> but suggested I adjust my "tone" to avoid embarrassing them.

Oh, I know this so well, but also from incompetent superiors. Not giving you an example of what would be a better tone, but just vague things like that. Of course, if I'm not a bit late too often, or something obvious like that, I don't need a tutorial on how to get out of bed in time. "Ahem, cut it out" is enough there.

But in other cases, it really felt like they were bluffing, and I realized I really need to leave ASAP when I could actually call the bluff and leave them standing. E.g. boss comes up because they think I've been taking too long on task X, which they know fuck all about, proudly so ("I don't need to know that"). They stand next to me, ask if I need help which translated to "why are you still doing this", I roll my eyes (NOT because my feelings were hurt, really just because I was doing my very best, and because I knew I was doing better works than their "metrics glasses" allowed them to see) and say "should I explain what I'm doing? that'll just take more time but okay" and they'd be like "oh okay, I was just saying".

In a way, that was funny, in another totally unacceptable. Even more than clowning around in school, I wanted teachers I can respect. Even more than slacking off at work, I want to get shit done and get supported in doing it. If I'm doing something wrong, I want to be told what it is, in concrete terms. Because otherwise, I'm suspecting you don't even know, and that I should have your job. Roughly speaking. I certainly met a fair share of people who hardly worked because they were higher in the hierarchy. They were sweating because they constantly had to pretend to know what they're doing, not because they worked so hard. Not that I wanted their job, but when they were sick nothing changed on the ground floor other than who stamped or authorized certain things, production did not slow down. That's for sure, and that's a problem, too.

I don't want to "turn this around" and pretend employees can't be pains in the ass, too. But with colleagues, I had no huge expectations, but once you feel like the only adult in a conversation with your boss or even the boss of their boss, and they cede the ground though while saving face to themselves, it just gets impossible to take the place seriously on anything but a "personal" professional level. That is, I learned for myself, and I tried to do good work in a shit situation even though it couldn't possibly keep the company from tanking, but I could not get into any mindset of honestly coming up with ideas on how to fix the company. I expect those who have been there before me, get paid more, supposedly know more and have more authority, to at least give it an earnest shot, too, and I wasn't seeing that. They all just had excuses and slogans and "that's how we do things around here". Only half of the promised things ever happened, but there was always plenty of marketing material for it in advance.

But I know I and they had harsh teachers. Several of them grew up in the GDR, one of those had an officer for a father. So not an "A for effort" mentality, but still not honest. So I both disagree and agree on that point. I think it just starts with adults trying to answer the questions of kids that are uncomfortable to them honestly, instead of blaming the kids for coming up with questions they should be asking, too. It would do both them and their kids good, and 20 years later who knows what becomes possible.