My old work colleague in sadist PVC suit

I was having a reunion dinner with my old work colleague yesterday. The dining place was OK, and my colleague were mostly fine, but I found that one of the colleague became an irritated person. I was not sure if he was an irritated person in the first and that I just didn't realized it, or the job turned him into a big time asshole. If it's the later reason, then it's very sad.

He is now making good money being a direct contractor of a government IT department with job duty mainly handling development of government project. I started to feel pissed when I mentioned that my project is pretty well managed that I can leave office at about 7:30 pm most of the time (which from IT industry standard means good), and he said, "well, in that case I think I would cut people from your team if I were your supervisor."

So instantly I realized that:

(1)His had his mindset thinking from a nasty supervisor point of view.
(2)He probably used the same technique to manage his subordinate and the contract developer in charged of, which is ironic consider he was a contract developer a year or so ago.
(3)He kept mentioned that his boss would slap on me if I did this or so that, as if his boss was his slave owner. (I can't help imagining him wearing some sadist PVC suit walking around in his office.)

To put a long story short, he became the evil persons who once managed him. I know, this is common, as history always repeats itself. Still I found it sad when I saw it.

So once again, for us lower middle class workers, the rule is always like this: the more money we earn, the more humanity we give up. It's like in the animation Full Metal Alchemist, alchemist use equal amount of particles to transfer one object to another. In real life, people use humanity to transform into money and job security.

But then, to remain question to me is: how much do I willing to give up to contain moving upward. Do I remain happy for my current situation which I remain my dignity and freedom and happiness but taking a low salary, or taking the road by kissing ass, torturing other people for the gain my supervisor?

I've seen the Jim Carry movie "Fun with Dick and Jane", which is about a family loss everything one night (job, house and self-esteem) because some rich people makes money by scam. Think Enron. The movie is not that good, but a fine psychology revenge for regular working folks who were screwed by the big corporate. The movie also presented the little dark side of little guys who envy how the others have bigger car and better life than him. Sigh. How fragile a man's heart is with little envy here and little envy there.