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Yours and my experience are not mutually exclusive, I think we both see it. I dream of managers like you but I never get hired under them for some reason. (Likely regional culture, experience shows.)

I'm at a stage of life and career where I'd happily take a small pay cut for a year just to establish myself in a place and have stability. Then we'll talk about competitive compensation.

My chief issues are with people that are best described with the proverb "give them an inch and they will take a mile".

Yours seems to be that you deal with people that constantly think that they can do better in terms of how much they take home (let's not sugar-coat it, they're spoiled -- I was too).

Heroics being invisible and people who have their coffee with leadership getting the money and the influence is the wrong system. Always was and apparently always will be.