I didn't move the goal posts, what I'm saying is that you must have worked for good companies. I'm not saying you're intrinsically wrong, but maybe you just haven't experienced this.

Your anec-data is no more valid or invalid than mine. You probably have had a "better" and more successful career than I've had is all I'm saying and that probably colors your experience in a way where you see something like this and you think, "no way! no company would ever do this! How stupid of a company!" That's good - that's "correct," it is stupid.

Well, I'm here saying, "meh, I've seen variations on this for sure, maybe not exactly, but yeah... it's a thing people (IMO stupidly) do."

Some companies are pretty dumb. Speaking of "dumb" companies, I once worked for a company (now out of business) that had a little switch under the dashboard I found that turned off the mandatory maintenance tracking for their airplanes. Every time the owner would cover shifts, he'd forget to turn that switch back on and the airplane would stop logging time. Weird how the previous day it had mysteriously flown all day and only logged an hour or so... Needless to say I left shortly after I found this out. Colossally stupid that move on their part - but it happened. When I tell my airline buddies about this experience they look at me like I'm a martian. "Like a switch? No way, you're exaggerating. Didn't the mechanics fix it?" Guys... the mechanics were just as complicit in the issue, some organizations just do dumb stuff. Some workplace cultures breed stupid behavior. Sometimes people are dumb. In the long run these companies burn out and fail typically though...