[calibraxis]

Maybe I'm misreading, but that sounds like a questionable response to someone critiquing managerial blindspots. Shows blindness to corporate power structure. Also perhaps lack of understanding why people really take jobs. (One of the things bosses accept is that their subordinates lie to them. For instance, this is a driving force behind bad estimates.)

(I don't have a firm opinion on open vs. private offices, except I'd prefer to choose depending on what's best for the day).

[sutterbomb]

In my experience, it's not accurate to say outright lying is a driving force behind bad estimates. Estimates are actually a difficult problem. "Padding" an estimate is not a lie, it's a tool to be more accurate in the aggregate, because it helps account for the 1 in X instances where a task is significantly more time-consuming than you ever could have reliably estimated.