Bumped into a thread from @VDO5xvE-2snn, really good and interesting post.
I worked at IBM for a short time, maybe 25-30 years ago. They were working on a large government project where the implementation was in silicon valley, but the original development was on the east coast.
I was hired in silicon valley as a new employee, as they were trying to now hire people locally. I had some experience as a developer, but hadn't been out of college very long at that point. I'd been a good developer at my previous job and I enjoyed writing and designing software. I wanted to work at IBM because I had heard that they were great at providing training to employees and paid for external classes and stuff like that.
I was assigned a couple of different "buddy" programmers while I was there. The first one knew absolutely nothing and literally did absolutely nothing all day. The second one was a woman who painted her fingernails on the job and brought in her mail from home to open at work and take care of it there. She was going to study astrophysics, which I actually knew something about. IBM was going to pay for her college, which was nice. I asked her if she was good at math, since that's basically was astrophysics is, it's just applied math. She said "No". She didn't know what that would have to do with astrophysics. LOL.
I learned absolutely nothing from them.
At one point the plan was to set up some test facility for the new developers in silicon valley, but it never really worked. There was some training provided, but the training covered only very simple things and could never really be used to test the bugs that I was assigned.
It was a hopeless disaster. I did fix a couple of bugs, but the system was very difficult to work with, and no one seemed to know what they were doing.
At one point the developers on the east coast put out an entirely new release, erasing all work that had been done in California.
There were a couple of other new developers like me, but not a lot of us. Most of the people who were there were from the east coast. IBM was paying for their rent and food. The lady who was going to study astrophysics, left at about 3 in the afternoon every day in her little convertible.
There was a meeting at one point where the developers, both east coast and west coast, were supposed to get together to evaluate the manager. One of the east coast people suggested that we give the manager a high rating since he didn't make them do anything.
I was frustrated. I actually like development, but after a while it was clear that the people there really weren't doing much. I left.
A few years later I ran into another of the new west coast guys that I had worked with, at another company. He said "Wasn't IBM really screwed up? They had no idea what they were doing, did they?". I nodded agreement, but I had some doubt about just how screwed up they were. It was clear they didn't work too hard at all.
Being a good developer and enjoying that type of work, I have a difficult time understanding why anyone would want to "work" and be paid for doing nothing. But, I have to say, that there are people who will try to do that. They will arrange work with other people so that they are able to do absolutely nothing if they can get away with it.
I could never do that, wouldn't want to, and it's even hard for me to see people as doing that deliberately. However, I do think that that happens, maybe more often than I can imagine.
I suspect now, many years later, that the entire team liked their vacation time in California and weren't going to be replaced by new employees easily. I suspect that that is the real reason behind what appeared to be incompetence.
Upper level management may have wanted to move development to California, but if the employees don't want that to happen, then, they can do a lot about it. They can make it not happen.
Then I think back on my time at IBM... the woman who was so good at her little girl act when she wanted someone to do work for her.... and her leaving at 3 in the afternoon fairly regularly. The guys who appear to be a--holes to people outside their group, to keep people away from looking at what they are really doing. Some of the other comments on this site about people doing nothing and the comment that recruiters call IBM the "Country Club".
These are all interesting to me. Being a good developer and being pushed out of the area I was in, maybe because of jealousy, or maybe they just wanted to keep working in the country club and didn't want anyone else messing that up. Seems possible to me.