> but it is hard to read something like "all coworkers are NPCs" and dehumanizing expressions like that.
They did not say that all coworkers are NPCs.
What they said is "I knew that staying at the acquiring company was not it for me for the big company reasons you might suspect (lots of politics, things moved slowly, NPC coworkers, etc.)".
You should read that as "in a big company, there are more coworkers who don't do anything useful" rather than "at a big company, nobody is doing anything useful".
I read it more as - in a big company there are a lot of people there just to get a paycheque who don't really care.
Which isn't really surprising. That is kind of what a job is. Company gives you money in exchange for them telling you what to do for a little while. There is a very real way where "becoming an npc" for 8 hours a day is what it means to be employed for a lot of people. That is not a dig at the person; we all need to do what we need to do to put food on the table.
They did not say that all coworkers are NPCs.
What they said is "I knew that staying at the acquiring company was not it for me for the big company reasons you might suspect (lots of politics, things moved slowly, NPC coworkers, etc.)".
You should read that as "in a big company, there are more coworkers who don't do anything useful" rather than "at a big company, nobody is doing anything useful".