[fecak]

Understood. I wouldn't generalize this as "the real world" though. If you've been in the same place for 13 years, you probably don't have a ton of experience in "the real world", and because of that, you think where you work is the norm.

There are tons of non-tech companies that don't have rigid pay scales. Almost any small company (under 100 employees maybe) might have targets, but they don't have defined 'pay bands'.

I read in another comment that you're doing data entry (that wasn't what I expected you did). Data entry is probably considered a bit of a commodity, as companies are probably confident they can typically find someone to quickly learn how to do it and be effective. So there wouldn't be much room to negotiate a higher salary when they know they can easily replace you. But if they truly need the work done, and they are losing people and unable to replace them, eventually you'll see salaries go up. It's simple economics at work.