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Comment by _trackno5 | Hacker News Reader

> The longevity of his employment is likely a result of the company's willingness to promote him instead of hiring externally, despite his start at the entry level. This is not likely to happen anymore, at least nowadays.

I call BS on that. Yes there's sometimes this pattern of favoring external hires, but most people nowadays are unwilling to just do the work and be patient. Especially in tech, most people switch jobs every few years to get a promo and salary bump. Everyone wants immediate results nowadays and end up with mediocre careers.

I doubt people like the man in the article think like that.

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I don't know what rock you've been living under, but licking the boot and bring patient leads you to be stuck in the same position because "you're too valuable right where you are" for 33 years until the company gets restructured and you get laid off with nothing more than a "sorry!" before you could get your full retirement package.

Where is your proof that in tech your career is better if you stay at a place longer than a few years? That hasn’t been the case in a decade or more imo. People who stay at a place a long time are looked at suspiciously at being incapable of leaving.

Maybe tech companies should provide their employees with pay raises so they are not forced to go to another company for that raise. New hires are often paid more than people that have been in the same role for years. You seem to argue that the employee should choose to accept a mediocre salary that does not keep up with inflation and the indignity of the new hire in the hope that just maybe in a few years a higher position will open up and that they will somehow out compete the other people vying for it. If they don't get it they should just continue to wait until the next opportunity. Or they could just go get a position doing the same thing at a new company and get a pay raise that would likely pay them the same rate as if they got the promotion. It has nothing to do with loyalty and everything to do with logic and not selling the years of your life at a discount to a corporation that does not even know you exist.

Note: I am about to start my 4th job in 6 years. My pay went from 55k to 200k in that time. Way less than many others on this board make but an unthinkable number for me and if I had stayed at the first job I would probably be making 70k maybe.

> unwilling to just do the work and be patient. Especially in tech, most people switch jobs every few years to get a promo and salary bump"

Capitalism for me but not for thee?

Yes. The "MBAs" saw cost cutting in draining worker loyalty and workers have been catching up slowly since loyalty and hard work is a cultural phenomena. When the workers catched up strategy wise there was a lobbying push for STEM crisis, "good people are hard to come by" or lazyness.

Instead of both way loyalty we see this push for "values" and cultural fit or what not. Very hallow compared to boring old 20 years of service.

My former employer a 100 yo company had these old rules for gifts to employees that had stayed 10, 20, 30 and 40 years. It was like a joke nowadays when engineers hardly stayed 3 years, including me.

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