Fair enough, as long as you recognize it's a zero-sum game. Indeed regardless of what he does it's probably at least two thirds of the people will be unhappy with the outcome. You're obviously welcome to (and should) push for your own cause.

My point is that a) you cannot make all the people happy all the time b) chances are, at least some of the time you'll be in the unhappy group. c) if you change jobs every time you're not happy (in this context) you're gonna have a lot of jobs because every manager is working under these same constraints.

Or put another way - the rules of the game are not set by the manager - therefore changing jobs to find a better manager (generally speaking - and in this context) is not a fruitful solution.

I'm _not_ saying all managers are the same, or you should work for a moronic manager who is bad at their job. I am saying that in order to play the game it's helpful to understand what the rules are. The running-back can blame the quarter-back all day long, but if what he's asking for is unachievable, then no amount of quarter-back-changing will help.