The other side of this coin is that if you are are forced into actions which you "know" are wrong and just accept it, then maybe the job is already dead for you anyway. By fighting back you are testing a number of stress points, like the conflict-avoidance of your management and the belligerence of the person you know to be "wrong". The important part is having the maturity to understand the consequences of being mistaken yourself, and being able to decide whether the fight is worth having even if it is going to have drastic results. In other words, is this a hill worth dying on?
> I have a family to support, and saying "OK" to bad decisions from on high has never threatened my livelihood.
This doesn't necessarily work out in practice. When bad decisions have consequences many people will look for scapegoats, and blindly following orders can still make you a scapegoat.
In my own past I’ve pointed out issues non-confrontationally. But I smile and go along with it if the feedback is discarded. I’ve seen tens of millions of dollars lost to bad tech decisions. Occasionally someone will mention that I predicted the failure a year or two prior, and I shrug.
