It wasn’t a particularly high salary,

nor a glamorous title,

but a place where promises could be kept,

and hard work could be seen.

Some companies teach you skills;

some companies teach you judgment.

And that experience,

at the very least, taught me the latter.

After leaving that company, I kept thinking about one question:

Does a person stagnate because they lack ability, or because their environment makes effort feel meaningless?

The biggest problem with that company was not that it was busy, nor that the pressure was high.

It was that there was almost no system in place.

A lot of things were “agreed upon” at first, but then would slowly disappear into thin air.

For example, the terms discussed at the beginning:

that salary would be adjusted based on performance after the probationary period,

or that a reasonable salary review would be conducted after a year.

These things were said very naturally during the interview, making it seem that the company at least had basic planning in place.

But it was only after actually joining that I discovered these promises were often just temporary reassurances.

Whenever a salary adjustment was brought up, HR and the manager would almost always give the same set of responses:

“We need to observe a little longer.”

“The budget is a bit tight right now.”

“The boss is still evaluating it.”

The strange thing was that the scores my manager gave me in performance evaluations were almost always very high,

often above 90.

But whenever it came time to actually discuss salary, the matter would get stuck in an endless loop.

It was either a budget issue or a need for further observation.

It felt as though everything was trapped in an endless “wait a little longer.”

In the end, the raise that had originally been promised was delayed for nearly half a year.

When it finally appeared on my payslip, it amounted to only one or two thousand dollars.

The most ironic part at that moment was not the amount.

It was that the entire process was presented as some kind of “favor.”

It was as if the company had made a tremendous effort for this adjustment,

and they would even casually tell you:

“The boss is actually giving you an opportunity to learn.”

“You should be grateful that the company is willing to nurture you.”

And this so-called “nurturing” usually came with something else—the scope of the job would quietly begin to expand.

Beyond the original duties, you would take on a few more tasks,

and become responsible for a few more things.

It was as if, alongside the salary adjustment, a new list of duties had been quietly attached.

I actually thought about it for a long time during that period.

It wasn’t that I was unwilling to learn, nor that I was unwilling to take on more responsibility.

But I gradually came to understand one thing:

A truly healthy workplace does not package fair compensation and respect as “favors.”

Learning is mutual,

and so is growth.

If an environment can only keep itself running through “gratitude,”

that often means the system itself has already become unbalanced.

After leaving, I actually felt more at peace.

Because that experience made me more certain about what I expect from work: