I don't get why this is a taboo. I tell my salary to everyone who cares to listen, to the point where an employer threatened to fire me if I told my coworkers about my raise.
My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary
81–86 of 86 posts
Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is interesting. Did you disclose your salary to your coworkers, and if you did, did that effect your relationship with your coworkers?
All three of my managers know my salary (of course). Apart from that, people with whom I am close with know my salary and I know theirs. Mine is the lowest even though one of my friend is IC1 and I am IC2, others are senior to me. Some of them tell me to talk to the manager for my salary. My priority is learning, so it doesn't bother me much. But I did talk to the manager (and her manager's manager too), because if y…
From an office scenario, having a coworker knowing your salary is very different to having a close friend knowing your salary. This is especially true if the average salary of your peers makes it difficult to have a comfortable lifestyle. Luckily for the most of the HN crowd, this is not the case.
Salary is something I have an open discussion with my manager about, actually my manager encourage this type of discussion with him. This is a healthy practice.
Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
All three of my managers know my salary (of course). Apart from that, people with whom I am close with know my salary and I know theirs. Mine is the lowest even though one of my friend is IC1 and I am IC2, others are senior to me. Some of them tell me to talk to the manager for my salary. My priority is learning, so it doesn't bother me much. But I did talk to the manager (and her manager's manager too), because if y…
From an office scenario, having a coworker knowing your salary is very different to having a close friend knowing your salary. This is especially true if the average salary of your peers makes it difficult to have a comfortable lifestyle. Luckily for the most of the HN crowd, this is not the case. Salary is something I have an open discussion with my manager about, actually my manager encourage this type of discussio…
Oh maybe I wasn't clear, I was referring to people I am close with at work and in the same team know my salary.
My salary is comfortably above market's average hence doesn't bother me much that I have the lowest in my team.
Agreed, totally healthy.
Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a transparent salary environment, the management is incentivized to pay everyone based on their socially perceived value, to avoid the "OMG Susie gets paid 40% more than I do for the same job," even if Susie is actually 40% more valuable than you are. Which means management is incentivized to probably pay mediocre employees a little more, and stand-out employees less than they could have otherwise earned.
Ok, but wouldn't catering to that OMG crowd be a little self-defeating? Why not just hire adults?
That is adults. Many people I've met that are bad at their job don't know that they're bad at their job. And the truly talented folks are going to be demotivated somewhat when they're being compensated for their 4x work the same as someone producing 0.8x.
Unionizing creative industries (I'm including most of software development here, as it's what I do) would serve to put a big safety blanket around the tons of mediocre talent there is out there, makes it harder to fire poor talent, and make all of our overhead higher (i.e. software costs more or profit margins are much smaller, both a bad thing for bootstrapping new products) without much overall boost to productivity or talent in the industry.
Mediocre/poor talent wins, everyone else loses. Doesn't sound particularly attractive from either side of the coin.
Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary
#85What about people with very large paychecks? I don't want to make my friends uncomfortable when they realize I make literally an extra zero at the end of what they make. Should I keep my mouth shut or disclose... for their sake?
Maybe your heart is telling you that you shouldn't be spending an extra 0 on yourself than your peers. If you acknowledge your incredible luck, and that there is diminishing marginal return in lavishly rewarding yourself for our efforts, and you invest the excess in meaningful projects that improve the lot of the world....
Your comment doesn't make much sense. I put most of my money into a savings account as I'm saving up for a house. I don't live a very frivolous lifestyle, if that's what you mean.
However, I emigrated from Iceland to the UK, and some of the people I left behind do not have the luxury of doing the same, as they have families or relationships back home.
How would it be fair of me to disclose my salary, just to show them what they can't have? Most people know I make good money, but maybe not exactly how much, and I try not to boast as I feel that is rude.
Constantly going around telling people about my salary would probably not be well received, even if it was "in the interest of transparency of fairness"...
Edit: I do not acknowledge it as luck, I worked my ass off to get where I am today!
Re: My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary
#86I've come to realize lately that I have absolutely no idea what I should be making. I know what I make and I know what I have made in the past, but I have no idea whether it's above or below average. The only way I can think of to determine my value is to go interview in a bunch of places and see what they offer. However, I have no interest in leaving my job right now, and I feel like it's dishonest to go through the…
My problem is that glassdoor has information for my specific position, in my city, in my company but it's double what I currently make. I don't think I'm that underpaid but the taboo of employees not discussing salary leaves me without any real idea of where I really should be. I know for a fact I make more money in one quarter for the company than I earn in an entire year. I still asked for at least 20% more and am awaiting a response. Also applying for other positions.
The only big increases I've ever gotten were by switching companies or bringing a competing offer to my boss. People say the latter is career suicide but they are wrong.