The greatest truth ever told

Forget the 4 Vedas, forget the Bible, forget the Holy Quran or any holy scripture to have been passed down to us earthlings. I declare with absolute conviction that The Greatest Truth ever told is not any of the aforementioned. The Truth has been uttered by none other than Scot Adams, in his Dilbert ways.
OK, that was a bit too much but you would come to the same conclusion had you been subjected to the victimization as a result of the incompetence of managerial policy in general and managers in particular, and Corporate Policy, as we know it, at large.
Why does the corporate workplace suck? Why don't planners and managers keep simple things simple?
One thing puzzles me to no end: If managers "manage" the Lead and the Engineers ("workers"), and they take the decisions, why don't they decide on something if i go to them with a simple question - Is this possible or not? OK, you might argue that they need to consult the "workers" to help them decide. Fine, in that case, after consulting the workers one of the following must happen:
a) Since the worker has the knowledge, he might as well decide for the manager
b) Having gained the precious and rare knowledge from the workers, why doesn't the manager give me the answer, instead of putting me onto another manager who is even higher up the command chain?
Net Result: I'm sitting on my ass and staring at the monitor without getting an answer for a very simple question, depending on which my next move rests. I'm grounded, for now :(

There was this "joke" doing the rounds sometime back. I wish it were just a "joke" and not a real situation as it is in many of our cases!

Programmer to PL: "This is not possible!!!
Impossible. It will involve design change and
nobody in our team knows the design of the
system. And above that nobody in our company
knows the language in which this software has
been written. So even if somebody wants to
work on it, they can't. If you ask my personal
opinion the company should never take these
type of projects."

Project Leader to Project Manager: "This
project will involve design change. Currently
we don't have people who have experience in
this type of work. Also the language is
unknown so we will have to arrange for some
training if we take this project. In my
personal opinion, we should avoid taking this
project."

Project Manager to AVP: "This project involves
design change in the system and we don't have
much experience in that area. Also not many
people are trained in this area. In my
personal opinion we can take the project but
we should ask for some more time."

AVP to SVP: "This project involves design
re-engineering. We have some people who have
worked in this area and some who know the
language. So they can train other people. In
my personal opinion we should take this
project but with caution."

SVP to CEO: "This project will show the
industry our capabilities in modeling the
design of a complete system. We have all the
necessary skills and people to execute this
project successfully. Some people have already
given in-house training in this area to other
people. In my personal opinion we should not
let this project go by under any
Circumstance."

CEO to Client: "These are the type of projects
in which our company specialize. We have
executed many projects of the same nature for
many big clients. Trust me when I say that you
are in the safest hand in the Industry. In my
personal opinion we can execute this project
successfully and that too well within the
given time frame."

Corporate culture is crap!