[xapata]

It's like hazing. "Pay your dues" is just going through initiation.

One of my favorites was hearing my professor say, "Now that I have tenure, I think it's a wonderful system!" He had been complaining about the tenure system as capricious, foolish, etc. for a while. He's a great guy, so it's not that he changed his mind, exactly. He knew all his past criticism was still relevant, but he was acknowledging his strong disincentive to fight the system.