Loyalty Is a Trap — And HR Set It
🧠 The Fantasy of Loyalty
“Stay with the company. They’ll take care of you.”
“They’ll recognise your loyalty.”
“Job hopping looks bad.”
Sound familiar?
If your parents are as unevolved (said lovingly, with deep generational sighs) as mine, you probably grew up thinking loyalty was the golden ticket to career growth. Promotions. Trust. A future.
But in today’s workforce?
❌EHEH❌
Error tone. 404: Rewards not found.
Loyalty, my friend, is a trap.
And guess what? HR helped build it.
📉 The Real Math
Let’s break this down:
External hire = Market rate.
Internal growth = 3–10%, if you manifest hard enough.
That’s it. That’s the tweet.
Unless you get promoted (which takes two cycles, three sponsor coffees, and a blood pact), your salary is basically inflation + vibes. Meanwhile, someone new walks in the door and gets 15–25% more than you — for the same role. Sometimes less responsibility.
So here’s the math:
If market growth > your internal raise, then staying is literally costing you money.
📎 My Market Rate Mirage™
When I finally qualified, HR congratulated me with a promotion — and what they claimed was “market rate.”
Cute.
Except it wasn’t. It was some BS propaganda cooked up during an “internal benchmarking exercise” — which, from what I can tell, involved zero actual markets and a lot of Excel filters. I wasn’t the only one raising eyebrows either. I brought receipts, my colleagues brought receipts, someone even brought a full salary comparison report with colour-coded highlights.
Still, HR stood firm.
“This is consistent with market expectations.”
Whatever.
So naturally, people started looking elsewhere.
And one by one, they began to leave — like popcorn kernels in hot oil, like rats fleeing a sinking spreadsheet, like interns at 5:01pm.
And me? I was the last one left standing on the project.
The final breadcrumb.
So when I tendered my resignation — politely, professionally, cloaked in the language of “rest,” “personal growth,” and “exploring new challenges” (because you don’t burn bridges, you ghost them gently) — my boss panicked.
Big time.
Suddenly, I was being offered a special 3-month contract to “help tide things over,” at a rate that HR once again assured was “fair.”
And look, I won’t tell you the exact number, but let’s just say:
I declined.
Was it fair?
Well, rumour had it they spent upwards of $1M trying to salvage the project after everyone bailed.
I’m not saying I could’ve saved them that much.
But the raise I asked for was just $10K per year.
So if we’re doing the math — and I always am — I was the cheaper option.
But! There’s a happy ending.
Not long after, I landed a new job — with a $25K raise.
Which, funnily enough, actually was market rate.
So yes, I’m happy I left the trap.
And no, I don’t miss the popcorn fire.
🪤 How to Escape the Loyalty Trap™
(Your survival kit, from someone who’s seen the spreadsheet carnage)
1. Benchmark your salary before HR does.
If you don’t check the market, they’ll tell you their market. And that one includes unicorns and optimism.
2. Talk to recruiters like you talk to your barista: regularly.
Loyalty is not caffeination. You don’t owe them your mornings forever.
3. Update your resume every time your workload doubles.
Because your title won’t.
4. “Budget constraints this cycle” means “run.”
Or at least, refresh your SEEK tab.
5. You’re not betraying the company. You’re exiting the simulation.
And that, my friend, is financial self-defense.
🍞 Final Toast: The Bread Is Better on the Other Side
So no, loyalty didn’t reward me. But clarity did.
If your boss is still handing out “we’ll revisit this next quarter” energy and your HR team is living in a spreadsheet dream — just know:
You are not the problem.
You are the underpaid solution to someone else's mess.
And you deserve better than that.
I didn’t just leave the trap.
I toasted myself a raise 🥂.
