Meaningless promotion=more money, new title, same or less responsibility.
Right before covid, my manager got a meaningless promotion and his manager position went up internally. Three people applied; A coworker with 3 years of experience, my assistant with 2 years of experience and me with 5 years of experience as well as experience managing people. My assistant got that job and is now my boss, should have quit then but covid happened and I was able to work from home a lot, so I accepted this. 6ish months ago my old manager got another meaningless promotion and today my manager got the meaningless promotion the old manager had originally got. And I've been required to work in office full time since I'm managing an intern this summer. Compared to other research scientists (in and outside of the company) with 7 years of experience, I'm Grossly underpaid and for the last 2-3 years I've also been shafted for these promotions. From what I can tell, everyone just wants to keep me exactly where I am because I am very good at my current job. I could do my job, my manager's job and her manager's job (my old manager) in 40 hours a week.. this company loves to waste money and make me feel like a piece of shit. I'm going to start very actively looking for other options now.