> They were basically office politics machines, optimized to promote themselves at the expense of everyone else
> Obviously this isn’t unique
Most middle management is like that. You must be extremely lucky to work people who are not like these. During my 20 years I had maybe 3 people out of the 100 I have worked with who were decent and looked out for the people who they managed.
I've only had to deal with one bullshit machine and he quickly moved to another location, my guess is he is moving every time his bullshit has grown to difficult to keep up.
I have a similar experience but haven’t worked for any big tech or name brand companies. The vast majority were in the health tech space with a smattering doing things that would be considered ethically sound (ie. Solar energy marketplace).
I have had a couple nightmare supervisors who were obvious sociopaths, and have several who were incompetent, but for the most part only worked for folks with high EQ.
1. One nightmare CEO in an early stage tech startup.
2. A dozen managers at Mozilla, which ranked from "should have remained a dev" to "great managers". One of them was politically-minded, everybody else was truly attempting to make the team and the project work.
3. A few managers in a more recent tech startup, all of them good (albeit over-worked).
My experiences with management have been pretty positive. But I am biased: if my situation sucks -- I leave. Perhaps you stayed longer than you should have...
Pretty much seems to reflect the general populace. The figure seems to be actually better than the general populace.