Seniority

Seniority is the concept of a person or group being in charge or in command of another person or group. This control is often granted to the senior person(s) due to experience or length of service in a given position, but it is not uncommon for a senior person(s) to have less experience or length of service than their subordinates.

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More generally, "seniority" can be a description of an individual's experience or length of service, and can thus be used to differentiate between individuals of otherwise equivalent status without placing them in a hierarchy of direct authority. For example, in the United States Senate, the senator from each state with the longer tenure is known as the "senior senator" and carries some additional responsibilities to their state's constituents, but they are not formally dominant in any way over the junior senator (unless, for example, the senior senator is chair of a committee on which the junior senator serves).

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Subordinates are generally expected to follow the actions, orders, or requests of those senior to them with little or no question.

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Seniority is present in most common relationships, be it between parents and children, siblings of different ages, or workers and their managers. It plays a large part in military and paramilitary command structures.

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In certain cases, seniority (in the sense of the amount of time with an employer) may be the sole determining factor of pay, as with certain teachers or airline pilots.

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State: :This article discusses states as sovereign political entities. For other meanings, see state (disambiguation)....

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Chair: :For other uses of the term chair, please see chair (disambiguation)....