When I was a really low level employee, I felt like it was easy to get a good recommendation from a supervisor and it was expected that employees would come and go. But now that I have a much better career, I just don't see how someone gets a good recommendation from a previous employer anymore. I'm really good at my job, to a point that I'm not very replaceable. My last company required 2 months notification of when you were planning to leave, I had trained someone to replace me for a year, and received a much better offer than they were willing to match from a competitor. And they STILL acted like I betrayed the entire company.
Now I'm at my current company and I'm afraid I can't leave because they will certainly collapse in my absence as well. There's no way I could go to another job without experiencing this all over again. I feel like even though I've already worked here for a couple years, even if I stay working here I won't be able to apply to any jobs in the future because I can't show them positive recommendations. It's like a rigged game where the owners know that so long as they don't give recommendations to other jobs, you're stuck with them and then lose all power to bargain or advance.
How do other people that get ahead in their career solve this problem? Where are you getting job recommendations from?