Work Frustration

My department, or maybe it's my company or the entire corporate world seems to neither reward hardwork nor punish failure. It drags all employees into the middle, it demands mediocrity and that's exactly what it gets. I got my performance evaluation this year. I rated myself as outstanding (five out of five) and wrote long, serious evaluations of all the hard work I do. My comments from my supervisers were extremely positive, in fact they were devoid of negatiivity. As far as their written evaluation is concerned, I have no room for improvement. But they rated me at 3 or 4 for every single category. The logic behind this, I've been told, is that they can't give you a perfect score, you won't try harder in the future. Exactly the opposite, I think, is the case. They have just told me that, no matter how hard I work, I will only do slightly better than the guy who is barely holding onto his job. I'm starting to feel the same kind of resentful, cynical malaise that happens to so many talented, ambitious young people here: that to try harder than the bare minimum is a waste of energy. Claire gave me very positive feedback face to face. She told me that I shouldn't give up applying out to the company, that I'm a great asset and she doesn't want to lsoe me, BUT "it would be a sin if someone with your talent and hardwork didn't advance in the company." She told me I don't belong working in the mailroom, that I'm, essentially, too good for that. BUT she didn't give me a decent raise, she didn't give me a promotion, a better title. She's willing to say anything to help me, but she won't do anything that would make a real difference in my life. She ahs to follow protocol, she can't promote me ahead of the barely sane, borderline retarded guys who've been struggling for twenty years at tasks I've mastered and have been teaching and reteaching to them for the past year. She's hedged in by rules that she herself created and could rewrite. Maybe I'm describing myself, or everyone.
I need a real job.