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My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary

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Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary

#21

Post by ajdlinux »

dennish00a wrote: post #9

I find it interesting to read about this "taboo" because, as a scientist at a public university, the issue is...nonexistent! If you are a scientist writing grant applications with other people (the norm), then you need to know their exact salaries in order to fill out the application. This includes the salaries of people above and below you in the food chain. There is no mystery or taboo in it whatsoever. Working at…

Here in Australia, the majority of academics and university staff fall under union agreements with publicly available pay scales, so you can work out at least an approximate pay grade based on minimal information about the people involved. I also happen to live in the capital, where about a third of the working population is employed by the federal government, the vast majority of whom are covered by union agreements on standard pay scales. It's fairly normal to talk openly about being an "APS5" or an "APS6" knowing that many people around here wouldn't even need to look up the pay scales to know your salary from that.

I get the impression though that in general Australia has a fairly similar level of taboo-ness about salaries as the US, it's not something you really talk about with co-workers.

Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary

#22

Post by teekert »

mgalka wrote: post #17
teekert wrote: post #8

>"Without that knowledge, I would never have known I was being suckered." Suckered by yourself you mean, and suckered by the people that never taught you the principles of a free market where the assumption is that when two parties agree, the situation is satisfactory for both. If not, there is no agreement, no deal. The other party was not suckering you, you were happy with the deal, you took it. Why do you put some…

Despite being a libertarian, I Disagree. The salary of her colleague is not intrinsic value, it is a market-determined value. And her skills are similar enough that the comparison is relevant. If we were talking about a different market, I would probably agree with you, but labor markets are different. One side has all the information and all the bargaining power. The company starts off knowing pretty well the typica…

I agree with her that the taboo is not helping in this situation, still it is her own responsibility to go to a job application while being well educated on what to expect and to know what you want. To simply accept anything they throw at you is naive at best. A typical hard-learned life lesson that you can't expect others to have your best interests at heart.

I also really don't believe that the taboo absolutely prevented her from getting any indication on what salary would be "reasonable", or average for her ability and age. Again, if people were more open it would have helped. I see this piece more like a lesson for others: There is a taboo but try to break it before you apply somewhere and feel suckered afterwards. The taboo also has some benefits, openness may create (absolutely unnecessary) feelings of inequality in groups of friend or among siblings. I have a friend that breaks this taboo constantly and he annoys me to no end (although there is a difference between informing upon asking and bragging of course).

Moreover, I am sure any of my friends would give me honest replies if I would ask them their salaries. Did she even try?

Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary

#23

Post by dmak »

hueving wrote: post #7
gamechangr wrote: post #2

>"Did the knowledge hurt my relationships with my coworkers? Yes. Of course it did. I felt cheated. I felt undervalued. I frankly felt I was the victim of a double standard."

She failed to negotiate when she was hired. Is that really a double standard?

She was saying that she was offered 35,000 less than the previous person for the same role. If she was truly valued, why was she not offered just as much if not more?

Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary

#24

Post by hebdo »

geon wrote: post #12
dennish00a wrote: post #9

I find it interesting to read about this "taboo" because, as a scientist at a public university, the issue is...nonexistent! If you are a scientist writing grant applications with other people (the norm), then you need to know their exact salaries in order to fill out the application. This includes the salaries of people above and below you in the food chain. There is no mystery or taboo in it whatsoever. Working at…

Here in Sweden, taxable income for everyone is bublicly available. I always find it amusing/sad to read about this taboo in the US.

What do you mean? Can every citizen learn how much taxes has anybody else paid, including the incomes of the people outside the public sector?

Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary

#26

Post by kirsebaer »

hebdo wrote: post #24
geon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Sweden, taxable income for everyone is bublicly available. I always find it amusing/sad to read about this taboo in the US.

What do you mean? Can every citizen learn how much taxes has anybody else paid, including the incomes of the people outside the public sector?

Yes, you look it up on a website.

Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary

#27

Post by bambax »

disillusioned wrote: post #6
roopeshv wrote: post #4

Read all that and I still have no clue what the author is making now.

She chickened out. But it's hard.

Yes it's hard, but if she can't do it she should not say anything, and spare the reader the pain of going through all her hesitations and second thoughts and whatnot. This is cheating.

Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary

#28

Post by kirsebaer »

lotharbot wrote: post #5

One of the reasons I like sites like glassdoor is that it separates the judgment from the data. I don't need to know that Alice makes 22% less than Bob, and Bob makes 18% less than Claire, and therefore make personal judgments about each of my coworkers (like Alice is a pushover; Bob is mediocre; Claire is bossy.) I just need to know what the distribution is, in my company or in my industry, in order to negotiate for…

Wouldn't it be better if A, B, C, and you joined together and hired some professional lawyers and negotiators to work on your behalf (ie organized labor, union)?

Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary

#29

Post by kabouseng »

pparkkin wrote: post #16
teekert wrote: post #8

>"Without that knowledge, I would never have known I was being suckered." Suckered by yourself you mean, and suckered by the people that never taught you the principles of a free market where the assumption is that when two parties agree, the situation is satisfactory for both. If not, there is no agreement, no deal. The other party was not suckering you, you were happy with the deal, you took it. Why do you put some…

I think what she's referring to is a situation of information asymmetry, which puts the employee in a position of less power in the negotiation. Of course it's up to you to negotiate for yourself. That's pretty obvious. But if the other party holds more power, you're negotiating at a disadvantage. And the way I understood the article, that is what she meant by being "suckered". Being put at a disadvantage when negoti…

What information assymmetry. Surely you can find out from your network what a typical salary for the position is. With sites like glassdoor you also can get a good indication of what you typically can expect. And by being savvy in the interview, you can find out of what value the position might be to the company and you can negotiate on those grounds.

Sometimes the employer is in a better position, sometimes the employee. Sometimes the employer needs to fill a position urgently, has got specialised requirements or the employee is gainfully employed somewhere else and in a much better bargaining position.

We really should stop playing the victim.

Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary

#30

Post by paulbaumgart »

kirsebaer wrote: post #28
lotharbot wrote: post #5

One of the reasons I like sites like glassdoor is that it separates the judgment from the data. I don't need to know that Alice makes 22% less than Bob, and Bob makes 18% less than Claire, and therefore make personal judgments about each of my coworkers (like Alice is a pushover; Bob is mediocre; Claire is bossy.) I just need to know what the distribution is, in my company or in my industry, in order to negotiate for…

Wouldn't it be better if A, B, C, and you joined together and hired some professional lawyers and negotiators to work on your behalf (ie organized labor, union)?

That sounds expensive.
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