There are some things which happened in recent meetings assured me that perhaps, my decision is not a wrong one:
– Some things seem to go amiss when the top boss and the second-in-line boss appear to use their own language to communicate with each other such that they tell us different things.
– Issues and ideas, which were thrown out by the second-in-line boss, were surfaced by the top boss in our first team meeting with him. (Yes, the first meeting with him after so long. It was only then we knew what he wanted. Hmm… 2-month effort down the drain)
– The second-in-line boss sat at a distance from almost everyone and was silent throughout the meetings, looking on more like a spectator, rather than someone who was supposed to have looked through and amended our work. All of us were left to defend ourselves as the top boss questioned. The only time he managed to speak some words was to defend himself.
– Things that the second-in-line boss wanted were removed by the top boss.
– The top boss expects the credit analysts to fill up the survey and update their responses on a need basis or 3-4 times a year. However, he was reluctant to talk about the incentives, except to offer the respondents access to the survey results. (I really wonder who will be so free, to do things for free)
– The top boss, being at the top, thinks that everything is easy to do. “It is just this, this, this and that. So simple. I’m sure it can be done easily.” (Oh please, if it is that easy, please do it yourself. By the way, he was talking about writing an IT program to a bunch of non-programmers. Even the IT guys think that his idea was complicated, impractical and not that feasible.)
– Convincing the top boss is never easy, especially when he was so excited and fixated at his idea, which was not as feasible and there were other better, easier alternatives available. It was really like 对牛弹琴, and nothing could get into his head, not even with the advice from the ‘experts’ (our IT people). He just could not understand what was so difficult about the idea, as he did not see the point of view of the programmers.
– A parrot colleague was agreeing and nodding his head at everything the top boss said and even repackaging his words to explain to us what the top boss meant when we were trying to defend our work.

One of my colleagues has commented on several occasions that the office is like a circus and we are the clowns in the show. Perhaps, he is not that far off.

Well, this is just only an academic exercise.