a Ghandi (ie be the change you want to see) as often as possible. for example: one think i would inoculate in young devs is that it’s not acceptable to set meetings earlier than 9am or later than 4pm. meetings during lunch were not accepted. i would be pretty vocal about morons that worked over the weekend because they had some free time. i would also push really hard against management that had their sick little practices to extract more work out of the drones. this mostly worked because i got the job done - but again: you have a voice. you are NOT a machine