zlacker

This is largely a consequence of the economic opportunities presented to people at work. There is basically no organization that will pay you more as a direct consequence of being better at your job. Compensation is almost never tied to performance, and is in practice most closely tied to age. Compensation isn't adjusted quickly enough for people to associate it with the quality of their work. A yearly meeting where your wage is adjusted to keep up with inflation or reflect your time in the workforce isn't something you can control.

This leads to a lot of doing the bare minimum, since any effort beyond what is necessary to keep the job is wasted effort. You will get paid more just for existing longer, so just hang on. The only real way to get more money is to switch jobs, which is more about negotiation and politics than being good at the previous or next job. Most people aren't ambitious enough to repeatedly job hop, but would be ambitious enough to chase more money at their current job, were the opportunity presented.

The only way to fix this is to encourage larger variations in salary between high and low performers and get the union (I've done my time) mentality out of these organizations. It will never happen for the government.

>>alphaz+(OP)
> There is basically no organization that will pay you more as a direct consequence of being better at your job.

Sure there is, that organization is called having your own business, or consulting.

>>carlos+a8
Yes, this is the obvious exception, and good career advice. But it doesn't solve the problem for the consumers, which is that important services are done poorly or not at all. Not everyone can work for themselves, and if you want the people who collect a salary to do a good job, the incentives need to come from compensation.