[solarmist]

Yup!

One time during an exit interview I pointed out (some concrete feedback they could take action on, aaah, how naive of me) how bad the DevOps team had it (80+ hour weeks, constant weekend work, all hours on call, etc) as one of my reasons for leaving and the CEO could NOT understand why I would care about this at all. His response was about how our team (BI) had it so good, which we did, so why would that matter!

He literally could not understand that I had empathy for another team and it affected my perception of the company.

[eftychis]

To sound perhaps a bit weird now I guess but: isn't empathizing with another team normal? I would not want to be in a company that was OK with some team taking the short end of the stick continuously... It says a lot about people and well I would/do feel bad. The response of the CEO of course might be one of avoidance or narcissism... (Of course nobody can't psychoanalyze people from a distance.)

[solarmist]

Oh totally, but this is where it sunk in that I didn’t judge things relatively like others. I have a pretty rigid moral scale and I have a hard minimum.

My coworkers were sympathetic or empathetic, but would just shrug and agree saying there were “culture problems”.

[emsy]

I don't know if you meant this to be an example of "autistic" perception, but fairness is deeply embedded in a lot of animals, including humans. It sounds more like the CEO was sociopathic. Also, of course it makes sense to care for another team for a multitude of reasons, starting from group harmony and ending with self-care, because you never know when you or your team will be at the short end of the stick.

[solarmist]

No, not really. It was a game company, and the justification he used was that it was SOOO much better than the studios he'd been at before.

The only “autistic” part would be the degree I cared compared to people around me. This was where it sunk in that my moral scale wasn’t relative like most people’s.