Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities • Hacker News Board

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#181

Post by nathias » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 6:51 AM UTC

scottLobster wrote: post #85

woodruffw wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm almost certain my pay is different from my colleagues, but I've bargained like hell to get it. When I was hired, every time we've been acquired. I'm no executive either, I'm just a developer with a proven history of give-a-damn. Whether or not pay discrepancies can be fair, this doesn't sound like a case of them being fair. What happens to your (hypothetical) colleague who gives just as much of a damn as you do…

I'd argue your first example is actually fair. Someone who has trouble negotiating in professional circles is going to have issues far beyond the workplace, if nothing else they're going to get repeatably screwed buying a car, and they should work on that. Why shouldn't the more aggressive, more strategic people earn more on average? I'd argue they give more of a damn by definition. The ability to project social forc…

do people like you believe their own lies?

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#182

Post by vehementi » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 6:52 AM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #82

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #18

> “ The anonymous document, reviewed by Bloomberg News, contains dozens of purported Blizzard salaries and pay bumps. Most of the raises are below 10%, significantly less than Blizzard employees said they expected following the study.” When oh when are midrange tech companies going to get their shit together with raises and bonuses. 10% should be mostly seen as a (shock) _normal_ raise when the company is doing well,…

^This. I've always had the philosophy that if you want to retain good employees, pay them more before they ask for more. If they have reached a point where they had to ask for more, they're probably going to leave soon. I don't understand how do companies fail to realize this. Say an engineer leaves because you didn't get him that 20% pay bump. Even in the highest ranks of engineering, that's like what a 100k? 30k-40…

They're betting, correctly I think, that most people won't actually bother quitting. So the costly scenario you're saying doesn't play out as much as you must think, and it's cheaper to let that happen occasionally and keep the rest underpaid

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#183

Post by timavr » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 6:54 AM UTC

donatj wrote: post #25

So possibly unpopular point of view here, maybe not on HN, but I think pay discrepancies can be entirely fair. I'm almost certain my pay is different from my colleagues, but I've bargained like hell to get it. When I was hired, every time we've been acquired. I'm no executive either, I'm just a developer with a proven history of give-a-damn. I think it's perfectly fair game in a job where it's hard to replace individ…

The problem with that approach as in any negotiation that in order to be successful, you need to put your job on the line every time you go to negotiate to have the maximum leverage. It is all fine and dandy if you win every time, but if you go and they don't budge and your stay, your leverage is basically gone.

People early in their careers have flexibility of moving around, but if you have mortgage, kids, family or need to take care of your parents, this strategy carries a lot of external costs.

For games speficaly it is nealry impossible to negotiate meaningfully because every postion is budgeted ahead of time, including salary increases. By that I mean if someone asks for 5% increase, they are basically negotiating against spreadsheet, not human across from them. The best one can do is to hit just under the cut-off line.

On top of that, employee providing different "value" to the company is just a myth, because if someone was literally providing value to multi billion company they would be paid millions. For most people their value is just replacement market value.

If people want a meaninful compensation in games, they have to be an executive or creating new revenue stream for the company.

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#184

Post by Gamemaster1379 » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:00 AM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #170

tptacek wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the other other thing, though: lawsuits are expensive. Employers settle them routinely. I've seen frivolous suits settled for real money, just to get them out of the way. Legal expense probably scares most employers a lot more than it scares former employees. Getting fired for sharing salary information is not high up on my list of concerns, in part for that reason.

On the other end there are companies that fight every lawsuit tooth and nail, even if it's more costly and they know they're going to lose because they don't want to get a reputation as easy pickings among employment lawyers.

100% confirm these exist. When I first came to California, I worked for a computer repair shop in Sacramento as my first gig with a "budding software division". Place was a bait and switch on what they had me doing. Market took a downturn just after I moved so I was stuck in the job. They pressured me into doing full on software architecture but paid me like an intern for it.

Eventually went from bad to worse. It was so stressful it caused a condition of mine to flair up. Long story short, I was vomiting blood and stomach acid on the daily in the mornings. Work from home would have accommodated me but they refused because the CEO was an asshole. He let others work from home as a "favor", but wouldn't meet medical needs.

After giving me more than one death threat, I finally quit and sued. Pro bono, of course, since I had no money.

They hired the most expensive defense firm in California to take the case over what would have been a $5-$10k settlement. My lawyer was unbelievably startled by this, and immediately dropped the case after.

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#185

Post by danShumway » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:02 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #31

donatj wrote: post #25

So possibly unpopular point of view here, maybe not on HN, but I think pay discrepancies can be entirely fair. I'm almost certain my pay is different from my colleagues, but I've bargained like hell to get it. When I was hired, every time we've been acquired. I'm no executive either, I'm just a developer with a proven history of give-a-damn. I think it's perfectly fair game in a job where it's hard to replace individ…

I don’t see any reason to think that all engineers contribute the same amount of value (and therefore paying different amounts is entirely reasonable). Thought experiment: if you were going to form a startup and needed two other engineers, would you know across your history which ones to pick from and which ones to avoid?

> and therefore paying different amounts is entirely reasonable

Then the engineers sharing their salaries with each other should also be reasonable. If anyone complains about the discrepancy, you can point out that the engineers being paid more are more talented.

Extending off of your thought experiment. If you were going to form a startup, and you believed that pay discrepancies corresponded to value, wouldn't you want interviewees to be extremely open about their previous salaries and their salary comparisons within previous companies? That would make it even easier for you to find the engineers who were the most talented. We already ask interviewees where they've worked -- would you feel comfortable asking them "how much money did you make in comparison to your coworkers?"

---

My feeling here is that companies want to hide salaries for the same reason my car mechanic would prefer me not to discuss my bill with any other customers. In an open market, discrepancies in knowledge about market rates favor the people with more knowledge; in this case, the companies. Companies are smart, not stupid; they understand how the market works. They're hiding salaries because that gives them an advantage when trying to drive down the price of engineers.

Whether or not pay discrepancies can be justified is kind of a false conflict. Regardless of whether or not pay discrepancies are a good idea -- in a free market, the prices should be transparent so that companies are forced to compete on honest terms for employees.

A generally applicable question that I've found applies to a number of situations beyond just this one: if a thing is good, then why do we need to hide it or force people to accept it?

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#186

Post by vincnetas » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:05 AM UTC

asciident wrote: post #109

caymanjim wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sadly your pay has little to do with merit, and more to do with perception, connections, face time and ability to handle office issues better than your cohort. These are merits. They mean you're easy to work with, people want to work with you, you know how to make and maintain important relationships. You'd make a good leader. You can recruit talented people. You can get preferential treatment from vendors. Your pr…

All the things the OP listed are real merits. It's not even a game, but being a professional. Perception = you are good at communicating your work to others Connections = you have a strong network and stay informed and know who to talk to for different tasks Face time = you are easy to get along with Ability to handle office issues = you are a lubricant that make the group dynamic work If you don't do those things, t…

Yes but if you can do all these things minus coding, and your product is software this means that someone has to do the coding, and you are paid to convince (organize) these coders to do it for less, because the rest goes to you. By coding i mean software development in general.

And saying that if no one knows about you you should be paid less is so false. Because, everyone will know about you when you leave and things stop working. Im not talking about single point of failure. But say all non communicating developers are gone from software company one day, id say company would feel that.

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#187

Post by gnaritas » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:08 AM UTC

xpe wrote: post #97

rosywoozlechan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't benefit top earners to share salary information. If I'm making more money than everyone else and the consequences of sharing salaries is equity than it is in my rational self-interest to keep my salary hidden because I'm unlikely to get any kind of raise until equity is achieved whereas I may continue to get raises otherwise. You know what those top earners are going to do then? Quit. And then you end up w…

> They're not distributing welfare checks, they're a business. This is a false dichotomy. I see this kind of language frequently in discussions. In my experience, it does not tend to invite more thinking. On the contrary, it tends to polarize and discourage discussion of other options. So, please, let's move away from overly simplistic arguments. So instead of false dichotomy, let's explore a range of options. Consid…

> The goal is to maximize company success and overall employee satisfaction.

That's two goals which might require different values of X, and while the owner/CEO might agree with making company success a priority, he's not likely to make employee satisfaction his goal and it's his company. Unless it's a co-op, employee satisfaction is likely not a realistic goal. The goal is making the owners the most money, not providing enjoyable jobs to employees. Production of jobs is a side effect of trying to make money, which the goal.

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#188

Post by Xelbair » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:11 AM UTC

oefrha wrote: post #177

kalleboo wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least company scrip was used to buy food/normal goods, albeit at a large markup. "Blizzard bucks" sound completely useless unless you're really into games

Since you can trade WOW (and many other MMOs’) items for real world cash, I wouldn’t call Blizzard bucks useless. In fact I’ve heard people playing WoW for a living... Basically, say Blizzard compensates you $20k in Blizzard bucks, and you auction off $20k worth of items at a reduced rate, you end up taking $20k * discount rate from Blizzard’s revenue, roughly speaking.

>Since you can trade WOW (and many other MMOs’) items for real world cash, I wouldn’t call Blizzard bucks useless. In fact I’ve heard people playing WoW for a living...

You cannot do that, ToS forbids that, and if you were caught i expect that consequences would be harsher than just a ban.

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#189

Post by QuesnayJr » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:22 AM UTC

Mandatum wrote: post #128

masayune wrote: post #116

Back when I worked there, they had something called "Blizzard Bucks" to "supplement" your salary. Basically "Blizzard Bucks" was Monopoly money we could use to buy their microtransactions and WoW game-time. In reality, you made approx. $30-40k sans OT, but they would always calculate your "salary" at $50-60k because of all the "Blizzard Bucks" and claim your salary was industry best. The best part was, and they would…

That is possibly the most exploitative form of compensation I've heard of in the Western world.

It's like a plot point in a satirical novel about the games industry.

Re: Blizzard workers share salaries in revolt over wage disparities

#190

Post by sytelus » Tue, Aug 04, 2020, 7:47 AM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #166

sytelus wrote: post #105

Unpopular opinion: For big companies, if you take all of the exec pay (C suits) and give it out to rest of the employees, the average employee income only rises by 3-5%. While CXX packages are extra-ordinary, one has to understand that its often drop in the bucket for big balance sheets and even less relevant when you have couple of hundreds of thousand employees around. So the metric of disparity we should use is no…

If I embezzle $10,000,000 from a giant company like GE, its also a drop in the bucket on their balance sheet. But that doesn’t make it right. American public company executives are grossly overpaid, and there’s been numerous studies proving this. Both historically in the US (exec pay has ballooned here since the 1980s) and currently in most other developed countries, companies with lower exec compensation don’t show…

If you are responsible and accountable for $5B revenues and associated decisions, won’t you agree you deserve 0.5% of that revenue? This is generally accepted reasonable management fees for things like index funds. Your credit card company or your iOS platform or Uber takes much bigger cuts.