# The desk next to yours

## This week's cartoon

![Cartoon: two identical desks. A long-tenured employee sits at normal height beside a tiny stack of coins. At the next desk, a bright-eyed new hire is perched high atop a tall stack of gold coins while unpacking a box. The new hire says, "They said they really value experience here."](../../img/cartoons/the-desk-next-to-yours.png)

> _Caption: The market repriced your job. It just forgot to tell the person already doing it._

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### Glossary: *the loyalty penalty*

**The loyalty penalty:** the gap that builds between what you earn by staying and what you could earn by moving, created because the two are priced in completely different ways.

When you stay, your pay rises as a small percentage of where you already are. A few points each year, stacked on a number that was set long ago. When someone is hired from outside, their offer is built from a blank sheet against today's market. Same desk, same work, two different pricing methods. That is why a new colleague can arrive on more than the person who has done the job well for years.

The penalty is quiet because nobody decides it on purpose. It is just the math of internal raises versus external offers, compounding over time. The fix is not to feel betrayed. It is to get a current market benchmark for your role, and to treat staying as a decision you re-make on those terms, rather than a default you drift into. Loyalty is valuable. It should not also be the reason you are underpaid.