Comment by phaedrus

The flip side of this is demonstrating humility and being a ticket monkey for a year, only to slowly realize you've been taken advantage of, and as you approach year #2 realizing that neither you nor anyone on the "ticket monkey" team ever has or ever will move to the new development group. I once had the experience of being duped by a company that (accidentally, or maliciously) advertised two Developer positions when in actuality they wanted one Junior Developer and one mid-level Developer. Our resumes ranked similarly so they arbitrarily put one of us on the ticket-monkey team and the other on the new development team. I should have either raised hell or gone elsewhere when I found out the level I received was not the one in my offer letter (the pay, while the same, was already below-market anyway), but like a chump I took it as a character building opportunity and thought I would work my way up. What I learned was that that strategy works in a dysfunctional company about as well as it works in a dysfunctional relationship.