It's the same dynamic in the public sector too. People get advanced positions (with no salary transparency) by personal connections, not by competence. Meanwhile, highly competent people who have worked their way up from the ground for years and taken advantage of every learning and growth opportunity available, even when they are scant, are told they aren't qualified for anything but a dead-end job, or even threatened with bad reviews or lay-offs. Unfortunate bpcyclist is 100% right: an expectation of fairness is setting ourselves up for this downward spiral. Our anger and frustration is fully justified, but we don't live in a just society. We can certainly work toward achieving one, but we have to work within the current framework while we're in it. In my view, a workplace that has a unidirectional view of loyalty deserves none at all. Take from it what we can get and then move on.