One needs some recognition to give sense to life. It is likely to be most profitable coming from the own working environment. Mine mostly came from external sources, and especially international one's. Such as remarks by foreign intellectual heavyweights, that I wrote and spoke like a professor (but did not use my title). Or commentaries by attending professors, that my contribution had been very helpful in fully understanding the problem. For instance, I was asked to present my paper as the keynote on a large international meeting. Later on I was pleased to read in the newspaper, that my suggestions were repeated by the Secretary-General of the UN.
The only time I interfered with my fate at the home front, came very late in my 'career' - when I was going to retire, and heard accidentally, that I was the only one still kept on a junior pay level. As I did not want to be punished for the rest of my life, for reasons related to historic institutional problems, I wrote to the University Board with my credentials. It resulted in an invitation by the personnel staff member of the faculty, who did admit, that I outperformed the faculty professoriate, but that I had to understand too, comparing him and me, I was not at a disadvantage.
However, the faculty did not want to leave it completely unrepaired, and raised me one scale. Despite the fact, that 'my professor', had admitted that he met strange differences in pay, when he arrived at the faculty. Although he knew my credentials, he made no corrections.
