My thoughts are: Gerald might have felt invisible and unappreciated. I struggle with the same thing. You give me a task, I'll ask questions, make notes, validate my notes by re-stating the expectations and describing the final expected result. We agree, I will deliver the outcome, on time, double-checked, labeled, sorted, etc. My manager accepts it and says thanks. Then I compare this to my colleagues that take longer time to deliver, then deliver sub-par results, cause project delays, are constantly sick, distracted by their personal problems and spending half their workday talking to colleagues about their weekend/new car/family/kids, etc. Come end of year and my manager proudly gives me a 3.5% salary increase because of my constant great work, but gives colleagues 2.5% because company KPIs were met. Of course I started thinking about leaving. I am in fact already interviewing elsewhere. Why? Because you clearly do not value my work. If my work does speak for itself, why do I have to set up a meeting to beg you for salary increase, since you already validated all my results? It is not about "it is in your job description". If it feels OK to you, you are the problem. If the company does not give you options to compensate quality employees, you can't be surprised you don't have any.