[adonovan]

Exactly. There are non-monetary rewards to doing good work: esprit de corps from a team of coworkers you like and respect, satisfaction and pride in your craft, positive responses from users, and so on.

For many, promotion is like winning a pie-eating contest only to find that the prize is: more pies. It’s fine to recognize that your interests and your employer’s are only loosely aligned and to decline to play the game the way they want you to.