> All you have to do is say no once in a while.

Being able to say "no" is absolutely critical.

Of course, you do incur a risk and you may fail or hurt your career in that org up to the point of termination even if you're "right". Moreover your follow-up after saying "no" will be judged harshly and silently for every little snag, real or not.

But that's part of the deal, right? It's not easy, if it were easy you'd have dream-teams all over the place rather than an industry where occupational dysfunction is normal.

> All you have to do is say no once in a while...

> Just insist...

Some companies work like this, but many don't. Such utterances could be charting a course to the door for you.

Plenty of openings out there. Not worth suffering to get a 2% raise rather than 1%. If they won't let you fix something once a month it's time to get moving.

Learned helplessness, indeed.

It isn't learned helplessness if you are actually helpless.

The whole point of the article is that the vast majority of engineering teams have some power. It's not a license to derail the company with technical OCD, but as in all things… "balance, grasshopper."

Yes, there is 1% who can't follow that advice for various reasons of desperation. Not enough to continue arguing this thread.

Can't teach everyone to have a backbone. Heck, nerds are infamous for being easy to manipulate.

Anecdotally, the most manipulative individual I've ever met was a nerd.

Who better to profit off of nerds? It's not like there is any kind of solidarity or union among techies.