Struggling in the Workplace

What lines should be drawn between "training" and "exploitation"? How do you measure the value of a human being as an employee in an organisation? How far does the employee have to go, what does she have to endure, and what kind of dire and drastic circumstances have to occur, before she has to finally evaluate that there is simply no other route to walk, other than out? What if there are comfort zones too valuable to ignore, too (surprisingly) reassuring to break out of?

How does one find balance in the clashing perspectives of the employer and the employee, and is there any right or wrong? When peace is kept through silencing the opinions of one party, where is the fairness and openness, and the "completely necessary feedback process" so highly recommended in a secular corporate organisation? Or does politics always prevail, and seniority/greater hierarchy always triumph?

When you judge a person by the error she commits, do you also not consider the context, motive, intention, magnitude, and, of course, consequences? Or does the initial agenda of teaching a lesson to the errant person serve an even higher purpose, therefore deserving greater priority?

I'm trying to find justification in all of this, some rationalisation of the situation. Maybe I just don't learn. Maybe I'm being too stubborn, inflexible and narrow-minded, Maybe I'm naive and inexperienced, foolish, immature, and rude. I just cannot understand my boss's point of view, and he cannot understand mine, and we just are so paralysed in arguing our individual cases that we neglect to come to a compromise, and then I get mowed over by his reprimand and end up sulking for the rest of the evening.

We just seem to be playing this cruel game that parodies a conflicting, melodramatic family-tragedy, and spins in a vicious cycle that cannot end, over and over again, each time in a new scenario, but always with the same frustrating conclusion.

Should I just walk out and never return? When will that time come?