I've been fortunate to spend my 40+ year career (so far) in workplaces where management generally trusted the programmers to do their jobs -- and that includes some large, conservative companies as well as many smaller, "faster" companies (and some startups).
I've attended a lot of conferences over those decades and sat and talked with other developers, so I've definitely heard horror stories like yours (esp. when I used to attend large Java conferences and listen to a lot of corporate 9-to-5 programmers there!).
I've been fortunate to spend my 40+ year career (so far) in workplaces where management generally trusted the programmers to do their jobs -- and that includes some large, conservative companies as well as many smaller, "faster" companies (and some startups).
I've attended a lot of conferences over those decades and sat and talked with other developers, so I've definitely heard horror stories like yours (esp. when I used to attend large Java conferences and listen to a lot of corporate 9-to-5 programmers there!).