I might be missing something, but what's the difference between those two statements?
I suppose that given the first sentence, you could argue that the number of would-be quitters would be different if they learned their coworkers earned more money through means other than transparency laws, but I'm guessing that's not what you're alluding to.
> If they find out their co-workers are making more money to do the same job, they are likely to take action.
Here’s the rub: “same job”.
Sure, this is a reasonable attitude to take if it’s genuinely the same job and each worker is creating genuinely the same value.
But everywhere I’ve worked, comparable jobs are defined as graded job families, and it has been very obvious that there is a diverse range of work being done within a grade/job family, with individuals bringing a diverse range of experience, skills and performance.
For two individuals to have the “same job” is a rare thing in knowledge work.
Often the person doing a more complex or impactful job has a lower wage than a new junior coworker. This can happen with employees that have been at the company long, whose wages have stagnated. When a company hires new people at current market rates, those new people will have a higher wage, for what can be the same or 'easier' job.
Work assignment does not equal ability.
A phd can be assigned lowly management work, lets say tracking stuff, creating excel sheets and powerpoint presentations. That decision is made by the company and department.
Does that mean they should not be compensated for the skills they posess? Surely not.
Lets not even start with the metrics used to gauge someone's results. If they even exist, they are consistently useless.
Ability doesn't equal value to the company. If you have Einstein in and all he does is sweep your floors, you pay him a floor sweeper's wage. You pay for value.
Ability and opportunity also doesn't equal output - There are plenty of 'high ability' people that will do the bare minimum, and plenty of 'lower ability' people that will push, work hard and deliver more.
Agreed. Yet it seems insanely hard to measure output...
If the bare minimum gets the job done the same as the overachiever grinding as if their life depended on it, fair judgement would rate the output the same, right?
Absolutely, assuming the inputs were the same (ie that you don’t have to chase the ‘bare minimum employee and don’t have to give more support to the ‘grinding’ one).
Personally i’ll take the grinding person any day though, they tend to be much easier to manage.
No I agree, but if you hire Einstein for Physics lectures, but for whatever reason let him mop the floors, you still take into account his abilities.
Fellow floor moppers might say "Einstein mops slower and worse then me, I want more than his salary", but that would not attribute abilities and that it is not his first choice to mop floors, the company made that strange decision.
There is a ceiling - the company pays what it thinks it can get away with, you accept pay according to what you can get. It's almost never according to the monetary value you provide.
This is a reasonable attitude to take if workers are given credit and compensation based on unfair political factors, and in general, factors other than performance or special needs. It does not matter if the worker performs a task different from yours, so long as their wage is unfairly inflated so as to take away your share of the surplus of revenue.
Therefore, it seems beyond risky to say that knowledge work makes roles so vague and uncertain that people cannot know when they are being exploited. The pay gap between the C-suite and the main producers at a knowledge org is just as bad as at an org focused on physical production.
If after a moment's thought you still think that we cannot organize to reduce the pay of executive class because the executives do work different from ours, I encourage you to reflect more deeply on this. It's perfectly reasonable to demand that your bosses and seniors get paid more fairly, even though their job differs from yours.
If you're upset that one or more of your peers is earning more than you you'll probably ask for more. Then you'll decide whether or not to walk depending on what happens, where walking means taking your chances in the open market. Same as it ever was.
Back in socialist time, the government was the landlord for a huge percentage of that... they literally took peoples private houses away after WW2, and rented them out to people.
Only after the split of yugoslavia, they sold the taxpayer paid and built apartments to then-current renters for peanuts.
So.. basically the same as any other landlord in EU now? You signed a contract, and while it lasted, if you paid, they couldn't throw you out for the duration of the contract.
vastly different. you pay off your apartment as you work. the apartment is owned by the state corporation you work for. the corporation has very little power to let you go. its more like a very favourable home loan
You do, if you buy the apartment and get a loan/mortgage. If you're renting from the government, you're just renting... you didn't become an owner of the apartment here, until the end of socialism, a new capitalist government, and politicians not wanting to deal with the upkeep of those buildings.
Before 1991, you were renting as you are renting now in any other (capitalist) country (although with proper rules and protections.. so like in eg. austria, germany, etc). You didn't get to keep it.
you keep repeating yourself without providing any sources. here is a quote from scholarly article on the topic that counters what you are saying. Pay attention to the final sentence
Yugoslavia’s blue-collar workers were less likely to receive a socially owned flat than white-collar and skilled workers who were systemically favoured in the allocation process (Živković 1968; Bobić and Vujović 1985; Petrović 2004; Le Normand 2012; Archer 2016). Housing allocation thus forged novel social inequalities, a phenomenon observed by scholars in other state-socialist contexts (Szelenyi 1983; Bodnár and Böröcz 1998; Kulu 2003; Pelikánová 2012; Fehérváry 2013, 74–75; Gentile and Sjöberg 2013; Harris 2013, 112; Dalakoglou 2017, 137). In contrast to capitalist societies where wealthier strata were more likely to own their own home, in socialist states like Yugoslavia white-collar employees and managers were significantly less likely to own property than poorer workers, instead enjoying the more prestigious use of a socially owned flat. This was arguably more advantageous than property ownership as socially owned flats ‘ … were acquired without incurring personal costs, while in terms of their use, inheritance and even trading there were practically no differences between the holders of tenancy rights to state/socially owned housing and private owners’ (Petrović 2004, 270).
- Archer, Roy: The moral economy of home construction in late socialist Yugoslavia
so, in terms of use, inheritance, and trading rights it was legally equivalent to owning a house. this is not surprising since yugoslavia had a radically different legal structure about property rights. this is also why people living in those flats could buy it for peanuts when the system collapsed. it certainly wasn't the case that the new government was feeling super generous
tldr. social housing in yugoslavia was government owned in a very weak sense of the word
> were acquired without incurring personal costs, while in terms of their use, inheritance and even trading there were practically no differences between the holders of tenancy rights to state/socially owned housing and private owners’ (Petrović 2004, 270).
I have no idea where the author got this... this was maybe(!) true for very high ranking party members, but for normal people, there was no inheritance and trading, and the use was the same as with any other rental apartment. Also maybe only in what was left of yugoslavia in 1991 and then turned into 'serbia and montenegro'. If you died, the apartment went back to the state. To trade it (move elsewhere) you needed a good reason (usually, more kids or more rarely a new job).
I was born in yugoslavia and lived here/there until the fail, and now still live in the same city, just in a new country. My parents got a social apartment, I got born and they got another apartment and moved (1->2 bedroom apartment). They couldn't get a bigger one before, because 2 people meant 1 bedroom apartment, 3 people, two bedroom one. They couldn't even choose the floor (noone wanted the ground level or top level ones). No trading, no inheritance, no ownership until 1991 and the jazbinsek law, where every renter could buy off the apartment from the government.
so i know also from personal experience that inheritance existed. when my grandfather (certainly not some high ranking party member) passed away in the mid 80s the rights to the apartment went to my grandmother. she was in retirement at the time. my uncle also lived with her at the time. he was a university student. besides having this social apartment my grandfather and my grandmother also built a house in a village near by. when the system collapsed and after the war there was a buy program similar to what you describe and she was able to purchase the apartment
you said that once the owner dies the dwelling goes back to the state. in fact i dont know of any case of a family being kicked out of home after the principal holder died
In my country (slovenia, former yugoslavia) owning homes destroyed the housing market in the long run...
The government owned a huge percentage of homes and rented them out to people who needed them, and moved them around too (if they got a kid, they got a larger apartment).
Then after the breakup, the government didn't want to deal with that, and sold all those apartments to renters living there for peanuts.. so 'everybody' got a home, and in the meantime stopped the communist-style buildings. .. then nimbyism, and yeah.. same as everywhere.
Now the "boomers" have apartments and young people can't buy them, because we don't build stuff anymore. When a boomer dies, their kids inherit and lease it out, because selling it is pointless due to ever rising prices (again, nobody builds anything anymore... nimbyism and all that)
If the government kept the apartments, when a boomer died, someone else would get to rent it at the government-non-profit-rate, but nope... whole country paid for building those apartments, some people got lucky to keep them, and the others could fuck off.
Also, building a private house back then was easier.. you could basically build, and then deal with all the pesky stuff, such as permits and legalization... now, you can't build a dog house without building/construction inspectors there. On one hand, we now have improper owner-build buildings in inapropriate places... on the other hand, atleast those people got a house, which is impossible now.
Also, building a house isn't even so expensive here... especially if you do a lot of stuff alone... but just the project/permit costs are higher than the bricks and concrete, and buying a piece of land where you're actually permitted to build is impossible... but we do have literal fields in the prime locations of our capital - https://goo.gl/maps/YeoJMMGN2QhtZDLs8 (just rotate the view around to see what's next to that)
tldr: in socialist time, everybody was renting from the government, in capitalist time, those apartments were sold for peanuts to renters (and the rest of the taxpayers, who didn't get apartments, got fucked)
boomers is a largely american concept. i doubt eastern european people of same generation can be called boomers: having lived in a completely different system.
anyway you seem to say that owning houses resulted in a problem of not owning houses? seems to me a more simple explanation would be that slovenia became a capitalist society, and for-profit housing doesnt quite accomodate as many people as the socialist one. this is a problem that is faced in every capitalist country atm
and you seem to be misrepresenting what happened in former yugoslavia. basically it was not the government that gave you housing, but the state-owned corporation you worked for. and it wasnt for-rent, but to pay off as you work. which is WHY so many people were able to buy it for peanuts when the system collapsed. also to say it was the government is to grossly overestimate the centrality of the socialist yugoslav government. they simply were not that powerful
There was a (after war) baby boom here too. We didn't call them by that name, but there was a huge population rise in the late 40s and 50s.
In yugoslavia, you didn't own an apartment, but you rented it (from the government)... so almost noone had more than one apartment, noone had a too-large apartment, and if you got a job in trbovlje the government would get you an apartment in trbovlje (a city in the middle of nowehere). If you died, the apartment went back to the "pool", and someone else could get it. If you got a kid, you got a bigger apartment, and someone else got the smaller one.
But still, nobody owned those apartments, they just rented them.
The high ownership (the colored map from a post above) came only after they sold all those apartments to renters, and people started hoarding them, because they got them for very cheap and the prices could only go up. For "normal people" it would be better to have lower ownership and more renting from the government (if it was handled properly by the government.. a big if).. but then the colored would show different ownage percentages.
The biggest problem now is, that you're not allowed to build anymore, due to regulations and a lack of buildable land (in a legal sense... there is a lot of land, but the government doesn't allow building there, also in A LOT of areas, you can build a two apartment two story building max, instead of large apartment buildings that we need). "Back then", the government decided they needed more apartments, they took a piece of land and started building.. didn't matter if it was a pasture [0], a field, what the neighbors though (again, government buildings next door), they just built.
Now we have areas where we could build [1], but the government doesn't allow it... sometimes, if you're friendly with the mayor, you buy a farmland somewhere, and it suddenly becomes buildable, but this isn't true for "normal people". It seems a lot of people have invested interests to keep realestate prices high, and those people are in positions of power and can decide where we can or cannot build.
You didn't pay it off, the government (who also owned the corporation) was the owner of it. You could build your own house and own it though, but not the "social" apartments.
The option to buy the apartments from the government came only after the fall of socialism in 1991 (jazbinskov zakon/law)
> actually the apartments were reletively very good quality, and often buildings were made as part of a grander urban project
yes, the apartments were well built, but the aging reinforced concrete will be problematic very soon.
None of what you described is a consequence of capitalism and all a consequence or stupid government policies. Capitalism didn't force them to sell those properties for peanuts, nor did capitalism force onerous regulations to be put in place to prevent the market from building new supply after government messed up the situation.
Housing and public transport are among the success stories of the Soviet Union. At least until the early 1970s, after that there was a lot of stagnation and decline.
How does that affect the argument that a society of plenty does not exist and therefore we have the problem that we need economic growth? A good way to get economic growth ... is to pay for it. We can argue about excesses, but not about the basic premise.
In any real-world application of socialism I've seen, it is indeed the government deciding how much one is given. I can't think of any implementation where the government asks the citizen how large of a slice of the pie they'd like.
I'm happy to be proved wrong, and maybe someday there'll be a successful communist state, but until then I look to history.
This is pretty much how it works in the military, except it's because you are single you don't need to get paid as much as people who are married, but since you're not married you also have plenty of time to stay later and do all the bullshit details. Oh, also if you're an E-5 or below you don't need to have your own home with real amenities like a stovetop.
In case you were wondering why there's so much marriage and divorce in the military...
You marry for the benefits, you divorce because of the rampant adultery and loneliness. Every military couple I have known has divorced, and in each case it was adultery that lead to that. On either side of the marriage.
I never went into the armed forces, but I had considered the US NAVY even got my ASVAB and was told I would be assigned Navy Nuke, but on the drive home from the processing facility, the recruiter was bragging about all the sex I would be having around the world. He was saying that knowing that I was in a long term relationship. That really put me off joining.
What’s even more strange is people trust the military to be loyal, but the amount of cheating relative to the general population in my opinion literally creates a culture that values cheats. To be fair, not aware of any military that’s managed to avoid the pattern and would honestly be curious to know of how any have avoided it.
I've only known a single officer, but she said it was a lot less prevalent amongst officers than enlisted, still happens (she was in fact having an extramarital affair at the time - I found out later), but it is probably closer to the real world average. Maybe there is less need to marry before you are ready as an officer.
The military trains you to be loyal to your comrades, not your spouse, but in my experience the person cheating in the relationship is usually the spouse of the service member, not the service member.
Recruiters talking about getting laid a ton is probably because the primary recruiting demographic is young single men, and they will say just about anything to get people to sign contracts.
Military in my experience is ruthlessly about self preservation - which is not in my opinion about loyalty, but about survival career wise and on the battlefield.
What sort of experience do you have with the military?
As someone who has served in the U.S. military, loyalty is absolutely drilled into you; it's integral to battle readiness, which is ultimately the military's goal. They instill the value of loyalty as far as it serves to make soldiers that are willing to fight and die for each other and for their country.
That doesn't extend to any and everything, but I don't think any of your arguments that the military creates a culture of cheating are substantiated. The military actually creates disincentives from cheating that do not exist in the civilian world with the UCMJ.
Loyalty would not require enlistment contracts that generally last eight years as an active duty member, a reservist, or individual ready reservist — which if broken might result in jail time. Just imagine how “loyal” employees, marriages, etc would be if there only choice was to sign similar contracts.
As for the battlefield, there is not duty to country, only those you’re in direct line of command with. Better hope they never break the law, since if they do, you report them, you will end up dead if you’re in active combat.
The “drilling” you referred to is more comparable to brain washing than loyalty bound to reasoning.
Yes, loyalty is an idle frequently never found, but to call someone loyal because they signed a contract or because they know what will happen if the report those willfully breaking the law, to me is not loyalty.
In US, military within recent past had to literally and repeatedly remind all the military that their duty was to the country, not an idealogy or person — which would not have been done if the military truly was loyal, trusted itself, etc.
I'll take this response as a "No, I've never served in the military." You've also not substantiated your claims about how the military cultivates a culture of 'cheating.' At least give an example of what loyalty means to you, because it's certainly not going along with the actual definition of it, which does not require any sort of just cause or rational thought attached to it.
> The “drilling” you referred to is more comparable to brain washing than loyalty bound to reasoning.
Yes, and? It's training soldiers to be loyal to each other and to their superiors which are both important factors in battle readiness. You need to be able to follow orders in extreme situations and you need to have each other's back. This is taught to all SMs going through any training in practically any military in the world.
> Yes, loyalty is an [ideal] frequently never found, but to call someone loyal because they signed a contract or because they know what will happen if the report those willfully breaking the law, to me is not loyalty.
There's a thing called "unlawful orders" in the military. If a superior officer/NCO issues one, it is your duty to disobey it. This is easier said than done, of course. In either case, this is tangential to my point. What even is loyalty to you?
How else might you explain such a significant difference in rate of cheating beyond it being part of the culture? Beyond that, under UCMJ adultery is a crime, even if retired, yet what percentage of active duty and veterans are charged? How frequently are those aware of adultery in military subject to UCMJ actions?
> To me, loyalty to reasoning regardless of outcome.
You cannot use the word you're defining inside the definition of it. In my best effort to interpret what you mean, I'd assume you mean that people only be loyal to reason? That's a fine ideal to have but it's got nothing to do with loyalty, which has to do with a person's consistent allegiance towards something. A person can be loyal to one thing and not loyal to another.
> How else might you explain such a significant difference in rate of cheating beyond it being part of the culture?
You would explain it as they do in the paper you linked, which is that there are many extenuating circumstances surrounding veteran marriages that make it more vulnerable to higher rates of adultery. That the cheating is a reflection of the self selecting population that trends towards joining the military rather than the military (the institution) doing anything to encourage that behavior. But it also carries several caveats, like how the results of their analyses cannot be generalized towards the current veteran population, which is significantly different from their data, which dates back to 1992.
>> You cannot use the word you're defining inside the definition of it.
Reasoning to me is a belief, as such, it’s possible to be loyal or for that matter, non-loyal to reasoning. For example, beliefs of religious fundamentalists in my opinion are based on the word of god, not reasoning. Further, even when it would be easier to bend my reasoning to fit narrative that’s better for myself, I strive to reason objectively regardless of its impact on myself. To me, that’s loyalty that’s not born of force, manipulative tactics, and is a valid example of loyalty without error. In the not to distant past, people were killed for their belief in reasoning over the word of god, even today it still happens.
>> That the cheating is a reflection of the self selecting population that trends towards joining the military rather than the military (the institution) doing anything to encourage that behavior.
Taken to an extreme, top level military personnel cheating is potentially national security threat and even at enlisted level, systemic amounts of adultery, given it’s a crime under UCMJ, create an environment that’s only likely to produce similar illegal behavior and culture of covertly enabling it.
As I said in my original comment, in my experience these issues are common among all militaries, and I am not aware of a solution. That said, in my opinion, it is an issue, like the increased levels of suicide within military that if addressed would have a significant impact on a military being more fit for combat that those who have been unable to address these issues.
> Reasoning to me is a belief, as such, it’s possible to be loyal or for that matter, non-loyal to reasoning. For example, beliefs of religious fundamentalists in my opinion are based on the word of god, not reasoning. Further, even when it would be easier to bend my reasoning to fit narrative that’s better for myself, I strive to reason objectively regardless of its impact on myself. To me, that’s loyalty that’s not born of force, manipulative tactics, and is a valid example of loyalty without error. In the not to distant past, people were killed for their belief in reasoning over the word of god, even today it still happens.
You being "loyal to reason" is just describing your values and has nothing to do with loyalty. You can't redefine the word just because you want to say that the military is full of disloyal people.
> As I said in my original comment, in my experience these issues are common among all militaries, and I am not aware of a solution.
What experience are you speaking of? You don't seem to have any experience that's at all related to these issues; at least you've not shared any.
> That said, in my opinion, it is an issue, like the increased levels of suicide within military that if addressed would have a significant impact on a military being more fit for combat that those who have been unable to address these issues.
They are addressed in the U.S. military. Suicide prevention programs and Mental Health programs are very big things in the U.S. military. I also would not describe it as a "culture of suicide" just because it occurs at a higher rate.
If I had a dollar for every enlisted guy I knew who got married to get the extra $1000-2500[a] a month and permission to live off base (unmarried enlisted E-4 and below live in barracks, married enlisted get a housing allowance and live off base, or get private on-base housing in lieu of the housing allowance)...
...and then got divorced a few years later because he got married for the wrong reasons, well, I'd have a few more dollars.
[a]Housing allowances vary based on location and rank.
I understand the words, but not the meaning, sorry! Can you elaborate on what you mean? Like for example, companies outsource to third world countries all the time due to lower pay, how is that not based on location?
This is all a distinction without a difference. Salaries follow the labor market, which follows the cost of living. The cost of living is different in different places, because of differences in the labor market (demand side) or because of geographical reasons (supply side).
It's not, because "location-based" pay will change if the market price of labour at that location changes. Location is a proxy variable; a distinction which makes all the difference, see for example, Detroit
Salaries don't just (or even) follow the labour market or the cost of living. They are upper bounded by the value an employer assigns a role, and lower bounded by the price an employee is willing to accept to do a role.
Within those two bounds, labour markets can play, but the cost of living going up doesn't automatically make more salary money available.
Right but it's sold to employees as based on cost of living, quite a few remote companies do this for example to have flat rate salary bands but still pay less based on location. For example:
We could of course quibble about market rate and so on but that shouldn't be locally based in a global marketplace. The fact that a software shop down the road from me pays peanuts when I'm looking for work with companies in other countries that otherwise pay their staff very well isn't important IMO and IME.
> The fact that a software shop down the road from me pays peanuts when I'm looking for work with companies in other countries that otherwise pay their staff very well isn't important IMO and IME.
Of course it's important. It means you will, all other things being equal, go for the employer that pays the best rate. And that will drag your local wage up, or it might cause the local shop to close down because they can't pay well enough.
In general I keep seeing people very much like being paid a good salary, but not understanding the one thing that puts their salary high (or low): competition from other employers, and from other employees. Other employees lower it; other employers raise it. The fact that employers think they don't have to pay SF salaries globally is the same mechanism that created SF salaries in the first place.
Our managing director had some thoughts of this kind when we all gone remote and travel was no longer required. Needless to say the idea got shot down very quickly,but I'm sure there are plenty of of companies where these things more than float.
I had this discussion as a boss and in favor of offering extra benefits with someone with kids with the same role and experience of someone without them.
Interesting to discuss it further here in HN. I argue that at the same professional level it is not the same to have a full family that being solo.
You may not know if a single person is supporting a relative or a grandma with cancer. Nor should you. It’s a flawed argument and pay should be for performance.
This doesn’t meant that there shouldn’t be accommodations to everyone’s needs. But those are not tied to pay.
> You may not know if a single person is supporting a relative or a grandma with cancer. Nor should you.
I see this as the core of the argument - paying people based on their needs requires you to invade their privacy in order to find out their needs. And not wanting your employer to invade your privacy would mean getting some baseline low pay because "you don't have any needs".
I think the core of the argument is that prices are not a function of the seller’s wants or needs.
If I go to the grocery store, I do not pay more for an apple from a farm owned by a family that has a sick grandma than from a farm owned by a family that does not have a sick grandma.
> You may not know if a single person is supporting a relative or a grandma with cancer.
In my role I know that and would also support that case as special.
This kind of thinking varies depending of where you live (at lease for most people and less for remote workers). My takeaway is: if you live in a country/state where this help is "embedded" within the system we can focus more in salary equivalence for the same job responsabilities but if you live in a place that put this pressure on the organization side the organization could have the awareness to take care of these issues. In HN we have people from all around the world and with different democratic and non-democratic systems.
How would you? Are you running an intelligence agency and it's part of your job as a boss to constantly monitor your employees?
I don't see how the location matters, really. A single person might need more money because they want to save up to start a family. Now you factor that in, and you pay them more, but they never find the right partner and don't start a family. Are you now going to ask them to return the money?
I'm a terrible example, but if you offered me to work the same (or, let's face it, often more) than someone for less money because they're married with children, I'd rather work somewhere where I'm not a second class citizen.
> How would you? Are you running an intelligence agency and it's part of your job as a boss to constantly monitor your employees?
No, I live in a culture where this matters arise. There are many discussions in this thread based on culture experience. I see for example privacy discussions, in some cultures/countries privacy is a must but at the same time contradictory with the private information that is flowing unregulated in multiple organizations.
So you wouldn't "know", you just assume that they'd be open about it and told you. But if they weren't (for a multitude of reasons), you'd make assumptions about their needs.
It seems like it's not the needs that matter, it's your assumptions about them.
This comment has few small typos that make it hard to understand.
But in the US, if an employer offers subsidized health/dental/vision insurance for partners/dependents, then the employer is already offering extra benefits to someone with spouse/kids.
In Germany, public officials ("Beamte") are paid a bonus depending on (a) their marital status, (b) the number of kids they have and (c) whether their spouse is also a public official (you get less then to avoid receiving the children bonus 2 times).
This has multiple reason: one feels a bit ancient as the states basically want their "Beamte" to live in an "orderly" family situation and thus encourage marriage and children.
However, AFAIK, a major reason is to counter a disadvantage "Beamte" have regarding health care insurance. For historical reasons, they are not part of the public welfare system (or rather, they are in a different, older one). The state pays half of their medical expenses (if you are part of the public health care system as a "normal" employee, your employer pays half of the health care insurance). To cover the remaining 50%, Beamte need a private health care insurance. In the public health care system, your children and non-working spouse can be added to your health care insurance for free. With a private insurance, that is not possible - you have to pay for an additional insurance for each kid, and your spouse if he/she is not working.
Thanks to productivity gains in the last 100 years, that's not a problem. We have a solid amount of people not working, we don't have a shortage of workers in general, we're lacking high skill workers, and workers who are willing to do shitty jobs. We can solve the high skill issue with education, and the latter with better wages for e.g. elderly care and nursing.
> Thanks to this attitude birth rates have collapsed in most of developed world and we have 2 pensioners for every child.
Rather thank the politicians who sold you a pyramid scheme as a pension system.
> Between this and climate catastrophy,
If you argue with climate catastrophe, you should rather argue for decreasing the number of people (which includes avoiding having children) to decrease the CO2 footprint.
Reducing the population by having a low birth rate is good. But mathematically it cannot be so forever. To maintain a non-decreasing population you need 2 children per woman on average, doesn't matter if your country has 10^4 or 10^8 people.
Immigration is only a temporary solution, it may not be a reliable solution by the end of the century. Global birth rates are falling and QoL is slowly improving, reducing the incentive to immigrate.
So the government should redistribute wealth via taxes to incentivize having kids. Why would an individual employer be expected to take on that burden? Not to mention the arbitrage opportunities it opens up.
Because you want society to exist, and keep existing. More concretely: you want to have people around you until you die, and it'd be kind of immoral to demand they kill themselves when you kick the bucket. So they will want people around until they die. And so on and so forth.
TLDR: you want children to exist now.
And that's ignoring how our society works, because the way pensions work you want about 4 times as many children as old people. That's a lot of kids we haven't had, but the alternative to that is way more taxes. Clearly we don't want way more taxes, so 4 times as many kids it is. Except we're not doing that either, and ... uh ... I guess we're hoping God will save us?
TLDR: you want children to exist now. And, actually, you should want the number of kids to roughly double from what we have now (in the US, in Europe, a minimum of 4x is needed)
You need to pay people to meet their basic needs. I know that some don't think this way but it happens one way or another. If people can't get their basic needs met, they will eventually break.
I agree completely. If people cannot provide for themselves, the state should provide for them. I don't think it makes any sense for employers to be tasked with that, since all that does is provide a huge incentive for employers to discriminate against those who need more (and thus would cost more).
To incentivise performance, employers should pay based on performance. If an employee cannot perform well enough to provide for themselves or their family, the state should help.
None of this requires that employers directly decide pay based on whether you have a family. Requiring that results in the employer discriminating against parents and employees having a reduced incentive to produce.
How do you know? Maybe I have a gambling debt to the mob. If I do then I need that money MUCH more than the co-worker with multiple kids.
In both scenarios we put ourselves in that position.
Maybe I have a health problem, and live in the US.
Maybe I'm taking care of aging parents.
Maybe I have a crippling mortgage. Too big a house. Live downtown, etc… etc…
"You have no dependents and responsibilities so I'll pay you less" is basically age discrimination in addition to discrimination based on parental status. Both often illegal, and for good reason.
I think its obvious that not all needs are equal, but some in your list are legit, imo.
Taking care of elderly parents -> you probably should get more money
Health problem in the US -> you probably should get more money
Crippling mortgage. This one depends a bit. Does your job require you to work at a specific location, and the location has a high cost of living. Then yes, you should get more money.
Think of the "no dependents and responsibilities" as the base rate. And you get extra depending on your needs (as listed above).
If you think this really crazy, consider that in the US, all of these things are tax deductible. Which means that its already normalized for people with such needs get more money (in the sense of more after-tax money). So why would getting a salary bonus be so wrong?
Or at least that it should affect what your employer gives you.
It's straight up discrimination, and some of it (e.g. based on parental status) usually illegal.
Taking care of the sick, elderly, and children is a social issue, and belongs with the state. Not by illegal arbitrary discrimination.
Also imagine how humiliating it would be for someone failing to conceive to see insult to injury that they don't get a bonus but their team mate does.
Paying someone less for doing more work (i.e. not picking up from daycare) is incredibly disrespectful and demotivating.
I hear all the time that someone asks for more money because they just got a new house. Like... What? Your employer is now responsible for you choosing to live beyond your means?
You have no way of knowing that, nor does the employer.
Maybe I have health issues, maybe I want to go back to school myself to get a more advanced degree, maybe I need more for Retirement because I will not have any kids to take care of me when I am old, maybe 100000 other things
However NONE of that is relevant to my wages, my wages and my co-workers wages should be set Solely and Exclusively to the value we bring to the organization.
if I choose to have 5 kids, or choose to eat fast food for every meal meaning my cost of living is higher should have ZERO bearing on my wages.
> wages should be set Solely and Exclusively to the value we bring to the organization
This isn't true now and has never been true. Otherwise frontline workers would make a lot more and CEOs would make a lot less. Wages already have skewed dynamics based on a bunch of arbitrary reasons. Saying that people with kids should get a bit more salary I don't think is that much more controversial than saying a permanent employee should get paid more than a someone from a temp agency that does the exact same work (and hence the same value to the organization).
>>This isn't true now and has never been true. Otherwise frontline workers would make a lot more and CEOs would make a lot less.
Neither one of those statements follow each other. You may belive, and in some cases you may be correct that a CEO is of less value than frontline workers, but the prevailing narrative I see across the internet that workers bring "all the value" is also false
>Wages already have skewed dynamics based on a bunch of arbitrary reasons.
They are not really that arbitrary, pricing for wages are set largely by 3 factors
1. Market Demand for a given role
2. Number of people available to fill a given role
3. Amount of revenue a company can generate from a given role
I didn't realize companies are charities now. A couple makes a private and typically self-serving decision to have children, therefore we ought to pay them more regardless of performance.
As if people won't continue to procreate unless their employer gives them more money.
The global population is increasing, so some form of civilization will carry on. The issue is that certain societies have lopsided demographics that will topple the fragile social structures they'd been relying on, a lot of that being the consequence of short-sided incentives like what you're suggesting.
People who have kids have to put a bunch of their resources towards those kids: money, time, lost sleep, lost interactions with friends, and so on on. Nothing controversial here so far. Some view this as a choice of those people because they simply want to have kids, raise a family, and so on. But regardless of their intentions, there is a positive outcome for society in that there now exists a next generation that will keep society functioning. Those kids will grow up to be the doctors and farmers and so on that do all the things that need doing. These kids really are an investment in the future. People who don't have kids, but still grow old and live in society, say retired on purpose, or simply because their bodies and minds degraded to the point they can no longer work (happens to everybody), then those people are living in society that is functioning because of the time/money/resource investments of the people who had kids. The people who didn't have kids got a free ride because they didn't have to do any of that, but still get to see food in the grocery store that go there because other people had kids who then grew up and made that happen.
It's fine if you don't want to have kids, but if you plan on being alive and in society in 20-30 years, then you are living off the investments of others. So why not let them have a bit more salary then you?
> So why not let them have a bit more salary then you?
One can agree that child-rearing and domestic work are productive activities while still disagreeing with your proposal to inflate salaries.
For instance, instead of what you're proposing, the state can treat these activities as an actual job and pay accordingly. This no longer conflates the issue by making other entities (private employers, tax code, etc) fill in the gaps on what society at large claims it values. Now, I'm not saying I endorse this solution, but rather that there's more to the discussion than how you're framing it.
I don't agree with your logic that childless adults are free riders, and you omit many of the upsides to raising kids that childless adults willingly forgo, or the fact that childless adults often play vital roles in their families and communities that regular parents often don't have the bandwidth for.
You also haven't really talked about the ecological impact of first-world nations having more kids and whether that's wise or sustainable. You act as if it's a priori a net good.
Last, I'd argue that one of the benefits to having a sufficiently advanced society is that people are granted more agency to live as they see fit.
These are thoughtful points and what I hear is agreement that child rearing (and I'd also add care for elderly parents and other activities) are beneficial and those that undertake should indeed be, for a lack of a better term, subsidized for that work. The disagreement is the source of that subsidy and that government should step in to fill the gap rather than the employer having to cover it. I'd be satisfied with that solution. I'd suggest health care should equally be covered by government and paid with taxes rather than the employer. The problem in the US is that there is a strong belief that government should not do any of these things. Since it has to come from somewhere, that leaves the only source of income of most people -- the employer to meet these needs.
The points about ecology and population are a whole other thing, interesting, but out of scope of the pay issue which is why I didn't mention them.
2. Demographic decline per se is not in the interest of the state or society.
3. It is in the interest of the state to create incentives for marrying and having children and to support or defend a culture that is at least not hostile to family life and its flourishing.
Does it follows that companies are obligated to pay a higher salary to someone with a family over someone who is single for the same work? If labor is the source of economic value, then it would seem that they are not since the married person with children is creating the same value.
Of course, when employers do compete for employees, such candidates will have a greater need and incentive to choose the employer who does pay more, and companies, realizing that such people will find better offers more attractive, may provide benefits that specifically target such people (e.g., free daycare or whatever). Whether companies do this will depend on market conditions, for example.
Employer provided health insurance is sort of like this when the company covers the plan instead of providing a stipend. Old people cost the company more.
I once had employer tell me that because I was single with no kids I was being let go as I didnt "need" to be employed as much as a co-worker with multiple kids...
I wonder if this should be extended to married childless couples. As surely they need lot less money than single people. They housing is cheaper. They can buy in bulk, they can share so many things from cars to clothing and entertainment.
i've been told the same in tech; also biased towards being "young with no debt" - any excuse to not get a raise. best solution in this case is to leave.
my first thoughts: hey maybe musky boi should try pay-transparency at twitter to get more to quit; what's another 1/7th and then saying no to the others that ask to the already all time low morale?
Very few engineers are within a constant factor of one another.
One person has the same title as another but everyone knows that person A does person B’s job in the shower.
This is why serious companies use low key stock options or RSUs to pay person A 1000x more than person B.
This stuff is hard, it’s all a gradient right?
But Meta just whacked 10+ percent of staff in the biggest tech layoff ever and the street responded positively.
Most people aren’t smart enough to do this shit, and efforts to democratize a field that should be more credentialed and regulated is why we keep fucking up as an industry. We have no (public) respect for the difference between the pros and the TypeScript dabblers.
This is also the problem when asking companies to publish salary brackets:
A lot of them have teams in which people with almost identical profile have a 30% or higher salary difference.
Who is that a problem for? People and businesses negotiate prices all the time. No one is forcing anyone to be paid the same. If the people have an offer to get paid more elsewhere, they should change jobs.
Many government and academic institutions do in fact publicly publish all salaries, so the question of what the effect would be is not entirely theoretical.
yup. my salary and everyone else at my organization is published every year by the local newspaper. We aren't required to publish it ourselves, but if anyone asks, we are required to reveal it, so the local paper files a request every year and publishes it.
Governments and most education institutions are not part of the free market. Their income also does not depend on their efficiency or value they create so its not the same comparison.
Is it usual where you work for everyone with the same title to make the same amount? Everywhere I have worked your cost of living adjustment each year is based on performance appraisals. So after a few years you'd expect people to make significantly different amounts.
250,000 people (includes student employees) at the university of California can just go online and look up their co-worker’s salary, for the past 10 years! Yet, it doesn’t cause problems. In fact, salaries are public for all government workers in California (UC just makes it very easy to look someone up). The entire country of Finland posts all salaries of the entire population online!
The angst over these laws is, IMO, blown way out of proportion. The only thing I can think is the real underlying issue is that there must be massive pay disparities in some industries…
> It should be obvious that freely knowing salaries will improve the employee's ability to negotiate the wage they deserve.
I would argue that for high performers, it could become an excuse not to pay more. "Sorry, we know you did XYZ, but we can't give you a further raise because you're already 4% ahead of your colleagues." And of course, everyone thinks they're a high-performer, so this policy would be unpopular with actual high-performers + the people that think they are (but aren't, and wouldn't be affected anyway).
> I would argue that for high performers, it could become an excuse not to pay more.
This is already used as an excuse, except that right now you can't easily check whether that's even true, so I think transparency would actually be better. If you're a high performer, switch to a company where you feel rewarded suitably, which is easier to do with transparency.
> everyone thinks they're a high-performer
That's again a problem with less information: nobody really knows so they just assume.
But then you can just look up a company that does pay their high performers more, and apply there. And if that happens often enough employers have to consider if paying top talent more money isn't a worthwhile strategy after all (maybe they decide it isn't, but employees will be free to react appropriately)
Not the person you are replying to, but I agree with him/her.
The definition of a free market has to do with it being free from regulation, not that information is free [0][1][2].
The same thing applies to the claims you made in this post, but maybe you mean that all of these things have to be true for a free market to work well, rather than for it to exist?
Again, I still think this requires proof, especially with regards to information having to be free.
First, just to make sure we are on the same page, I am not some kind of free market radical, and I was not arguing for free markets, only arguing the definition.
> Youu believe that a Free Market can exist when buyers don't have access to information and amidst is rampant fraud and violence?
Existence? Sure. The only thing I was pointing at here is your very non-standard definition of a free market.
For the fraud and violence, your original statement was "no fraud", not "rampant fraud". I think you would agree that there are very few markets without any fraud, no?
Such a strong claim definitely requires proof.
To get back to your original claim about free information, I think some amount of regulation would be required for information to be freely availble.
Otherwise, why should someone give away their competitive edge (ie. the information), without any gain? Would be interesting to hear you take on that.
Knowing what other people with the same title at current, and similar, employers will definitely improve people’s ability to negotiate. But that’s not the real information employees need. What is really secret is the true value of the labor the employee is producing to the company.
Imagine salaries are completely public. A team of co-workers finds out that they are all being paid $200k each, and are happy with that. But if they only knew that their labor generates $2 million in profits for the company, each. They should be getting paid something like $1.8 or $1.9 million per person. The execs are ripping them off big time.
> A team of co-workers finds out that they are all being paid $200k each, and are happy with that. But if they only knew that their labor generates $2 million in profits for the company, each. They should be getting paid something like $1.8 or $1.9 million per person. The execs are ripping them off big time.
That is not how pricing works. How much of your budget is spent on food? How much profit does food generate in your life?
Supply and demand curves. If the team or coworkers thinks they can make more than $200k each without their employer, they are free to start their own business and pay themselves $1.9M each.
Long time ago when I was young, naive and even more stupid than I am now, I have, by chance, found out how much my younger co-worker, who just joined our team, earned. By chance I mean, it came up in the form life insurance he took, which, at our place, was a standard double salary. My co-worker had less experience, less credentials; he was doing less than I was doing, because he just joined us.
I was incensed and I did everything wrong including sending email to my boss asking effectively 'the fuck'. My boss, not being an idiot, started documenting the interaction with first question being:'How did you get this information and did you happen to access something you are not supposed to?' As you can imagine, it kinda spiraled downwards from there, which included me having a longer conversation with boss's boss.
Eventually, I quit, but if I were to do it again. I would urge everyone to take a deep breath, get an offer and then talk to the bosses to throw the 'more money for co-worker' as a cherry on top.
Salary is a function of so many things. Random stuff from my experience:
- People hired when the company needs a lot of new staff at once are paid more than people hired to do same job in normal times. Basic demand/offer law.
- Somebody will negotiate more cash vs less stock options.
- I was able to get some extra money many years ago because for that new job I had to commute from a longer distance (10 minutes walking vs 1 hour metro or car). Extra costs -> extra money.
- Some people have pay rises because of what they did (deserved or undeserved, I won't get into that.)
How about you click the article link and find out? It's even at the very top of the article for once:
- 88% of workers will demand to know the salary range for their current position, if permitted by law; 68% will demand the highest end of known salary range
- 1 in 20 workers would quit if it’s revealed co-workers earn more money; 63% would demand equal pay
- 85% say they’re more likely to apply to job that lists a salary range
- 42% say the salary ranges companies list should be limited
- 63% worry salary transparency will cause problems among co-workers
- 92% of workers support salary transparency laws; 61% say laws will improve wage gap
I was thinking about the psychological effects. The article mentions it but doesn't go into it: "However, 63% do fear it will be problematic to know how much their co-workers make"
If you look at the list of problems I wrote you see they are psychological.
As a manager I get visibility on my direct reports’ salaries and they all earn more than I do :) and I haven’t quit in over a decade. My salary is sufficient for me, why would the fact that a coworker earns more motivate me to rage-quit.
it’s really just an observation about what the market conditions are for a specialised technical position compared to a general project/program manager. i have nothing against my manager specifically or managers in general.
It's not easy for people promoted into manager roles either. I'm a new manager who the first time is now exposed to salary details of my, now direct reports, former co-workers. For the past couple of weeks I've been walking around thinking "how the hell does he make that much?! When I was at that level of experience I was paid $40k less".
It's really affecting me to be honest. I'm seeing people in different light and resenting their pay. I'm resenting people being paid in some cases almost double what I was on a new comer to that role with no experience, we used to pay about 80k hour for a new starter in the role I now oversee, we now pay over 140k. That's barely less for a brand new starter than I was making a few months ago with 10 years more experience in the role.
Salary matters suck for everyone, I hate dealing with this aspect of my job. Everybody just wants wants wants and act like children when they don't get.
It seems you didn’t negotiate hard enough on your behalf (or others negotiated at the right time).
The question you should ask yourself as a manager now is not the question whether you expect others to negotiate like you did, but how can you reach a pay level across the team that is somewhat balanced .
The company I am working in has fairly strict guidance based on competences and experience which I do like. It makes sure that no one is payed much below or much above an estimated market rate. You won’t receive sometime into your team who is extremely overpayed because they were their manager‘s darling.
Negotiation works when some company specifically wants you.
If you're one of the other 99% of hires you're going to be placed at some salary which has been already budgeted and approved for your position. There's some leeway there but it's not more than a single digit percentage, although I agree with patio11 and others saying that an extra 5-10K/year just for asking politely is not a bad deal.
So, basically what you're saying is that the "Negotiate harder, bro" advice only really works for 1% of the world. So why is it always trotted out as the solution?
I know HN is full of these Captains of Industry who merely glance at their bosses with an upturned eyebrow, and get $100K of RSUs thrown at them, but for the rest of the workforce, here's what negotiation looks like:
[Me] Hi, I'd like a raise.
[Co] Nope.
[Me] OK, here are examples of the value I'm providing and how it's increased over time.
[Co] Your current salary accounts for this.
[Me] Other companies offer 20% more and I'm only asking for 10%.
[Co] ...
[Me] OK, I have an offer from the other company. Last chance.
I never said you couldn't go somewhere else, that's actually the advice to follow when you reached your ceiling wherever you are (and you have an offer ofc).
> Companies generally don’t pay tenured people as much as new hires across the board. It’s not about negotiating.
But that IS negotiating. If you show you're willing to stick around in the same role for an extended period of time, for the same pay, you have implicitly negotiated that deal for yourself. Why TF would your employer be incentivised to pay you more if you show yourself to be happy with the status quo?
Have you ever offered to pay more for your morning coffee because Starbucks hasn't raised their prices in 2 years? No? So why would your employer offer you more money when you've not raised the issue of comp for 2 years?
If you're unhappy about that, you inform your current employer you've found a now role with better pay, and walk. If your employer deems you worth it (rightly or wrongly), they might offer a counter. You can choose to accept that... or not.
Just like if Starbucks raises the price of their coffee, you can accept the higher price and keep going there, because you think their coffee is worth it, or you find a different cafe with lower prices.
We are to our employers what a cup of coffee is to us.
Except it is, to your employer. Unless you are close friends or family with the people who run the business, you are just a brand of coffee beans to them. (and if you are friends or family, these decisions will still need to happen, but they'll hurt ten times worse when they do, which is why you never do business with family).
Accept it, and you will have much better success when negotiating your salary and planning your career path.
From a company's perspective, your salary does not reward your skills or efforts, your salary is the strict minimum that is necessary for you to accept to work for them and to be happy enough to be productive.
Turns out the minimum you accept is lower than some other people's minimum.
Some of us think that doing our job should be enough to be fairly compensated without having to take on the additional duty of continually fighting for it.
But since that isn't how things work in glorious capitalist utopia, I just slack off hard core instead. I don't need the money near as much as I need my time back.
Surely. The point is all these systems have tradeoffs. I'm guessing OP would find things to be disappointed in there, too, as have many of the people who actually live in those places.
edit: especially when it comes to comp, which was how this started. The left hand (as it were) criticizing comp in tech, and the right complaining about capitalism, is my favorite part.
There is an element of failure to negotiate, and to renegotiate, involved but if that's where your thinking stops you're missing the point. It's not just that the person involved didn't ask for a raise. It's also the fact that everyone above them who was privy to salary data accepted it. Every single person in a higher management role was perfectly OK with two people doing the same job being paid significantly different salaries.
And then you start wondering if you're being underpaid too. Do all the people above you know how much of a sucker you are for accepting the lowball rate?
It's a problem for people who get promoted to a level where they get to peek behind the curtain and see all the things that the company has been doing wrong all the time they've been there, and the realisation that all the other people are fine with it. It kind of gets to you after a while.
I respectfully disagree. There is no "inherent" fairness for salary in my experience (older in my mid 40's). For example if you feel you are underpaid and deserve 15K more per year... make your case. If you have a reasonable case to be made (others make this for salary for the same job ... or I am worth it because) then make it. If they don't offer anything then perhaps you do work for a crappy company and should consider another job.
However the idea that everyone should be paid the same for the same position is just not how the world works.
Here is a personal example. Long time ago I worked at a bank.. I did simple teller operations and some loan document processing. My co-worker did the same job. However when it came to number of transactions processed and number of loan documents processed I literally was twice as productive. So should we be paid the same since its technically the same position? Or do I have a valid case to be made that I am worth more? Would my coworker have a valid reason to be upset that I make more?
Another example in my IT career, In general I get things done quickly and am easy to work with. There are people in this profession that sometimes lack social skills and can just be difficult to work with. Is my ability to easily work with others and get things done quicker (technical skill and people skills) worth more to my employer than say someone in my same "position" who is hard to work with..add hurdles to get things done... etc.
It's almost impossible to negotiate anything unless you have leverage, and leverage only exists when there is a decision-point: "I'll pick this other job unless.." or in the beginning "I won't join your company unless..."
Randomly, no... but asking for a raise while showing reasons why you think you deserve it definitely can. I know because I literally just did that.
Keep a running document of accomplishments, especially anything that is "above and beyond", whatever that might mean in your context. It's much easier to present that then trying to remember everything you did months/years later.
Also, in my experience, it's fairly easy to tell which companies will be willing to give you raises based on how your initial salary negotiations went. When I've worked for stingy employers who wouldn't budge on salary, I rarely got anything over a basic 2-3% annual bump. When there was a lot of flexibility in the salary range (or when they've offered more than I asked) it has been quite easy to get additional bumps. I also have the same work ethic and drive at each of these companies, so I don't _think_ it was a difference in performance. I've always received glowing reviews regardless of the company.
I don’t negotiate. I’ve found it’s usually a waste of time and I’m still negotiating around the margins. It has been much easier to just get another job.
I also resent on principle that the primary driver of one's salary must be something that's at best tangentially related to the job: Negotiating skills. Let's say someone taught himself programming, went to university for computer engineering, got decades of experience in the trenches. A programmer geek through and through. And then someone fresh out of school starts at double that guy's comp because... ... New guy is a slick negotiator? And we're all supposed to just accept that's how the world works? "Just negotiate harder, bro?"
My experience with salary negotiations is probably similar to yours. It's pointless. The company has all the power, and if you give an ultimatum, they say "there's the door" anyway, so why bother? Just skip it all and go out the door from the start. Grind some Leetcode, go through the interview hazing ritual again, and job hop. It sucks, but I guess it is the way it is.
> Everybody just wants wants wants and act like children when they don't get.
Wow, what an immature attitude YOU have.
Of course everyone "wants wants wants". You're displaying that attitude right now. You're feeling hurt about not getting more, because you want more. That's normal. That's OK. If someone offered to bump my salary to a million pounds for no reason, of course I'd take it.
You should probably try asking for a pay rise. Pay, in tech, has everything to do with your negotiation power, and almost nothing to do with how good you are at your job. Your job is to maximise your salary. For the person paying the salary (your boss), their job is to minimise it. They're not doing it because they despise you, think less of you, or want to exact petty revenge on you. they do it because it's their job to keep costs down. Just like you would try to minimise the cost of servers, or software licenses. The sooner people understand this, the better for everyone.
Now go and advocate for yourself. If you really feel under-paid, ask for a raise. Threaten to walk (be sure you can actually follow up on that). If your contribution to the company is deemed to be worth the money, you'll get it.
> If your contribution to the company is deemed to be worth the money, you'll get it.
I've rarely seen individual contributions able to be evaluated 'fairly' at any scale. Your skills may be top notch, but you were focused on a project that was killed after 10 months because.... budget cuts? Bad management? Your contribution to the company in that case can be seen as a net negative, but it's largely out of your control.
The OP should just leave and find a better gig. That might be slightly harder over the next year, and yeah, it sucks to do that, but it's how you get big raises. The people coming in at 140k are demonstrating that (in the above example).
Trying too much 'negotiate for a raise' tips your hand that you're unhappy, and you will be treated differently if you make anything more than a casual ask (even then...).
> I've rarely seen individual contributions able to be evaluated 'fairly' at any scale. Your skills may be top notch, but you were focused on a project that was killed after 10 months because.... budget cuts? Bad management? Your contribution to the company in that case can be seen as a net negative, but it's largely out of your control.
this is absolutely true. But everyone needs to decide for themselves if they want to work for a Google-esque company that does shit like that, or something smaller where you can have a material impact and your absence will be noticed and missed instantly.
When you join a company, you are making an informed bet. You're betting that you can find successful projects to work on within the company, that the budget won't be slashed, that your manager isn't a sociopath who only promotes his drinking buddies, that half the company won't get fired within 6 months, that it won't go bankrupt.
You won't always get it right, sometimes you just get dealt a bad hand, in which case; try again, don't sit tight for another 5 years hoping things will change; do something about it. Move projects and try again. Or find another job.
Trouble is I LOVE my job and the company I'm in. I know our processes like the back of my hand (I designed half of them) and feel very valued and enjoy it all. I don't want to leave just to get money. I just also dont see why people coming in to "junior" roles are paid $50k more than I was on at that level of experience just a few years ago (I understand inflation, this is something else). It's nuts.
I totally get it. I understand you love the job. It doesn't love you. It's a one-way relationship. Keep that in mind. The $ amounts are a bit inflation, and partially just because there's just a huge amount of money circulating around. Many depts and companies measure themselves on headcount, so hiring more people - even at inflated rates - gives them something measurable.
I am pretty sure you missed the entire point of their comment. The commenter was not speaking about their own current comp, but the current comp vs quality vs entitlement within their direct reports. It’s hard to look at low quality employees making large salaries as a leader and not be dismayed, disappointed, and discouraged when the entitlement and whining happens. A lot of employees act like children and that is not ok or justified. That is what is immature, not pointing out that people commanding six figure salaries should maybe act like adults and actually provide six figures of value for their compensation.
After a couple of decades managing developers and engineers I specifically left management and now refuse to take on any role that requires direct reports just because the entitlement attitude in tech is so bad nowadays. “Management” gets a bad rap here on HN, but to me, they are real hero’s and doing a shit job.
If your staff is acting like spoiled bratty children, you talk to them. If they don't adjust, you fire them.
If you can't fire them because they're hard to replace, guess what; they have more value than you attributed to them, and were probably RIGHT to complain and insist on better pay.
Just like your employer tries to extract maximum value for minimum pay out of you, so should you extract maximum pay for minimum investment out of your employer. That's only fair.
The problem isn’t firing them, firing people is actually pretty easy—-it’s having to manage them up to that point where you determine that termination is the appropriate solution.
Whether or not they have value or hard to replace doesn’t excuse them from having the responsibility of civil behavior. Where is being valuable an appropriate excuse for being an asshole acceptable anywhere in society?
> It’s hard to look at low quality employees making large salaries as a leader and not be dismayed, disappointed, and discouraged when the entitlement and whining happens
I’m “entitled” to my market worth. I feel not an ounce of sympathy for parent poster. He has accepted what the company is paying him.
Sure, but your employer will have the expectation that you will provide market value for that compensation that they provide you. If you are well paid and do underwhelming work compared to coworkers who are paid less but provide exceptional work, your leadership will take notice of that. They will and should expect more from you because your better lower paid coworkers are moving the value/$ bar expectations for you.
Literally the worst reputation you could have among your leadership is that of a “market worth” paid underperformer. Folks like that are the easy choice when the RIF conversations starts happening. When RIFs aren’t happening, folks like that are going to catch every shit job a manager can throw at them.
Absolutely, couldn't agree more. Mostly with this bit though:
> "Management" ... are ... doing a shit job
One strategy I like to use when I encounter a manager doing a shit job is to complain about my six figure salary every 1:1 while putting in the minimum possible effort. Eventually they tend to leave and never take a management job again.
It's even harder when you're a manager, and you inherit direct reports who both make more money than you, and have more stock options than you, AND have been at the firm for a shorter duration than you, and they have minimal experience (but good tech chops).
>I hate dealing with this aspect of my job. Everybody just wants wants wants and act like children when they don't get.
I go to work everyday for one reason: to exchange labor for money to support my addiction to food and shelter. All three things being nearly equal, my goal is to extract as much money for my labor as possible as long as my job choice doesn’t make me hate my life
The best managers I've ever had have always felt like they were genuine advocates for me towards the rest of the business. To push to pay me more, promote me, and share my concerns and other thoughts to the rest of the company.
It doesn't sound like you're a great advocate for your reports.
This should be a two way advocacy. Advocate for the employees to the company. Advocate for the company to the employees. When they align in the middle they'll both succeed.
Report back after you get a lump sump to allocate between the various people on your team for 2023 raises. That should be an exciting new growth opportunity for you.
You're not making yourself look very good here. If you didn't realize this was happening then you're niave. Your response is immature and selfish.
Either accept this and start managing it to your advantage, your employees advantage and the companies or just accept that you've proven the Peter principle.
As a fellow manager I am with the other guy who responded, you come across as somewhat immature here.
> Salary matters suck for everyone, I hate dealing with this aspect of my job.
What exactly did you think your responsibility as a manager would be?
I once knew a manager who had people reporting into him who made 10X as much as he did (yes, 10X). I asked him about this once and his response indicates what you expect from an excellent manager "they are taking risks that i don't take and they are compensated for those risks".
You seem fixated on the past and salary issues instead of learning from this experience. Perhaps you can read up on how to negotiate and try to make more yourself? Maybe they were better at salary negotiations and this is why they earn what they do?
Being a manager and "resenting people" isn't a good thing.
> Salary matters suck for everyone, I hate dealing with this aspect of my job. Everybody just wants wants wants and act like children when they don't get.
Does everybody do this or is it just you? People are paid market rate if another business thinks you are worth more they will offer you more. You then go to your boss and ask them to meet or exceed the market rate for you.
If you sell yourself as just another developer don't be surprised if your boss puts that expectation on your salery.
This is really as expected. 4% might quit, but, well amongst the other 96% I bet MANY people will consider quitting or at least be vocal about it, etc... Actually doing it in practice and managing to get a better paying job... that's much much harder so yeah... nothing new.
There's a reason why salary bands for each level at a company are structured as ranges and not simply one value (though some companies are trying this). The higher you go up in level, the broader the range is. The variance in skillset increases the higher you go, and employees can also have differing tenures within a level as well. Salary transparency as a singular compensation number doesn't always paint the full picture about an individual, and so it's easy to get upset seeing some of the higher end numbers.
The solution in my opinion is just deeper transparency: how do compensation structures at companies really work. What determines a higher salary within a level for a role. And what are the details for large discrepancies / variance within a particular level. All of which we're attempting to collect and display with Levels.fyi (disclosure: I'm one of the founders). A lot of folks look at the out of band offers for a certain level and immediately conclude that they are being underpaid. As in the article: "7 in 10 will demand highest end of salary range". But to provide more comprehensive information around why someone may have received a higher offer could help clear some of this up. For example, interview performance, scope of work, and previous tenure can all affect the resulting offer.
4%??? Bro if you’re doing the same job as someone and they are getting paid more, you are quitting or getting a raise. This number should be significantly higher.
I'm on a team of six people, all classified as "senior engineers". None of us do the same job, even if we all work on the same stuff. Some deliver tons of new features and code. Others think and design, and come up with resilient, well-engineered things. Some are great with stakeholder relationships.
Unless I find out there's some huge disparity in pay (as in, everyone else out-earning me 2:1), I have absolutely no problem with some getting paid more, some less.
If I were to find out I'm getting paid the least, I would:
1. Start by asking for a raise to correct that.
2. If denied, inquire as to why my manager thinks I'm worth less.
3. If he makes a good point that I can agree with, I will focus on improving in that area and then discuss again in 6 months.
4. If I disagree and think they are under-valuing my skillset, I walk.
For context, I've done #3 at least 3 times, where I've asked a manager "what do I need to improve to warrant a pay raise or promotion?", and they give me an actual list of things to improve. Once I'm satisfied I've improved those areas, and have a few months of work history to prove it, they have absolutely no valid reason to deny me a pay rise, and I've received a pay rise 3/3 of those times. This obviously doesn't work if your manager is an asshole, or if there's suddenly a budget cut, etc - you need to evaluate the chances of that happening, and consider option #4.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 254 ms ] threadI suppose that given the first sentence, you could argue that the number of would-be quitters would be different if they learned their coworkers earned more money through means other than transparency laws, but I'm guessing that's not what you're alluding to.
- 1 in 20 is 5%
- 1 in 25 is 4%
Either way, it's a heck of a rounding error.
Also seems it would depend how much more they earn
Here’s the rub: “same job”.
Sure, this is a reasonable attitude to take if it’s genuinely the same job and each worker is creating genuinely the same value.
But everywhere I’ve worked, comparable jobs are defined as graded job families, and it has been very obvious that there is a diverse range of work being done within a grade/job family, with individuals bringing a diverse range of experience, skills and performance.
For two individuals to have the “same job” is a rare thing in knowledge work.
Lets not even start with the metrics used to gauge someone's results. If they even exist, they are consistently useless.
If the bare minimum gets the job done the same as the overachiever grinding as if their life depended on it, fair judgement would rate the output the same, right?
Personally i’ll take the grinding person any day though, they tend to be much easier to manage.
Fellow floor moppers might say "Einstein mops slower and worse then me, I want more than his salary", but that would not attribute abilities and that it is not his first choice to mop floors, the company made that strange decision.
There is a ceiling - the company pays what it thinks it can get away with, you accept pay according to what you can get. It's almost never according to the monetary value you provide.
Therefore, it seems beyond risky to say that knowledge work makes roles so vague and uncertain that people cannot know when they are being exploited. The pay gap between the C-suite and the main producers at a knowledge org is just as bad as at an org focused on physical production.
If after a moment's thought you still think that we cannot organize to reduce the pay of executive class because the executives do work different from ours, I encourage you to reflect more deeply on this. It's perfectly reasonable to demand that your bosses and seniors get paid more fairly, even though their job differs from yours.
If you're upset that one or more of your peers is earning more than you you'll probably ask for more. Then you'll decide whether or not to walk depending on what happens, where walking means taking your chances in the open market. Same as it ever was.
I noped out of that employment quickly
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_abi...
Source: lived in a socialist country
https://i.redd.it/vj4m7grzdyr41.png
Only after the split of yugoslavia, they sold the taxpayer paid and built apartments to then-current renters for peanuts.
You do, if you buy the apartment and get a loan/mortgage. If you're renting from the government, you're just renting... you didn't become an owner of the apartment here, until the end of socialism, a new capitalist government, and politicians not wanting to deal with the upkeep of those buildings.
Before 1991, you were renting as you are renting now in any other (capitalist) country (although with proper rules and protections.. so like in eg. austria, germany, etc). You didn't get to keep it.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02757206.2017.1...
so, in terms of use, inheritance, and trading rights it was legally equivalent to owning a house. this is not surprising since yugoslavia had a radically different legal structure about property rights. this is also why people living in those flats could buy it for peanuts when the system collapsed. it certainly wasn't the case that the new government was feeling super generous
tldr. social housing in yugoslavia was government owned in a very weak sense of the word
I have no idea where the author got this... this was maybe(!) true for very high ranking party members, but for normal people, there was no inheritance and trading, and the use was the same as with any other rental apartment. Also maybe only in what was left of yugoslavia in 1991 and then turned into 'serbia and montenegro'. If you died, the apartment went back to the state. To trade it (move elsewhere) you needed a good reason (usually, more kids or more rarely a new job).
I was born in yugoslavia and lived here/there until the fail, and now still live in the same city, just in a new country. My parents got a social apartment, I got born and they got another apartment and moved (1->2 bedroom apartment). They couldn't get a bigger one before, because 2 people meant 1 bedroom apartment, 3 people, two bedroom one. They couldn't even choose the floor (noone wanted the ground level or top level ones). No trading, no inheritance, no ownership until 1991 and the jazbinsek law, where every renter could buy off the apartment from the government.
Or did she live in another apartment, and when he died, she got his, better(?) apartment?
If someone dies and you get to stay in an apartment, that's not inheritance, just continuing to rent that apartment.
The government owned a huge percentage of homes and rented them out to people who needed them, and moved them around too (if they got a kid, they got a larger apartment).
Then after the breakup, the government didn't want to deal with that, and sold all those apartments to renters living there for peanuts.. so 'everybody' got a home, and in the meantime stopped the communist-style buildings. .. then nimbyism, and yeah.. same as everywhere.
Now the "boomers" have apartments and young people can't buy them, because we don't build stuff anymore. When a boomer dies, their kids inherit and lease it out, because selling it is pointless due to ever rising prices (again, nobody builds anything anymore... nimbyism and all that)
If the government kept the apartments, when a boomer died, someone else would get to rent it at the government-non-profit-rate, but nope... whole country paid for building those apartments, some people got lucky to keep them, and the others could fuck off.
Also, building a private house back then was easier.. you could basically build, and then deal with all the pesky stuff, such as permits and legalization... now, you can't build a dog house without building/construction inspectors there. On one hand, we now have improper owner-build buildings in inapropriate places... on the other hand, atleast those people got a house, which is impossible now.
Also, building a house isn't even so expensive here... especially if you do a lot of stuff alone... but just the project/permit costs are higher than the bricks and concrete, and buying a piece of land where you're actually permitted to build is impossible... but we do have literal fields in the prime locations of our capital - https://goo.gl/maps/YeoJMMGN2QhtZDLs8 (just rotate the view around to see what's next to that)
tldr: in socialist time, everybody was renting from the government, in capitalist time, those apartments were sold for peanuts to renters (and the rest of the taxpayers, who didn't get apartments, got fucked)
anyway you seem to say that owning houses resulted in a problem of not owning houses? seems to me a more simple explanation would be that slovenia became a capitalist society, and for-profit housing doesnt quite accomodate as many people as the socialist one. this is a problem that is faced in every capitalist country atm
and you seem to be misrepresenting what happened in former yugoslavia. basically it was not the government that gave you housing, but the state-owned corporation you worked for. and it wasnt for-rent, but to pay off as you work. which is WHY so many people were able to buy it for peanuts when the system collapsed. also to say it was the government is to grossly overestimate the centrality of the socialist yugoslav government. they simply were not that powerful
In yugoslavia, you didn't own an apartment, but you rented it (from the government)... so almost noone had more than one apartment, noone had a too-large apartment, and if you got a job in trbovlje the government would get you an apartment in trbovlje (a city in the middle of nowehere). If you died, the apartment went back to the "pool", and someone else could get it. If you got a kid, you got a bigger apartment, and someone else got the smaller one.
But still, nobody owned those apartments, they just rented them.
The high ownership (the colored map from a post above) came only after they sold all those apartments to renters, and people started hoarding them, because they got them for very cheap and the prices could only go up. For "normal people" it would be better to have lower ownership and more renting from the government (if it was handled properly by the government.. a big if).. but then the colored would show different ownage percentages.
The biggest problem now is, that you're not allowed to build anymore, due to regulations and a lack of buildable land (in a legal sense... there is a lot of land, but the government doesn't allow building there, also in A LOT of areas, you can build a two apartment two story building max, instead of large apartment buildings that we need). "Back then", the government decided they needed more apartments, they took a piece of land and started building.. didn't matter if it was a pasture [0], a field, what the neighbors though (again, government buildings next door), they just built.
Now we have areas where we could build [1], but the government doesn't allow it... sometimes, if you're friendly with the mayor, you buy a farmland somewhere, and it suddenly becomes buildable, but this isn't true for "normal people". It seems a lot of people have invested interests to keep realestate prices high, and those people are in positions of power and can decide where we can or cannot build.
[0] https://i.imgur.com/zjfRsuw.png
[1] https://goo.gl/maps/ZVvHQmwzuX4VhLZ99 https://goo.gl/maps/dCoroKjHYs45dU8T8
you paid it off to the corporation you worked for. it wasnt a lottery system. it was more like a generous homeloan
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02757206.2017.1...
>so almost noone had more than one apartment, noone had a too-large apartment
actually the apartments were reletively very good quality, and often buildings were made as part of a grander urban project
anyway im not saying the system was perfect. this shouldnt need to be said. but it did solve certain problems rather quickly
The option to buy the apartments from the government came only after the fall of socialism in 1991 (jazbinskov zakon/law)
> actually the apartments were reletively very good quality, and often buildings were made as part of a grander urban project
yes, the apartments were well built, but the aging reinforced concrete will be problematic very soon.
you could not "own" it but you had all the rights one might want for their dwelling
The Politburo often has a lot of need :D
The person defines what they need, not some third party who has obvious conflict of interest in down-estimating the needs.
I'm happy to be proved wrong, and maybe someday there'll be a successful communist state, but until then I look to history.
There are socialists who are anti-state, for example. Check out Anarcho Communism, who very much use the "...according to their needs" ethos.
In case you were wondering why there's so much marriage and divorce in the military...
I never went into the armed forces, but I had considered the US NAVY even got my ASVAB and was told I would be assigned Navy Nuke, but on the drive home from the processing facility, the recruiter was bragging about all the sex I would be having around the world. He was saying that knowing that I was in a long term relationship. That really put me off joining.
"Oh yeah we don't do that much" (soothes class anxiety and guilt, smiles at you)
And what was your takeaway? It wasn't that the adulterer was lying: why not? How often does a pretty smile do this to you?
Recruiters talking about getting laid a ton is probably because the primary recruiting demographic is young single men, and they will say just about anything to get people to sign contracts.
What sort of experience do you have with the military?
As someone who has served in the U.S. military, loyalty is absolutely drilled into you; it's integral to battle readiness, which is ultimately the military's goal. They instill the value of loyalty as far as it serves to make soldiers that are willing to fight and die for each other and for their country.
That doesn't extend to any and everything, but I don't think any of your arguments that the military creates a culture of cheating are substantiated. The military actually creates disincentives from cheating that do not exist in the civilian world with the UCMJ.
As for the battlefield, there is not duty to country, only those you’re in direct line of command with. Better hope they never break the law, since if they do, you report them, you will end up dead if you’re in active combat.
The “drilling” you referred to is more comparable to brain washing than loyalty bound to reasoning.
Yes, loyalty is an idle frequently never found, but to call someone loyal because they signed a contract or because they know what will happen if the report those willfully breaking the law, to me is not loyalty.
In US, military within recent past had to literally and repeatedly remind all the military that their duty was to the country, not an idealogy or person — which would not have been done if the military truly was loyal, trusted itself, etc.
> The “drilling” you referred to is more comparable to brain washing than loyalty bound to reasoning.
Yes, and? It's training soldiers to be loyal to each other and to their superiors which are both important factors in battle readiness. You need to be able to follow orders in extreme situations and you need to have each other's back. This is taught to all SMs going through any training in practically any military in the world.
> Yes, loyalty is an [ideal] frequently never found, but to call someone loyal because they signed a contract or because they know what will happen if the report those willfully breaking the law, to me is not loyalty.
There's a thing called "unlawful orders" in the military. If a superior officer/NCO issues one, it is your duty to disobey it. This is easier said than done, of course. In either case, this is tangential to my point. What even is loyalty to you?
To me, loyalty to reasoning regardless of outcome.
>> You've also not substantiated your claims about how the military cultivates a culture of cheating.
Here’s a paper that showed veterans report extramarital sexual relationships at 2x the rate of nonveterans:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0192513X1246051...
How else might you explain such a significant difference in rate of cheating beyond it being part of the culture? Beyond that, under UCMJ adultery is a crime, even if retired, yet what percentage of active duty and veterans are charged? How frequently are those aware of adultery in military subject to UCMJ actions?
You cannot use the word you're defining inside the definition of it. In my best effort to interpret what you mean, I'd assume you mean that people only be loyal to reason? That's a fine ideal to have but it's got nothing to do with loyalty, which has to do with a person's consistent allegiance towards something. A person can be loyal to one thing and not loyal to another.
> How else might you explain such a significant difference in rate of cheating beyond it being part of the culture?
You would explain it as they do in the paper you linked, which is that there are many extenuating circumstances surrounding veteran marriages that make it more vulnerable to higher rates of adultery. That the cheating is a reflection of the self selecting population that trends towards joining the military rather than the military (the institution) doing anything to encourage that behavior. But it also carries several caveats, like how the results of their analyses cannot be generalized towards the current veteran population, which is significantly different from their data, which dates back to 1992.
Reasoning to me is a belief, as such, it’s possible to be loyal or for that matter, non-loyal to reasoning. For example, beliefs of religious fundamentalists in my opinion are based on the word of god, not reasoning. Further, even when it would be easier to bend my reasoning to fit narrative that’s better for myself, I strive to reason objectively regardless of its impact on myself. To me, that’s loyalty that’s not born of force, manipulative tactics, and is a valid example of loyalty without error. In the not to distant past, people were killed for their belief in reasoning over the word of god, even today it still happens.
>> That the cheating is a reflection of the self selecting population that trends towards joining the military rather than the military (the institution) doing anything to encourage that behavior.
Taken to an extreme, top level military personnel cheating is potentially national security threat and even at enlisted level, systemic amounts of adultery, given it’s a crime under UCMJ, create an environment that’s only likely to produce similar illegal behavior and culture of covertly enabling it.
As I said in my original comment, in my experience these issues are common among all militaries, and I am not aware of a solution. That said, in my opinion, it is an issue, like the increased levels of suicide within military that if addressed would have a significant impact on a military being more fit for combat that those who have been unable to address these issues.
You being "loyal to reason" is just describing your values and has nothing to do with loyalty. You can't redefine the word just because you want to say that the military is full of disloyal people.
> As I said in my original comment, in my experience these issues are common among all militaries, and I am not aware of a solution.
What experience are you speaking of? You don't seem to have any experience that's at all related to these issues; at least you've not shared any.
> That said, in my opinion, it is an issue, like the increased levels of suicide within military that if addressed would have a significant impact on a military being more fit for combat that those who have been unable to address these issues.
They are addressed in the U.S. military. Suicide prevention programs and Mental Health programs are very big things in the U.S. military. I also would not describe it as a "culture of suicide" just because it occurs at a higher rate.
...and then got divorced a few years later because he got married for the wrong reasons, well, I'd have a few more dollars.
[a]Housing allowances vary based on location and rank.
Rather, no one would work for you in CapitalCity at SmallTown salaries.
(One of the reasons is the higher cost of living, but that isnt what keeps the salary high, it's that there's no labour supply at SmallTown salaries.)
Within those two bounds, labour markets can play, but the cost of living going up doesn't automatically make more salary money available.
https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation...
We could of course quibble about market rate and so on but that shouldn't be locally based in a global marketplace. The fact that a software shop down the road from me pays peanuts when I'm looking for work with companies in other countries that otherwise pay their staff very well isn't important IMO and IME.
Of course it's important. It means you will, all other things being equal, go for the employer that pays the best rate. And that will drag your local wage up, or it might cause the local shop to close down because they can't pay well enough.
In general I keep seeing people very much like being paid a good salary, but not understanding the one thing that puts their salary high (or low): competition from other employers, and from other employees. Other employees lower it; other employers raise it. The fact that employers think they don't have to pay SF salaries globally is the same mechanism that created SF salaries in the first place.
Interesting to discuss it further here in HN. I argue that at the same professional level it is not the same to have a full family that being solo.
I see this as the core of the argument - paying people based on their needs requires you to invade their privacy in order to find out their needs. And not wanting your employer to invade your privacy would mean getting some baseline low pay because "you don't have any needs".
If I go to the grocery store, I do not pay more for an apple from a farm owned by a family that has a sick grandma than from a farm owned by a family that does not have a sick grandma.
In my role I know that and would also support that case as special.
This kind of thinking varies depending of where you live (at lease for most people and less for remote workers). My takeaway is: if you live in a country/state where this help is "embedded" within the system we can focus more in salary equivalence for the same job responsabilities but if you live in a place that put this pressure on the organization side the organization could have the awareness to take care of these issues. In HN we have people from all around the world and with different democratic and non-democratic systems.
How would you? Are you running an intelligence agency and it's part of your job as a boss to constantly monitor your employees?
I don't see how the location matters, really. A single person might need more money because they want to save up to start a family. Now you factor that in, and you pay them more, but they never find the right partner and don't start a family. Are you now going to ask them to return the money?
I'm a terrible example, but if you offered me to work the same (or, let's face it, often more) than someone for less money because they're married with children, I'd rather work somewhere where I'm not a second class citizen.
No, I live in a culture where this matters arise. There are many discussions in this thread based on culture experience. I see for example privacy discussions, in some cultures/countries privacy is a must but at the same time contradictory with the private information that is flowing unregulated in multiple organizations.
It seems like it's not the needs that matter, it's your assumptions about them.
Are you also willing to pay more for someone living alone and that therefore can't split the costs with a significant other?
But in the US, if an employer offers subsidized health/dental/vision insurance for partners/dependents, then the employer is already offering extra benefits to someone with spouse/kids.
This has multiple reason: one feels a bit ancient as the states basically want their "Beamte" to live in an "orderly" family situation and thus encourage marriage and children.
However, AFAIK, a major reason is to counter a disadvantage "Beamte" have regarding health care insurance. For historical reasons, they are not part of the public welfare system (or rather, they are in a different, older one). The state pays half of their medical expenses (if you are part of the public health care system as a "normal" employee, your employer pays half of the health care insurance). To cover the remaining 50%, Beamte need a private health care insurance. In the public health care system, your children and non-working spouse can be added to your health care insurance for free. With a private insurance, that is not possible - you have to pay for an additional insurance for each kid, and your spouse if he/she is not working.
There is a calculator for the federal level here: https://oeffentlicher-dienst.info/c/t/rechner/beamte/bund?id...
Why not rather: you don't have such a time-intense hobby such as raising kids, so you deserve more income.
Does that sound like a good plan, great for economy?
Between this and climate catastrophy, neoliberals are creating a self-destructive civilisation
Rather thank the politicians who sold you a pyramid scheme as a pension system.
> Between this and climate catastrophy,
If you argue with climate catastrophe, you should rather argue for decreasing the number of people (which includes avoiding having children) to decrease the CO2 footprint.
Immigration is only a temporary solution, it may not be a reliable solution by the end of the century. Global birth rates are falling and QoL is slowly improving, reducing the incentive to immigrate.
Maybe they should have thought about that before they based retirement on the Ponzi Scheme of income based taxation
No, it's the other way around.
Lowering birth rates is the very best thing we can do to ensure sustainability.
I mean the saying goes they are the future, and it a very literal sense, they are.
Why do "we" want that?
TLDR: you want children to exist now.
And that's ignoring how our society works, because the way pensions work you want about 4 times as many children as old people. That's a lot of kids we haven't had, but the alternative to that is way more taxes. Clearly we don't want way more taxes, so 4 times as many kids it is. Except we're not doing that either, and ... uh ... I guess we're hoping God will save us?
TLDR: you want children to exist now. And, actually, you should want the number of kids to roughly double from what we have now (in the US, in Europe, a minimum of 4x is needed)
Paying on performance and taxing high earners seems like a better system than paying directly based on need.
To incentivise performance, employers should pay based on performance. If an employee cannot perform well enough to provide for themselves or their family, the state should help.
None of this requires that employers directly decide pay based on whether you have a family. Requiring that results in the employer discriminating against parents and employees having a reduced incentive to produce.
In both scenarios we put ourselves in that position.
Maybe I have a health problem, and live in the US.
Maybe I'm taking care of aging parents.
Maybe I have a crippling mortgage. Too big a house. Live downtown, etc… etc…
"You have no dependents and responsibilities so I'll pay you less" is basically age discrimination in addition to discrimination based on parental status. Both often illegal, and for good reason.
Taking care of elderly parents -> you probably should get more money
Health problem in the US -> you probably should get more money
Crippling mortgage. This one depends a bit. Does your job require you to work at a specific location, and the location has a high cost of living. Then yes, you should get more money.
Think of the "no dependents and responsibilities" as the base rate. And you get extra depending on your needs (as listed above).
If you think this really crazy, consider that in the US, all of these things are tax deductible. Which means that its already normalized for people with such needs get more money (in the sense of more after-tax money). So why would getting a salary bonus be so wrong?
Or at least that it should affect what your employer gives you.
It's straight up discrimination, and some of it (e.g. based on parental status) usually illegal.
Taking care of the sick, elderly, and children is a social issue, and belongs with the state. Not by illegal arbitrary discrimination.
Also imagine how humiliating it would be for someone failing to conceive to see insult to injury that they don't get a bonus but their team mate does.
Paying someone less for doing more work (i.e. not picking up from daycare) is incredibly disrespectful and demotivating.
I hear all the time that someone asks for more money because they just got a new house. Like... What? Your employer is now responsible for you choosing to live beyond your means?
Maybe I have health issues, maybe I want to go back to school myself to get a more advanced degree, maybe I need more for Retirement because I will not have any kids to take care of me when I am old, maybe 100000 other things
However NONE of that is relevant to my wages, my wages and my co-workers wages should be set Solely and Exclusively to the value we bring to the organization.
if I choose to have 5 kids, or choose to eat fast food for every meal meaning my cost of living is higher should have ZERO bearing on my wages.
This isn't true now and has never been true. Otherwise frontline workers would make a lot more and CEOs would make a lot less. Wages already have skewed dynamics based on a bunch of arbitrary reasons. Saying that people with kids should get a bit more salary I don't think is that much more controversial than saying a permanent employee should get paid more than a someone from a temp agency that does the exact same work (and hence the same value to the organization).
Neither one of those statements follow each other. You may belive, and in some cases you may be correct that a CEO is of less value than frontline workers, but the prevailing narrative I see across the internet that workers bring "all the value" is also false
>Wages already have skewed dynamics based on a bunch of arbitrary reasons.
They are not really that arbitrary, pricing for wages are set largely by 3 factors
1. Market Demand for a given role 2. Number of people available to fill a given role 3. Amount of revenue a company can generate from a given role
Wage pricing is a balance of all 3 factors,
The global population is increasing, so some form of civilization will carry on. The issue is that certain societies have lopsided demographics that will topple the fragile social structures they'd been relying on, a lot of that being the consequence of short-sided incentives like what you're suggesting.
People who have kids have to put a bunch of their resources towards those kids: money, time, lost sleep, lost interactions with friends, and so on on. Nothing controversial here so far. Some view this as a choice of those people because they simply want to have kids, raise a family, and so on. But regardless of their intentions, there is a positive outcome for society in that there now exists a next generation that will keep society functioning. Those kids will grow up to be the doctors and farmers and so on that do all the things that need doing. These kids really are an investment in the future. People who don't have kids, but still grow old and live in society, say retired on purpose, or simply because their bodies and minds degraded to the point they can no longer work (happens to everybody), then those people are living in society that is functioning because of the time/money/resource investments of the people who had kids. The people who didn't have kids got a free ride because they didn't have to do any of that, but still get to see food in the grocery store that go there because other people had kids who then grew up and made that happen.
It's fine if you don't want to have kids, but if you plan on being alive and in society in 20-30 years, then you are living off the investments of others. So why not let them have a bit more salary then you?
One can agree that child-rearing and domestic work are productive activities while still disagreeing with your proposal to inflate salaries.
For instance, instead of what you're proposing, the state can treat these activities as an actual job and pay accordingly. This no longer conflates the issue by making other entities (private employers, tax code, etc) fill in the gaps on what society at large claims it values. Now, I'm not saying I endorse this solution, but rather that there's more to the discussion than how you're framing it.
I don't agree with your logic that childless adults are free riders, and you omit many of the upsides to raising kids that childless adults willingly forgo, or the fact that childless adults often play vital roles in their families and communities that regular parents often don't have the bandwidth for.
You also haven't really talked about the ecological impact of first-world nations having more kids and whether that's wise or sustainable. You act as if it's a priori a net good.
Last, I'd argue that one of the benefits to having a sufficiently advanced society is that people are granted more agency to live as they see fit.
The points about ecology and population are a whole other thing, interesting, but out of scope of the pay issue which is why I didn't mention them.
If we, as a society, believe that then surely those rewards should be paid by the government and not private employers.
2. Demographic decline per se is not in the interest of the state or society.
3. It is in the interest of the state to create incentives for marrying and having children and to support or defend a culture that is at least not hostile to family life and its flourishing.
Does it follows that companies are obligated to pay a higher salary to someone with a family over someone who is single for the same work? If labor is the source of economic value, then it would seem that they are not since the married person with children is creating the same value.
Of course, when employers do compete for employees, such candidates will have a greater need and incentive to choose the employer who does pay more, and companies, realizing that such people will find better offers more attractive, may provide benefits that specifically target such people (e.g., free daycare or whatever). Whether companies do this will depend on market conditions, for example.
Are we facing underpopulation?!
Can you imagine how stupid that comment is?
my first thoughts: hey maybe musky boi should try pay-transparency at twitter to get more to quit; what's another 1/7th and then saying no to the others that ask to the already all time low morale?
One person has the same title as another but everyone knows that person A does person B’s job in the shower.
This is why serious companies use low key stock options or RSUs to pay person A 1000x more than person B.
This stuff is hard, it’s all a gradient right?
But Meta just whacked 10+ percent of staff in the biggest tech layoff ever and the street responded positively.
Most people aren’t smart enough to do this shit, and efforts to democratize a field that should be more credentialed and regulated is why we keep fucking up as an industry. We have no (public) respect for the difference between the pros and the TypeScript dabblers.
There’s a parent around it floating around somewhere.
And I never said I was the “pro”, I said that our industry doesn’t adequately acknowledge the difference between “pros” and “dabblers”.
Which is why Therac 25 can happen.
Honestly, as politely as possible, know before you speak.
Lots of pros and cons, but it would be very interesting.
Here's one place that aggregates this data: https://www.openthebooks.com/ https://www.openthebooks.com/virginia-state-employees/
"Norway, the country where you can see everyone's tax returns" - https://www.theguardian.com/money/blog/2016/apr/11/when-it-c... .
What We Can Learn From Sweden's Public Records of Salaries" - https://theculturetrip.com/europe/sweden/articles/what-we-ca...
The angst over these laws is, IMO, blown way out of proportion. The only thing I can think is the real underlying issue is that there must be massive pay disparities in some industries…
I dont understand how people that declare they believe in free market, want information to be hidden and the market to be less free.
Additionally most of them are employees.
It should be obvious that freely knowing salaries will improve the employee's ability to negotiate the wage they deserve.
I would argue that for high performers, it could become an excuse not to pay more. "Sorry, we know you did XYZ, but we can't give you a further raise because you're already 4% ahead of your colleagues." And of course, everyone thinks they're a high-performer, so this policy would be unpopular with actual high-performers + the people that think they are (but aren't, and wouldn't be affected anyway).
This is already used as an excuse, except that right now you can't easily check whether that's even true, so I think transparency would actually be better. If you're a high performer, switch to a company where you feel rewarded suitably, which is easier to do with transparency.
> everyone thinks they're a high-performer
That's again a problem with less information: nobody really knows so they just assume.
[citation needed]
The same thing applies to the claims you made in this post, but maybe you mean that all of these things have to be true for a free market to work well, rather than for it to exist? Again, I still think this requires proof, especially with regards to information having to be free.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/freemarket.asp
[2] I'm just an armchair economist though, so take everything I say with a grain of salt.
Youu believe that a Free Market can exist when buyers don't have access to information and amidst is rampant fraud and violence?
And you expect this to function and not decend into anarchy? Do I understand correctly that Somalia is the perfect free market?
> Youu believe that a Free Market can exist when buyers don't have access to information and amidst is rampant fraud and violence?
Existence? Sure. The only thing I was pointing at here is your very non-standard definition of a free market.
For the fraud and violence, your original statement was "no fraud", not "rampant fraud". I think you would agree that there are very few markets without any fraud, no? Such a strong claim definitely requires proof.
To get back to your original claim about free information, I think some amount of regulation would be required for information to be freely availble. Otherwise, why should someone give away their competitive edge (ie. the information), without any gain? Would be interesting to hear you take on that.
Imagine salaries are completely public. A team of co-workers finds out that they are all being paid $200k each, and are happy with that. But if they only knew that their labor generates $2 million in profits for the company, each. They should be getting paid something like $1.8 or $1.9 million per person. The execs are ripping them off big time.
That is not how pricing works. How much of your budget is spent on food? How much profit does food generate in your life?
Supply and demand curves. If the team or coworkers thinks they can make more than $200k each without their employer, they are free to start their own business and pay themselves $1.9M each.
Long time ago when I was young, naive and even more stupid than I am now, I have, by chance, found out how much my younger co-worker, who just joined our team, earned. By chance I mean, it came up in the form life insurance he took, which, at our place, was a standard double salary. My co-worker had less experience, less credentials; he was doing less than I was doing, because he just joined us.
I was incensed and I did everything wrong including sending email to my boss asking effectively 'the fuck'. My boss, not being an idiot, started documenting the interaction with first question being:'How did you get this information and did you happen to access something you are not supposed to?' As you can imagine, it kinda spiraled downwards from there, which included me having a longer conversation with boss's boss.
Eventually, I quit, but if I were to do it again. I would urge everyone to take a deep breath, get an offer and then talk to the bosses to throw the 'more money for co-worker' as a cherry on top.
Anything else is counterproductive.
- People hired when the company needs a lot of new staff at once are paid more than people hired to do same job in normal times. Basic demand/offer law.
- Somebody will negotiate more cash vs less stock options.
- I was able to get some extra money many years ago because for that new job I had to commute from a longer distance (10 minutes walking vs 1 hour metro or car). Extra costs -> extra money.
- Some people have pay rises because of what they did (deserved or undeserved, I won't get into that.)
- how you evaluate others investment in their job
- how you respond to their claimsQuitting is an extreme response (not wrong, and I totally understand people who'd decide to quit).
But what's the response of the other 96%? No response? Lower productivity? Toxicity? Less helpful? Indifferent? Revenge? Destructive?
I doubt the 96% will have no response.
- 88% of workers will demand to know the salary range for their current position, if permitted by law; 68% will demand the highest end of known salary range
- 1 in 20 workers would quit if it’s revealed co-workers earn more money; 63% would demand equal pay
- 85% say they’re more likely to apply to job that lists a salary range
- 42% say the salary ranges companies list should be limited
- 63% worry salary transparency will cause problems among co-workers
- 92% of workers support salary transparency laws; 61% say laws will improve wage gap
I was thinking about the psychological effects. The article mentions it but doesn't go into it: "However, 63% do fear it will be problematic to know how much their co-workers make"
If you look at the list of problems I wrote you see they are psychological.
It's really affecting me to be honest. I'm seeing people in different light and resenting their pay. I'm resenting people being paid in some cases almost double what I was on a new comer to that role with no experience, we used to pay about 80k hour for a new starter in the role I now oversee, we now pay over 140k. That's barely less for a brand new starter than I was making a few months ago with 10 years more experience in the role.
Salary matters suck for everyone, I hate dealing with this aspect of my job. Everybody just wants wants wants and act like children when they don't get.
Also it’s not fair to be mad at your coworkers cause you were underpaid. Be mad at the company or your bosses if anything.
The question you should ask yourself as a manager now is not the question whether you expect others to negotiate like you did, but how can you reach a pay level across the team that is somewhat balanced .
The company I am working in has fairly strict guidance based on competences and experience which I do like. It makes sure that no one is payed much below or much above an estimated market rate. You won’t receive sometime into your team who is extremely overpayed because they were their manager‘s darling.
Take meta. If you joined today vs a year ago and everything else was the same you’d be making over 30% as much.
Companies generally don’t pay tenured people as much as new hires across the board. It’s not about negotiating.
If you're one of the other 99% of hires you're going to be placed at some salary which has been already budgeted and approved for your position. There's some leeway there but it's not more than a single digit percentage, although I agree with patio11 and others saying that an extra 5-10K/year just for asking politely is not a bad deal.
I know HN is full of these Captains of Industry who merely glance at their bosses with an upturned eyebrow, and get $100K of RSUs thrown at them, but for the rest of the workforce, here's what negotiation looks like:
[Me] Hi, I'd like a raise.
[Co] Nope.
[Me] OK, here are examples of the value I'm providing and how it's increased over time.
[Co] Your current salary accounts for this.
[Me] Other companies offer 20% more and I'm only asking for 10%.
[Co] ...
[Me] OK, I have an offer from the other company. Last chance.
[Co] Well... Bye?
But that IS negotiating. If you show you're willing to stick around in the same role for an extended period of time, for the same pay, you have implicitly negotiated that deal for yourself. Why TF would your employer be incentivised to pay you more if you show yourself to be happy with the status quo?
Have you ever offered to pay more for your morning coffee because Starbucks hasn't raised their prices in 2 years? No? So why would your employer offer you more money when you've not raised the issue of comp for 2 years?
If you're unhappy about that, you inform your current employer you've found a now role with better pay, and walk. If your employer deems you worth it (rightly or wrongly), they might offer a counter. You can choose to accept that... or not.
Just like if Starbucks raises the price of their coffee, you can accept the higher price and keep going there, because you think their coffee is worth it, or you find a different cafe with lower prices.
We are to our employers what a cup of coffee is to us.
I’ll be the first to admit that until 2015, they were just another enterprise CRUD job
Accept it, and you will have much better success when negotiating your salary and planning your career path.
From a company's perspective, your salary does not reward your skills or efforts, your salary is the strict minimum that is necessary for you to accept to work for them and to be happy enough to be productive.
Turns out the minimum you accept is lower than some other people's minimum.
If so did they ever say no?
In my experience many who complain about salary often failed to ever try and negotiate on behalf of themselves.
But since that isn't how things work in glorious capitalist utopia, I just slack off hard core instead. I don't need the money near as much as I need my time back.
edit: especially when it comes to comp, which was how this started. The left hand (as it were) criticizing comp in tech, and the right complaining about capitalism, is my favorite part.
And then you start wondering if you're being underpaid too. Do all the people above you know how much of a sucker you are for accepting the lowball rate?
It's a problem for people who get promoted to a level where they get to peek behind the curtain and see all the things that the company has been doing wrong all the time they've been there, and the realisation that all the other people are fine with it. It kind of gets to you after a while.
However the idea that everyone should be paid the same for the same position is just not how the world works.
Here is a personal example. Long time ago I worked at a bank.. I did simple teller operations and some loan document processing. My co-worker did the same job. However when it came to number of transactions processed and number of loan documents processed I literally was twice as productive. So should we be paid the same since its technically the same position? Or do I have a valid case to be made that I am worth more? Would my coworker have a valid reason to be upset that I make more?
Another example in my IT career, In general I get things done quickly and am easy to work with. There are people in this profession that sometimes lack social skills and can just be difficult to work with. Is my ability to easily work with others and get things done quicker (technical skill and people skills) worth more to my employer than say someone in my same "position" who is hard to work with..add hurdles to get things done... etc.
Randomly asking for a raise doesn't work.
Randomly, no... but asking for a raise while showing reasons why you think you deserve it definitely can. I know because I literally just did that.
Keep a running document of accomplishments, especially anything that is "above and beyond", whatever that might mean in your context. It's much easier to present that then trying to remember everything you did months/years later.
Also, in my experience, it's fairly easy to tell which companies will be willing to give you raises based on how your initial salary negotiations went. When I've worked for stingy employers who wouldn't budge on salary, I rarely got anything over a basic 2-3% annual bump. When there was a lot of flexibility in the salary range (or when they've offered more than I asked) it has been quite easy to get additional bumps. I also have the same work ethic and drive at each of these companies, so I don't _think_ it was a difference in performance. I've always received glowing reviews regardless of the company.
My experience with salary negotiations is probably similar to yours. It's pointless. The company has all the power, and if you give an ultimatum, they say "there's the door" anyway, so why bother? Just skip it all and go out the door from the start. Grind some Leetcode, go through the interview hazing ritual again, and job hop. It sucks, but I guess it is the way it is.
Wow, what an immature attitude YOU have.
Of course everyone "wants wants wants". You're displaying that attitude right now. You're feeling hurt about not getting more, because you want more. That's normal. That's OK. If someone offered to bump my salary to a million pounds for no reason, of course I'd take it.
You should probably try asking for a pay rise. Pay, in tech, has everything to do with your negotiation power, and almost nothing to do with how good you are at your job. Your job is to maximise your salary. For the person paying the salary (your boss), their job is to minimise it. They're not doing it because they despise you, think less of you, or want to exact petty revenge on you. they do it because it's their job to keep costs down. Just like you would try to minimise the cost of servers, or software licenses. The sooner people understand this, the better for everyone.
Now go and advocate for yourself. If you really feel under-paid, ask for a raise. Threaten to walk (be sure you can actually follow up on that). If your contribution to the company is deemed to be worth the money, you'll get it.
I've rarely seen individual contributions able to be evaluated 'fairly' at any scale. Your skills may be top notch, but you were focused on a project that was killed after 10 months because.... budget cuts? Bad management? Your contribution to the company in that case can be seen as a net negative, but it's largely out of your control.
The OP should just leave and find a better gig. That might be slightly harder over the next year, and yeah, it sucks to do that, but it's how you get big raises. The people coming in at 140k are demonstrating that (in the above example).
Trying too much 'negotiate for a raise' tips your hand that you're unhappy, and you will be treated differently if you make anything more than a casual ask (even then...).
this is absolutely true. But everyone needs to decide for themselves if they want to work for a Google-esque company that does shit like that, or something smaller where you can have a material impact and your absence will be noticed and missed instantly.
When you join a company, you are making an informed bet. You're betting that you can find successful projects to work on within the company, that the budget won't be slashed, that your manager isn't a sociopath who only promotes his drinking buddies, that half the company won't get fired within 6 months, that it won't go bankrupt.
You won't always get it right, sometimes you just get dealt a bad hand, in which case; try again, don't sit tight for another 5 years hoping things will change; do something about it. Move projects and try again. Or find another job.
If that suns up your sentiment, do you not see a problem with that?
After a couple of decades managing developers and engineers I specifically left management and now refuse to take on any role that requires direct reports just because the entitlement attitude in tech is so bad nowadays. “Management” gets a bad rap here on HN, but to me, they are real hero’s and doing a shit job.
If you can't fire them because they're hard to replace, guess what; they have more value than you attributed to them, and were probably RIGHT to complain and insist on better pay.
Just like your employer tries to extract maximum value for minimum pay out of you, so should you extract maximum pay for minimum investment out of your employer. That's only fair.
Whether or not they have value or hard to replace doesn’t excuse them from having the responsibility of civil behavior. Where is being valuable an appropriate excuse for being an asshole acceptable anywhere in society?
I’m “entitled” to my market worth. I feel not an ounce of sympathy for parent poster. He has accepted what the company is paying him.
Sure, but your employer will have the expectation that you will provide market value for that compensation that they provide you. If you are well paid and do underwhelming work compared to coworkers who are paid less but provide exceptional work, your leadership will take notice of that. They will and should expect more from you because your better lower paid coworkers are moving the value/$ bar expectations for you.
Literally the worst reputation you could have among your leadership is that of a “market worth” paid underperformer. Folks like that are the easy choice when the RIF conversations starts happening. When RIFs aren’t happening, folks like that are going to catch every shit job a manager can throw at them.
> "Management" ... are ... doing a shit job
One strategy I like to use when I encounter a manager doing a shit job is to complain about my six figure salary every 1:1 while putting in the minimum possible effort. Eventually they tend to leave and never take a management job again.
Works a treat.
I go to work everyday for one reason: to exchange labor for money to support my addiction to food and shelter. All three things being nearly equal, my goal is to extract as much money for my labor as possible as long as my job choice doesn’t make me hate my life
Please tell me you don’t believe the bullshit of a “mission” from a for profit company or that “we are family”.
It doesn't sound like you're a great advocate for your reports.
Either accept this and start managing it to your advantage, your employees advantage and the companies or just accept that you've proven the Peter principle.
> Salary matters suck for everyone, I hate dealing with this aspect of my job.
What exactly did you think your responsibility as a manager would be?
I once knew a manager who had people reporting into him who made 10X as much as he did (yes, 10X). I asked him about this once and his response indicates what you expect from an excellent manager "they are taking risks that i don't take and they are compensated for those risks".
You seem fixated on the past and salary issues instead of learning from this experience. Perhaps you can read up on how to negotiate and try to make more yourself? Maybe they were better at salary negotiations and this is why they earn what they do?
Being a manager and "resenting people" isn't a good thing.
Does everybody do this or is it just you? People are paid market rate if another business thinks you are worth more they will offer you more. You then go to your boss and ask them to meet or exceed the market rate for you.
If you sell yourself as just another developer don't be surprised if your boss puts that expectation on your salery.
The solution in my opinion is just deeper transparency: how do compensation structures at companies really work. What determines a higher salary within a level for a role. And what are the details for large discrepancies / variance within a particular level. All of which we're attempting to collect and display with Levels.fyi (disclosure: I'm one of the founders). A lot of folks look at the out of band offers for a certain level and immediately conclude that they are being underpaid. As in the article: "7 in 10 will demand highest end of salary range". But to provide more comprehensive information around why someone may have received a higher offer could help clear some of this up. For example, interview performance, scope of work, and previous tenure can all affect the resulting offer.
A lot of those 4% would be a lot less vehement when it comes the time to actually quit and go on 0 income.
The article still has value, but the 4% figure is honestly negligible and it is absolutely not the main take away.
I'm on a team of six people, all classified as "senior engineers". None of us do the same job, even if we all work on the same stuff. Some deliver tons of new features and code. Others think and design, and come up with resilient, well-engineered things. Some are great with stakeholder relationships.
Unless I find out there's some huge disparity in pay (as in, everyone else out-earning me 2:1), I have absolutely no problem with some getting paid more, some less.
If I were to find out I'm getting paid the least, I would:
1. Start by asking for a raise to correct that.
2. If denied, inquire as to why my manager thinks I'm worth less.
3. If he makes a good point that I can agree with, I will focus on improving in that area and then discuss again in 6 months.
4. If I disagree and think they are under-valuing my skillset, I walk.
For context, I've done #3 at least 3 times, where I've asked a manager "what do I need to improve to warrant a pay raise or promotion?", and they give me an actual list of things to improve. Once I'm satisfied I've improved those areas, and have a few months of work history to prove it, they have absolutely no valid reason to deny me a pay rise, and I've received a pay rise 3/3 of those times. This obviously doesn't work if your manager is an asshole, or if there's suddenly a budget cut, etc - you need to evaluate the chances of that happening, and consider option #4.