> In fact unions can be seen as an adjunct to management.

That's arse-over-tit. My view has long been that management's purpose, in a company that makes stuff, is to remove obstacles from production staff. In that respect, they are servants: rather like clerks, or office managers. Managers are an adjunct to production workers, not the other way round.

I don't mean to disparage either clerks or office managers; most of the ones I've worked with were pure gold. But I've never met a useful project manager; and as you get higher in the monkey tree, you meet people who are more difficult/dangerous, and less helpful.

/me retired, had time to reflect on my career. A bit.

I always liked computers as a teen.

I started work in a Big-5 computer company, and gradually moved to smaller companies. Me and big companies wasn't a good match, on reflection. But I can't see what I could have done differently, at the time. Even in the light of what I've learned since.