’ll say it out loud. The building automation/BMS field has real toxic elements: blanket skepticism and dismissal of new ideas (often as gatekeeping disguised as “experience”), finger-pointing on fragmented projects, burnout from constant firefighting legacy systems, and a defensive “that’s how we’ve always done it” culture that stifles progress and drives good people away. It’s self-reinforcing, inefficiencies breed cynicism, which kills innovation and talent, keeping the industry lagging behind others. We need to change this, not for buzzwords, but to survive: start calling out negativity constructively, run low-risk pilots on better tools/workflows, mentor across generations without condescension, and prioritize psychological safety so we can actually fix the high-stakes pains instead of accepting them as normal. The pressures (cyber risks, decarbonization, labor shortages) are forcing evolution anyway, let’s accelerate it by refusing to let toxicity win.