It sounds like you've been hurt by the some terrible management practices, I'm truly sorry that some managers think their job is to control their subordinates.
However, regarding ticketing systems, in team environments, it is very effective and helpful to have a system that manages the data about the work that has been completed, is being worked, and is planned to be worked on .
Part of that system might be defining restrictive workflows for some teams, not for control, but to ensure the agreed upon process is followed for quality or consistency.
One of the many problems Jira has is that if you don't have a Jira admin on your team, it's impossible to build an effective and efficient workflow for your team. Coupled with Jira making many things global by default (it takes a lot of care to make a change that only affects specific Jira projects) most configurations end up being a pile of garbage automatically inherited from changes an admin(that is not part of the team) made when intending to change something for another specific team.
However, regarding ticketing systems, in team environments, it is very effective and helpful to have a system that manages the data about the work that has been completed, is being worked, and is planned to be worked on .
Part of that system might be defining restrictive workflows for some teams, not for control, but to ensure the agreed upon process is followed for quality or consistency.
One of the many problems Jira has is that if you don't have a Jira admin on your team, it's impossible to build an effective and efficient workflow for your team. Coupled with Jira making many things global by default (it takes a lot of care to make a change that only affects specific Jira projects) most configurations end up being a pile of garbage automatically inherited from changes an admin(that is not part of the team) made when intending to change something for another specific team.