> Middle management is often desperately trying to justify their job by creating purposeful confusion. I swear he's trying to trip me up looking for reasons to put marks on my record.
Or he, like most of us, is primarily self-interested and is mostly concerned with not looking like a self-contradictory idiot (and keeping marks off his own record).
Never ascribe to malice for people you don't know and for things it is easy to explain with incompetence.
If someone is your manager for some time and you can reasonably expect competence, that is different thing.
If someone is self interested and his actions say so, this is malice, not just incompetence.
Or he, like most of us, is primarily self-interested and is mostly concerned with not looking like a self-contradictory idiot (and keeping marks off his own record).
Never ascribe to malice, etc.