I've been observing the side effects of working for too long under the same boss. Such that even after the boss is gone her subordinates still quote and live by her "teachings" (since they have been so 'well-trained' to do things the 'right' way). Some unfortunately suffer more serious repercussions and get nightmares. While I feel that the lessons 'preached' makes good sense for the most part and somewhat guides one to become upright public sector officers who produce quality work, the penetrating and seemingly lasting influence on colleagues even on the most trivial of things at times make me pretty disturbed. This morning, I was rather surprised that a colleague's tendency to insert two spaces after a fullstop in her writing was a legacy of ex big boss's preference... And I also found myself increasingly disturbed by a colleague's perseverance in delivering the most well-aligned/font size-perfect/spatially well-distributed briefing slides... (Fyi, these cosmetic adjustments are the most potent time thieves). I mean, I think it's good that we have such high standards for briefing materials, but sometimes it works against us and we focus excessively on these trivial micro things and neglect the bigger picture. Deep down I sometimes feel like I am in a very dangerous place, where frequent expectations of standardisation/protocol-adherence will slowly rob me of all individuality and thinking-for-myself abilities...