My guy you read way too much into a comment about a manager who was not trying to nurture the career path their subordinate was aspiring for. That's part of being a manager. A manager who doesn't go to bat for people like that is a shit manager. Your response is really bizarre, like you were personally attacked.

maybe he's one of those managers. she was clear when she was hired that she wanted to be a dev. like i said, this was a branch office of a big company in a small city. many people moved from testing to dev and vice versa.