Office politicians love a fairy tale where training creates permanent ownership and seniority earns a cut of other people’s wins. A younger employee gets promoted, and a veteran coworker tries to convert past help into present rent. Gratitude becomes a bill. Mentorship gets repackaged as leverage. The promotion suddenly has a tip jar attached and the floor chorus hums about respect while ignoring the scoreboard.
This is the standard cycle in workplaces that confuse tenure with value. Early guidance is real, but it is not equity. Teaching someone the system does not mean owning their outcomes forever. The pattern shows up every time a ladder is climbed. And most importantly, pay raises do not work like pizza, you don’t cut it for coworkers, and no one’s getting a slice.
