Employment is Not a Marriage. It’s a Tour of Duty.

Loyalty is a tax on your lifetime earnings.

If you stay at the same company for more than two years, you are statistically likely to be paid 50% less over your lifetime than someone who switches jobs strategically.

Corporations treat employment as a subscription they can cancel at any time. It is time you started treating them the same way.

The "Tour of Duty" Framework

Reid Hoffman (Founder of LinkedIn) coined the term "Tour of Duty." The concept is simple: You aren't joining a family. You are signing a temporary alliance to accomplish a specific mission.

Once the mission is done, and you have extracted the value (skills, network, title), it is time to eject.

How to Engineer Your Exit

Most people wait until they are burnt out to look for a job. That is too late. You have no leverage when you are desperate.

You need to build your exit on the way in.

1. Define the Asset

What is the one thing you are at this job to acquire? Is it the "Senior" title? Is it experience with Large Language Models? Is it managing a P&L?

Track this asset. Once you have it, your Tour is complete.

2. Watch the "Vesting Cross"

In your first year, your learning curve (and usually your stock grant) is high. By year three, your learning plateaus and your salary trails inflation.

This is the Vesting Cross. When your "Market Value" exceeds your "Current Comp," you are running at a loss.

3. Secure the Evidence

Don't wait for your annual review to remember what you did. Use the AdiosBoss Evidence Locker to screenshot wins, Slack praise, and metrics daily.

When you are ready to leave, you don't have to write a resume from scratch. You generate a "Brag Sheet" instantly from your encrypted vault.

Conclusion

Your career is a business. You are the CEO. Your current employer is just your current client.

Serve the client well, but never forget that you are building your equity, not theirs.

Build Your Exit Strategy with AdiosBoss