I was out of work a couple years ago and I applied to work in a mailroom. It turned out that the company whose mailroom it was, was not the hiring entity - it was outsourced. So, no working your way up anywhere.

Furthermore, the interviewer spent the entire interview complaining about how she mostly couldn't even get people who would show up, let alone act maturely. We discussed the starting date, but within a day or two she reneged, presumably because I had dressed formally for a minimum wage job and was overqualified.

Another thing that comes to mind is the janitorial duties were outsourced in the building I used to work in.

This sort of thing is why I think it's dumb whenever I read something about a progressive company having a minimum wage of whatever for their employees - it's purely a statement about who they keep on their books and who they use indirectly.