I think this advice is cutting your nose off to spite your face. I took my first job to learn. I was underpaid, and over worked. But I got to work on all sorts of stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to touch for years, I learned a ridiculous amount, and when I left that job I took an enormous leap in salary. Since then I’ve managed to keep it going up and a very steady pace. Advising against such working conditions in general is narrow minded and short sighted. That company got a huge amount of value out of me, and they didn’t pay a fair salary for it. But in place of that salary, I got a huge amount of value out of them. My goal (especially at the time) wasn’t to get the fairest market rate, it was to increase my market value as much as possible. A goal I achieved, which has meant I’m now out earning most of my peers, and I generally have much more control over my working conditions than they do.
Actually what you’re suggesting is working against your own interests purely for the sake of working against somebody else’s too. There was also nothing imprudent about my decision. I saw an opportunity to develop my skills and took it. If it wasn’t working out, quitting would have just put my back to exactly where I started. My advice is that if you see an opportunity to advance your career, you should focus on what you’ll personally get out of it. Countering your apparent blanket stance that you shouldn’t do things that don’t benefit you in the short term, and that you shouldn’t enter into employment agreements simply because an employer may be getting “too much” out of it, regardless of any potential long term personal benefit. Personally I find more success in looking at what I can get out of an opportunity, rather than what I can deny others.
