Most companies are status-based, not value-based. The primary goal is to maintain status differentials. Pay is one of many tools used to enforce status hierarch

Most companies are status-based, not value-based. The primary goal is to maintain status differentials. Pay is one of many tools used to enforce status hierarchies. As an external consultant you are - to some extent - outside the hierarchy, so the usual rules don't apply. When companies get really big and dysunctional they start to treat their customers as if they're the bottom of the hierarchy. Which is how you get all finds of corporate outrages.