/c/Vent: Vent about your life here

That sounds like a really positive move.

I once worked at a company of about 100 people where there were more 'managers' than lower level employees. Almost every regular employee had at least two bosses, sometimes more. Some of the bosses didn't even have anyone under them, but they still had the title. They would literally drift around the building going from one pointless meeting to another, or go 'check up on' (interrupt) their underlings. It was pure insanity.

I myself had two managers - my official manager who was CTO and who was nice but spineless; and an opinionated, rude, asshole who inserted himself into a position of bossing me and others around.

Eventually the company went under in spectacular fashion. But I had already moved on from that shit show by that point.

I've seen "flattening" happening in other companies as well, particularly during downturns. Chopping the middle-management is a great way to cut the thicker parts of fat off your firm without costing you any immediate productivity. I would not be surprised if the owner saw a slowdown in revenue or got it into his head that he could sell the place to private equity and decided to clean up the balance sheet.

That said, I have been on the other side of this, as well. Going without any kind of management for months (at one stretch, nearly a year) at a time. Every couple of weeks, having to run around the business to wrangle more work. Writing my own performance reviews. Having no mentorship. Finding it difficult to ask time off work because who do I even submit that to? Suddenly finding myself in a meeting with a VP because a system latency problem got too much exposure and there was nobody between me and the C-levels.

Some amount of management - particularly skilled and experienced management - is an oft-underappreciated value add of working in a bigger and older company. I've gone through enough jobs where the middle management was shit, such that I do genuinely value it when I find it. Thankfully, my current manager is very experienced, easy to work with, well organized, and a valuable buffer with senior leadership to help manage expectations.

But it's a delicate balance. Plenty of firms don't know how to get it right.

Hey, OP, what's this that I'm hearing about you having trouble with your TPS reports?

Too many cooks in the kitchen can lead to indecision.

Corporate greed is getting so bad they're feeding on themselves now that the lower ranks and customers are broke

We had a situation where the banks forced us to split into two companies. Our part would be a new-formed company under a previous department manager. Our choice was to join the new company or let go. So I told the CEO that I would like to work in the new company, but if he would give us that guy as a boss, we'd be bankrupt in two or three months. Most of my coworkers told him about the same.

Handbrakes were applied to the process, the company owner was called, he talked to us, too, and called in a general staff assembly to tell us that the original candidate would not be available for the role of CEO for "health reasons". We got split off with a different CEO, and since then we are prospering like never before.