Yeah this story is cringe. Not sure why the author felt the need to use a bait headline and a shitty anecdote. I want HN to build a way to flag domains so people like Dan North stop writing pulp bullshit.

As for the actual subject, anyone here who has worked professionally in, for example, a growing company has seen some of this in action when the company reaches a particular size, the middle people are decent at what they do in and of itself but do not understand the actual work performed. This would not happen at a tech company, because both upper and lower staff would intercept and reject it. It’s not a mystery that this happened at a bank for obvious reasons.

In this case, it was of course caught because people in charge of hiring/firing are competent enough to interject. The downsides will occur when said people go on vacation or are promoted out of this position. Then the middle managers will once again do what they do best, and the cycle of shitty horror stories with clickbait headlines will continue.

Source: in growing company, am in charge of hiring/firing, don’t assign myself to any stories/tasks/JIRA shit, just help fix it, mentor and move on, oversee teams, have interjected, have course corrected.