This is some truth to this. On the other hand, there are a lot of dumb-ass power wielding managers who think technical chops are low level stuff and look down on the engineers. The second group outweighs the first by a factor of 3 at least

Wanted to chime in and say _thank you_ for giving me the prompt that this is an "OK" thing to do. (as a technique for trying to encourage/help devs build in good buffer)

As another dev-converted-to-manger, who was also somewhat taken back by that same perception of the malicious manager (I certainly had that perception from time to time as an eng, so it's not entirely foreign although I am surprised by how widespread it seems to have become) what you've written really resonates with me; One consequence is that I've become way more forgiving (in terms of trying to proactively improve it) for what I used to perceive as "bad management" as I struggle to improve my own techniques :P

> This "Us vs Them" thing is bollox - we're all on the same team as far as I am concerned!

I swear I want to scream this from the rooftops in many of the ragging-on-management threads I see but I know it's not the dev's fault for feeling miffed, a bad manager can _wreck_ your life, but I wish I had a magic password I could tell devs to let them know "I'm here to make you/your work successful, not the other way around, and if I'm ever failing at that I _want to fix it_."

(As sister responses point out, this is something earned, and fully agree, it can just often be an uphill battle, potentially rationally from what devs have experienced prior; again just trying to give everyone in the picture the benefit of the doubt as I'd hope they would me.)

> what would I know, I'm just a dumb-ass manager

You're in good company :)

Your peers have burned through all the believability of this line, by using it when it is a lie.