Are you me? Currently at the director level debating a switch back to dev. Prior director in my role did the same. I actually love my boss and when I’m empowered to run my org, the work is great. But too much of my job is trying to insulate my teams from the BS and it’s burning me out. But I’m not sure I’d want to give up being able to fight the BS and would eventually get frustrated by it again as a dev.

So here I am, riding it out. I know at some point politics will get me and my style of insulating my engineers will cost me my job, even though by doing so we have great productivity metrics. And being real - I think the hardest part is that by shielding my teams from the BS, I become the face for the shit that does get through so the people I fight so hard to protect often blame me for their very real complaints.

I’m not sure what’s next for me, but I save everything I can because I assume that the change might not be my choice.

Intention vs Impact. I recognize that it might not be my intention and it might be fully outside my control, but I was being an ass. Being called out when I do it is good and important, because it helps me figure out next steps - how do I recover from what I missed, how do I make them feel heard, do I have the type of relationship with this person to share my ND?

Part of accepting myself as ND is being able to be called an asshole, accept I was being an asshole, but understanding that it doesn’t make me a bad person and I shouldn’t feel bad about it since it was outside my control but use it as a chance to figure out the best next steps.

God I love Lords of the Realm 2. I bought it on GoG and go back and play that every few years for a spell. Rarely see others mention in and it was one of my favorite games of that era.