Can we all just stop talking about promotions like they matter? A promotion has meaning when someone is moving up the corporate ladder at such a slow pace that every small step is grounds for celebration.

But there are no more ladders because no one stays long enough at a company to get up the whole ladder. And even if someone did try to climb, they’d probably be laid-off outsourced or off-shored before they got to the top.

So what is the point of a promotion? Titles do not matter because they are accoutrements of hierarchy in a nonhierarchical workforce. And no one cares about getting MORE responsibly that implicitly comes with a promotion, they want the RIGHT kind of responsibility — which means interesting work and a chance to expand one’s skills set.

So all that’s left to justify continuing to talk about promotions is getting a raise, which is hardly a notable event. Here is a headline from Salary.com: “Raise Outlook Better than Employees Expected”. The article goes on to say that the average raise was something just above three percent. Let’s say four percent. This means if you were making $100,000 a year, you’ll get $4,000 a year more. SO WHAT? After cost of living and tax adjustments you are looking at a little over a thousand dollars. That will not change your life in any significant way, that’s for sure.

When someone tries to give you a promotion or insult you with a $1000 a year raise, tell them you want someone that really matters. Here are some suggestions:

1. Growth opportunities

Learning new skills is worth a lot more to you than some ridiculous 4% raise. Ask to get on a team that will teach you how to do something you think is important. Ask to work with the clients who are doing the most innovative projects. Request a training budget and send yourself to a bunch of seminars. The best way to learn is to role-play, which everyone hates to do, so go to a seminar where someone is forces you to do it.

2. Mentor opportunities

Ask to be matched with a mentor in the company. This is not a revolutionary request. Human resource executives have been studying this process for more than a decade and they know how to pick someone good for you. They just need to spend a little time doing it.

3. Flex-time opportunities

If you are so great at your job that you have earned a promotion, suggest that you keep your current job but do it from home or do it four days a week. After all, you’ve already shown you perform well. Heck, ask to work from Tahiti; you should be able to do the job however you want as long as you maintain that stellar level of performance.

4. Entrepreneurial opportunities

Just say no. To the promotion, that is. Now that you have a sense of how much time and energy your current job requires, now that you’ve mastered the scope, you can try something on the side. The safest way to experiment with running your own business is to do it while you still have a regular paycheck. Who cares if it doesn’t include that 4% raise? Think of that paycheck as a research grant for your ideas for a side business.

Instead of letting last century’s carrots dictate your workplace rewards, think about what is right for you, right now. What do you really need? You don’t need a promotion. It’s something else. Think about what would really make a difference in your life and then make it happen. While the rest of your organization is focusing on titles and money you can slip under the radar and get something truly meaningful.

People would be a lot happier with the job they had if they were happier with themselves outside of their job. We have seen steady decline in job satisfaction, no matter if the employment rate is very high or very low, and even when most people have control over their time and their workload, they still report that they are unhappy in their jobs, according to the Harvard Business Review.

People do not like work because they don’t like their personal life. And the key to being happy at work is not so much finding the perfect career as it is finding yourself. The more self-knowledge you have the happier you will be. So stop looking at your job to solve your problems and instead look inside yourself. Make friends with yourself and with other people, and your job, whatever it is, might start looking better because you’re not asking so much from it.

If you are looking to your job for the meaning of life, forget it. Even people who feed starving children with the Peace Corps have crisis of meaning. (For example, What is the point of feeding one child when six will die?) The meaning of life is elusive and you must put in a lot of time and energy to find meaning in your life.

The job hunt is separate. The job is something you have to do to support yourself. Since you’re going to be doing it for a good portion of your life, you should look for some basics: People who respect you and your personal life. A company that is honest. A job that uses your skills and experience. A job that challenges your abilities without overwhelming you.

Work does not need to give your life a grand purpose in order to be a good experience. The most pleasurable work provides a perfect balance between too much and too little — in terms of both amount and difficulty, according to Diane Fassel, the chief executive of workplace survey firm Newmeasures and author of the book Working Ourselves to Death.

A career is like a mate. The relationship is limited by what you bring to the table. If you are not happy with yourself, you won’t be happy with the match-up. Here’s an analogy a friend once told me: You have to have the cake, and then the relationship is the icing. It doesn’t matter how good the icing is if there’s no cake to put it on. Who eats icing by itself? Gross.

The part about you is the most important. What do you do when you’re alone? How do you feel about yourself? What are your core values and do you lead your life according to them each day? Do you numb yourself with food or TV or alcohol? It’s very hard to be honest about this stuff. Yet amazingly, people spend lots of time on locating a job and a mate and very little time locating themselves.

“Employees should not demand that companies imbue their lives with meaning,” writes E.L. Kersten in the Harvard Business Review. “Employers and employees have something the other needs. One of the keys to a mutually beneficial relationship is a realistic understanding of what that something is.” A job is not a life.

In fact, online dating is not a bad model for evaluating a job. For one thing, you should never write that you want a mate to make you feel fulfilled — that’s asking much too much from a single person. Yet we complain all the time that our jobs are not fulfilling.

Dating services ask that you be as specific as possible in your desires. So try that for a job. Here’s what I would ask for in a job, and it’s the same thing I looked for in a spouse:

Fair

Fun

Mind-expanding

Interesting

Consistent with my values

Leaves space for the other parts of my life

And here’s another thing about those lists: You are probably going to have to be your list to get your list. That’s why interesting people are at interesting companies. So be who you want to be instead of looking for a mate or a company to make you who you wish you were.