I had a different boss who trusted us implicitly but essentially we were managing ourselves. Unlike Mr Mentor we didn’t talk shop and he didn’t challenge us very much or at least concretely to do better. In fact I was only ever aware of him doing about 20 hours of work a week and half of that was meetings (the other half administravia).

Given the politics there I suspect the rest of his time was kissing butts or covering them. Since the end of the dotcom era I’ve never seen a more high minded bunch of Emperors New Clothes types all in one spot. Woof.