I wouldn't want the hardest worker to be the automatic promotion. We've all worked with someone who means well, works hard but is dumb as a brick. God help us if they get promoted.

Edit: Okay, I guess I'm the only one who has ever been managed by a hard working, well meaning idiot?

Banger quote, has an air of antiquity about it

"If I work hard enough my boss will notice"

The ancestors of the modern pickme

Instead, the ass does

Depends on what is defined as "success".
If it's somewhere within "owning as much wealth as possible", then yeah.

Reminds me of the book I read to my kid.

Farmer Duck

Literally about the farm animals kicking the lazy farmer out that makes the duck do all the work. Highly recommendes if you have a little kid.

Raise > promotion

I can't manage people, don't want to manage people, taking me out of an engineering/development position to be a manager would literally be hell on Earth for me and probably anyone under me. Keep me at the same position doing the same thing and just pay me more the better I get at it. But that's not how pretty much any Western company works, worse, they look at your promotion record when deciding who to lay off, not your actual work record, and staying in the same position for too long automatically labels you as a failure.

Oh fully agree. I'm in a similar spot though I'm an okay-ish manager, I don't like it and much prefer my actual job.

I'm not sure how common my experience is as I work in a large non profit and while union, my union group is pretty free wheeling (fewer protections but fewer restrictions.) Anyway, we've gotten around the problem by just adding words to or changing words in my title.

This has had the effect of allowing me to do my job, get raises as basically deserved and look like I'm advancing. Admittedly, my manager etc are very understanding and most of the senior leadership knows me, so take from that what you will.

Unfair comparison