
Ask HN: Why don't people talk specifics about money and salaries? - nathanbarry
Growing up neither my parents or friends of my parents talked about specifics around money. Not only how much everyone was paid, but also how much they paid for a car or a house.<p>When I went to negotiate my first salaried job I had no idea how much to aim for. Was $30,000 a reasonable salary? $60,000? I realized then that everyone's aversion to talking about money had left me in the dark as to how the business world worked.<p>Why is everyone so hesitant to share their salaries and other financial information?<p>Note: I know that it is against company policies, at many companies, to disclose your salary. Is there a reason besides this?<p>Edit: Has sharing financial information, either personal or about your company, ever caused you problems later? I would love to hear some good stories.
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sakopov
Simple: it only benefits you, not your employer. Here is a personal example
from a not so distant past for me. The economy tanked when i graduated from
university with my Comp. Sci. degree. It seemed as though every company in the
area was on hiring freeze. Relocation didn't seem like a good option at the
time. So, i was offered 35K at the place i was interning, when i was supposed
to start out at 50/55K considering experience. During my stay there i busted
my butt, was praised for my work, got amazing annual reviews, promoted to
senior software engineer and over 2 years got bumped to 60K. My manager
actually told me i am the best resource on the team. Anyway, i was lead to
believe that the company just didn't pay much their software devs. Until one
day i was talking to a friend of mine, a very talented web designer who was
actually hired at our company to do web design but them got bumped to our
engineering team. He told me he was offered 75K and knew that some folks on
our team made 85K. My jaw dropped. I left the company 3 weeks later. The new
place doubled my salary. I was counter-offered at, again, a much lower number
than others on the team. Would any of my hire-ups wanted me to know this? Of
course not. They'd lose me earlier. This is how you retain people.

~~~
buro9
Hey, I downvoted you because of fat fingers and a tablet. I hope someone else
will upvote by way of undo, as that is what I intended.

I've been through the same experience. Not once, twice.

On both occasions I resigned the instant I discovered the discrepancy. On both
occasions the reaction by the companies was to suddenly offer a wage
correction. But the disrespect had already been shown in my opinion.

I'm in favour of transparency now. I'm also in favour of clearly understood
titles/levels, with knowledge of how to progress and what it means to be at a
level (not a hierarchy, but a personal learning progression).

Whether or not this works for non-engineering roles I've yet to find out.

~~~
sakopov
No biggie. :) I absolutely agree with you. It is a matter of disrespect. When
you're promoted you'd better expect same salary as those at your level.
Benefits can accumulate with seniority, but salary should be equal for
everyone.

------
ChuckMcM
The answer is actually pretty simple, it causes a lot of problems and very
little is any "good" comes out of it.

The problems seem to originate from two things; first people often judge their
own 'worth' by comparing their work output to others, and two, people who
don't understand the details of a particular job seem to think it is much
easier to do than it really is.

So in the first case person A, who thinks highly of themselves, and very
poorly of a co-worker person B, finds that the co-worker is getting more
compensation than they are. This triggers a management issue where someone has
to explain to person A the discrepancy. There are a number of real
explanations (like Person B is actually doing a harder job and/or providing a
more valuable role) that Person A, may be unable to accept.

Or person B may have a role that is significantly different, like they are in
marketing (vs engineering) or finance or analysis. Can you compare salaries
for someone who cranks out a thousand lines of code a day with someone who can
tell you precisely which of those lines of code are making the company money
and which ones aren't? Both are great skills, that latter is harder to find,
you might pay them a bit more. But explain that to the person writing code?
Not easy.

When I was at Google it was proposed a number of times (by engineers) that
everyone's salary should just be part of the info available. They didn't do
that, but I could see someone like the 37Signals folks or some startup doing
it from the start.

I've not worked at a company where that was the case so I can only speculate
on what it might be like. For folks who were internally OK with their own
perception of self worth it wouldn't matter, for the sociopaths it would give
them a new game to 'win', for folks who were not OK with their own self worth
it would be devastating.

I do know that individuals can change this, so when your out socially talk
freely about specific amounts of money you earn, or save, or spend. But be
forewarned that it will make _them_ uncomfortable. But if you can get a
community built up where its considered the 'norm' then converting your
workplace to use it (assuming they have enough of that community employed) can
work.

~~~
FreeKill
I find a lot of government and academic work operates in the way you
described. A lot of times, the job titles are known and have a pay rate or pay
scale associated with them.

Everyone knows, for example, that a software consultant level 3 has a pay rate
of $XX.

The biggest negative to that type of system, that I've experienced, is that
it's hard to incentivize great employees when they are already at their max
pay range. For example, you can't give them more money for great work. Also,
since everyone knows what everyone else is making, it tends to sometimes
create resentment if you think someone else, with the same title or pay scale,
is doing sub-standard work compared to you. This generally makes the person
less likely to work as hard as before or contemplate other opportunities.

On the positive side though, you don't generally have as many arguments over
wages and definitely no surprises when you find out someone's salary. Plus,
everyone is well aware of the rungs of progression in their current position,
so you tend to know when promotions are warranted and what you'll get as a
result which takes a lot of the "I hope they recognize how hard I work" or "I
hope I can get $XX more dollars after my next review" out of improving your
career. You know exactly what that next rung provides you, and so does
everyone else. Therefore, it removes a lot of stress of uncertainty but also
possibly diminishes some of the more "go getter" type spirit since you know
exactly what it takes to progress, so why go above and beyond?

Here's an example of what I'm talking about, in Ontario (Canada) all public
sector salaries > 100K are published publicly. The < 100K public sector
salaries are basically public too, just not published on a website :)

[http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/publications/salarydisclosure/20...](http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/publications/salarydisclosure/2012/)

~~~
ChuckMcM
Interesting, this would be an issue of course _"This generally makes the
person less likely to work as hard as before or contemplate other
opportunities."_ if it was endemic can you say more about that? Do you see
people at the top of the $X range who are 'coasting' (some folks called it
'retired in grade') or a lower performer pulling down the whole group who
don't want to work any harder than the guy making the same salary and 'getting
away with it' ?

~~~
FreeKill
Yeah, in my experience with it, I think the biggest problem was if you were
"maxed" out. Taking my example again, say you were Software Consultant Level
3, but there was no Level 4. At that point, the person either just accepts it
(and maybe loses some drive) or they look for options for a new ladder such as
changing title (manager, supervisor, etc.) or a whole new company altogether.

I think the same thing happens in all work places, but if salaries and titles
are more open ended, you never really know what you can achieve so you might
stick it out longer. In this type of workplace, you explicitly know, and you
explicitly know when you have no where left to progress so you make your
career choices knowing exactly where you stand.

------
mbesto
This is interesting, because it's mainly an American thing. My friends in
Sweden, Norway and Germany never hesitate to speak about compensation. Here in
the UK, it's sort of in between.

My theory is that American's believe the ability to assess your own salary and
worth is largely part of the attributes of success and worth. Other countries
believe more in the employer to define this.

Cool fact - In Norway, everyone's income is public domain:
<http://skattelister.aftenposten.no/skattelister/start.htm>

~~~
INTPenis
That's funny because I came here to see if anyone was pointing out how common
it was in Sweden for people to avoid the subject.

I'd say it varies from person to person though because me and another guy at
my department managed to get others to open up just by being open about it
ourselves and joking.

The sad thing that some people can't endure that without turning it into a
pissing contest for some sort of imaginary alpha-male position.

~~~
troels
Yes, I'd say parent has it wrong. In Denmark it is certainly taboo to discuss
salary and I would be rather surprised if there were cultural differences on
that point between Denmark and Sweden.

It's very much about context - there are situations/people with whom I
wouldn't mind discussing it, but there are also situations where it would be
clearly awkward.

~~~
INTPenis
These situations do occur where I work because our company is the result of
multiple mergers over the past 4 years. So I work with people who feel like
they've been there from the start but my entry salary was just as high, or
higher, than theirs because I was hired in the new company form.

------
_delirium
In the US, mostly worries about social problems from disparities. Parents may
not want their kids to know if their family is substantially wealthier or
poorer than their friends' families. Heck, adults might not want to know it
either. At some level of very-wealthy or very-poor it becomes obvious, but
there's a broad set of salaries in the middle that are broadly lumped in as
"middle class". Many people in that tier think of themselves as just middle
class, and socioeconomically roughly on par with other middle-class people. To
maintain that polite fiction, it can help not to know that you actually make
2x as much as your friend, or vice versa (in many middle-class communities,
salaries of both $120k and $60k can be found).

Companies similarly worry about a hit to team cohesion that could result if
team-members find out that some of them are paid much more than others.

~~~
sbov
Your kids probably know better than you if you make more money than their
friends' parents. With sleepovers and carpooling and all the time and
activities they spend on both sides, there's really no way to hide this,
especially at a $120k vs $60k disparity.

~~~
_delirium
I've actually been surprised, more often than not, when I've found out how
much people make (including some family friends I knew as a kid). It doesn't
correlate all that well with how much I would've guessed they were making. One
big reason is that people have wildly different savings rates, and I don't
generally have a way to guess that: someone who "looks like" they're living at
$70k/yr might actually be making a lot more and banking it for early
retirement.

Another reason was that, even when only estimating spending, as a kid I tended
to over-emphasize "conspicuous consumption" and gadgets: assumed the people
with bigger TVs, new game consoles, better cars, etc. were wealthier. What I
massively underestimated was the cost of "nice" vacations (esp. compared to
relatively minor items like game consoles), so it was really the people who
liked to travel a lot who spent more, but I never saw their spending happen
when I was around.

edit: To add one more confound, I think I also put too much emphasis on
"class" associations: I assumed parents working blue-collar jobs made less
than white-collar, which was not always true, esp. when you took into account
that some blue-collar families had 2x incomes.

------
Cushman
We could talk all day about the various sociological explanations, but there
is one very clear economic incentive for the salary taboo:

It enables companies to pay employees as a whole much, much less.

Doesn't need much more explanation than that.

~~~
crazygringo
The flip is also true. It allows companies to pay more, too.

If you publish your salaries, and along comes a super-talented programmer who
asks for more than standard, but has unique talents that don't really fit on
the standard "scale", then you can bring them on board, without creating
resentment, etc.

I've worked at a company with standardized salaries, that lost out on hiring
the best programmers, simply because their salary system (everybody's titles
linked to salary grades everyone knew) was too inflexible.

~~~
Cushman
Yeah, I'm not really buying that.

So you're bringing somebody exceptional on who will create some amount of
value, and you're willing to compensate them appropriately for that. But wait,
the rest of your team will be resentful!

There are two possibilities here: 1) You're paying everyone else less than
they're worth to you, in which case they _should_ be resentful; or, 2) You're
paying everyone else what you think they're worth to you, but you're unable to
convince them of that, in which case your problem isn't that your employees
know each others' salaries, your problem is that your employees don't trust
your judgment-- or perhaps that you _have poor judgment_.

Of course any compensation program which isn't flexible enough to
appropriately reward employees for the value they create is flawed, but that
has nothing to do with whether or not those rewards are public. In fact, I'd
argue that a traditional system where compensation is determined by closed-
door negotiations with asymmetric information is uniquely _un_ likely to do so
appropriately.

------
losvedir
I dunno, just an American cultural thing, and varies by country. When I was in
China, it was just a natural part of conversation: "Where are you from? What
do you do? How many brothers/sisters do you have? How much do you make?"

I'm cringing at all the responses in here saying "this is why", as if it's
some universal truth, when really it's just rationalizing the particular
culture people have been steeped in. Why don't women walk around topless at
the beach? Just culture. Some cultures see it as perfectly normal.

I wish people were more okay with it here in America. I make it a point to
answer honestly if anyone broaches the subject, and to ask my close friends.
Doing my part to change things. :)

~~~
azakai
> I'm cringing at all the responses in here saying "this is why", as if it's
> some universal truth, when really it's just rationalizing the particular
> culture people have been steeped in. Why don't women walk around topless at
> the beach? Just culture. Some cultures see it as perfectly normal.

Yes, it is cultural, but the answer isn't "it's just culture." There are
_reasons_ why it fits in one culture and not in another, and those reasons are
interesting.

I realize people saying "it's like this because X" sounds like they are saying
something universal. But they aren't. What they are saying is why, given other
factors in their culture, things are that way.

Of course it is possible there is no reason for something in one culture.
Random things happen. But even if they do, typically those things have effects
and other things affect them, and all those things interact in ways that
eventually settle down in some fixed point we call "the current culture". And
even there, we can say a lot about why that random thing remains and does not
vanish, or why it was not changed in a fundamental way, etc.

------
novemberin
It's totally cultural. In the US, people who have enough money to get by don't
talk about making or spending money. And they don't really want to either,
because it allows people who make 60K a year and people who make 250K a year
to both call themselves "middle class". Even close friends don't necessarily
know each other's salaries.

But all is not lost. It's hard to find a startup job where you won't be
working closely with people from cultures where discussing your salary, rent
etc. is perfectly normal.

That's how I was able to discover that as a woman I was making 75% of what my
male colleagues were making. That's a Pandora's box type discovery, and I did
stew on it for a while.

But I liked the company, and I didn't want to leave, so I saved that
information for the end-of-year talks. They ended up bringing my salary level
with the others', and then I was asked politely not to do that again.

It was quite uncomfortable for my boss - despite what you may think, your boss
probably doesn't remember your exact salary - and I think my salary was an
oversight (I was one of the earlier employees) rather than an intentional
slight or because I'm a woman.

But still - what are the chances that could have happened if I hadn't asked my
colleagues?

Don't ask, don't get.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
_your boss probably doesn't remember your exact salary_

I understand that you may be rationalizing it, but I find that hard to
believe. I may not have remembered my direct reports' exact salaries, but I
certainly knew who made more than who, by approximately what percentage, and
why each person was paid what they were.

------
lazyjones
If your parents never talked about money, you're lucky - you probably grew up
having enough of it not to worry. In poor families, money is a popular topic.
I suspect that is one of the reasons why the nouveau riche brag (talk) about
money frequently, while those who grew up rich are more discreet.

As for salaries - it's a cultural thing, in the US/UK it is common to mention
salaries in job offers (so you could compare easily), in other countries it
isn't (or wasn't, like here in Austria, where new laws require mentioning
minimum wages ...).

~~~
phamilton
I grew up in a family where money generally wasn't talked about. It wasn't
because of a taboo necessarily, but because of a lack of importance in our
lifestyle. We had enough, and we learned to get by on what we had. Now that
I'm on my own I feel like that has become the baseline. Until evidence
suggests I don't have enough and that I can't get by on what I have, it isn't
really that important to me. I don't lack ambition, it's just that money has
never been a goal and most likely never will.

------
Spooky23
Secrecy around compensation became widespread when anti-discrimination laws
came about because it's easy fodder for complaints and lawsuits.

It's pretty trivial to figure out what household income is within 10% if you
know a person at all. Your privacy isn't something that employers give a hoot
about.

------
nathanbarry
Related: has sharing financial information, either personal or about your
company, ever caused you problems?

I am very grateful to everyone who showed me, through their transparency, that
it is possible to make a living through self publishing books and software, so
I've made a commitment to share my own numbers.

But I'm wondering what problems this transparency has caused as well.

~~~
OafTobark
I've shared numbers openly my whole life, never had an issue. I understand why
company policies exist though in our own company, we never implemented any
such rule. As with the rest of the world, I've never not told. If anything, it
irked me a bit that others weren't open about it, especially if they were
asking me those same questions.

I can't say my experience speaks for everyone else, but I can't imagine why
it'd ever be an issue disclosing these things openly.

------
cluutran
People attach a lot of emotion to it. If you make a lot, then it's bragging.
If you make very little, it's embarrassing.

I think the more we talk about it, the more we have to gain. It only hurts bad
employers.

~~~
nathanbarry
Yep, there is a lot of self-worth attached to how much you make. Maybe that is
something we should fix?

But if it wasn't for a few friends sharing how much they charge for consulting
I would never have known it was possible to charge $250/hr (and much more). I
would have been stuck charging multiples of the hourly rates I had heard about
(Maybe I would have doubled the highest hourly rate I had heard at the time,
which was $20 an hour).

------
lutusp
> Why don't people talk specifics about money and salaries?

Writer can't think of an explanation for secrecy about money and salaries.

> When I went to negotiate my first salaried job I had no idea how much to aim
> for. Was $30,000 a reasonable salary? $60,000? I realized then that
> everyone's aversion to talking about money had left me in the dark as to how
> the business world worked.

Writer inexplicably _still_ can't think of a reason for secrecy about money
and salary.

The reason is obvious -- keeping you in the dark pays off. The employer
benefits from your ignorance. Other people in your approximate position, but
who have the job you seek, benefit from your ignorance. Everyone benefits from
your ignorance except you.

All I can say is, wait until you actually have some money and/or a salary.
Then you'll understand.

> Why is everyone so hesitant to share their salaries and other financial
> information?

Because information has intrinsic value, and particular kinds of information
have high intrinsic value. How many times have you read about a settlement
between businesses in which the terms were sealed by a court order? Can you
think of a reason why?

------
lakeeffect
Employers have an advantage by discouraging workers from knowing the average
wage they can lower the common wage. Its been adaptive culture to not speak of
wages, hence the importance of union standard wages as a need to help those
less skilled in finance and valuation not get undercut.

------
gte910h
Those with information about salaries have power. Those who do not have them
do not. Do not tell yourself stories to make you think it's good you don't
know everyone's salary. You're disadvantaged by not knowing it.

Just like you're disadvantaged when you fill out the "past salary" boxes on
job apps.

------
rayiner
It's awkward and not relevant information. You can get on payscale the same as
everyone else. Especially in the US where income is really significant in
terms of basic needs like healthcare and there is no cultural norm that all
sorts of work are respectable and worthy.

~~~
theorique
It's _extremely_ relevant.

Wouldn't it be interesting to know that you had received a higher offer than
your peers because the company wanted to hire you that much?

Or that you were lowballed but your negotiation skills brought your salary in
line with averages?

Or that you are being paid 30% less than the other members of your team doing
the same job?

All _extremely_ relevant things to learn.

~~~
objclxt
There is an element, as somebody else has pointed out here, of Pandora's box
to this.

If you are _happy_ with your current compensation (and I appreciate for some
that won't be the case), then do you really want to know? Would you want to go
from ignorant bliss to questioning either your own negotiating abilities or
the value the company has for you?

I suspect the answer to that depends on the type of person you are, and I
don't pretend there's a right one either!

~~~
theorique
You make a good point.

Salary is tied up with ego and emotion, and self-worth, and a person's
assessment of how valued they are by their organization. If a person can
evaluate this in an objective and cold-blooded fashion, and see things from
management's point of view without taking things personally, they can probably
stand to know their salary relative to their peers without obsessing about it.

On the other hand, all of us know some people who would obsess and not be able
to let it go, and make others' lives miserable about it ("I get $5000 less
than that jerk? All he does is browse 4chan all day" "Ha, I knew I was
considered more important to this department than Thompson!")

------
e12e
On a side note, at least in Norway, every publicly traded company has to file
a yearly earnings report, with income and expenses. Seeing how much is spent
on salaries, divide by the number of employees, and at least you know if
you're paid above or below average (just remember to allow for certain tax
expenses the employer pays as "part" of the salary, I suspect that would be
different in most countries).

Not feasible (or meaningful) if you work for IBM, maybe -- but for a smallish
company that should work. If you can't do that math, you probably shouldn't be
doing software engineering either...

------
akaru
I think the only thing non disclosure benefits is the company. I lived abroad
for many years, and salary was freely discussed. I think doing so is great for
an employee.

------
johnrgrace
First, salary is often times the most direct way a company says how much
you're worth. Thus salary in our monkey brains equals status, and real or
percived differences leads to conflict.

Second, some companies like to get away with underpaying people. I'm not sure
it's smart but they do. I know I worked with someone who did the same thing I
did for 45% less.

------
rpeden
In some cases, it's not just against company policy, but is included in the
employment contract the employee signed when they were hired.

I guess the legality of such a clause will depend on where you live, but for
people who have something like that in their employment contract, the risk may
seem significant enough that it isn't worth violating it.

~~~
michaelochurch
Technically speaking, a company can't legally fire you for disclosing your
compensation. That's an anti-union-busting law.

What this means in practice is that they'll make up "performance" bullshit
(unrealistic deadlines, retroactive shortfalls, responsibilities without the
support necessary to achieve them) and fire that person over that instead. One
of the reason for companies to have "low-performer" witch hunts (also known as
stack-ranking) on a periodic basis is to flush out the "troublemakers" they
dislike but can't legally fire.

So I don't know how much protection those laws actually provide, but it is
technically true in the U.S. that no one can be fired for disclosing his own
compensation.

~~~
johnrgrace
If your an at will employee, which almost everyone is today then the company
can fire you for no given reason. In practice disclosing salary isn't going to
get your fired unless there are other reasons, but will get you labeled as a
bad player.

~~~
michaelochurch
At-will is far more complicated than most people think.

It gives them the right to terminate employment because of a business event
(plant closing, large-scale layoff for strategic reasons) without being liable
for payment (as opposed to, e.g., a contract where there would be "kill fees"
for early termination). It also gives them the right to fire people
individually for criminal behavior, violations of well-understood professional
ethics, and falling short of an objective, published performance standard. If
the company policy requires 150 widgets per hour and one person's coming in at
130, the company can fire that person. That said, if he can establish that
someone else (e.g. the boss's son) had the same title and job, produced 120,
and wasn't fired, he has a stronger case.

White-collar firings, which are always dressed up to look like
"performance"-related firings, are a major gray area. The reason for the
kangaroo court of "performance improvement plans" is to make the case that, at
the least, the employee was _warned_. PIPs don't show that the termination was
fair, but establish that the employee "should have seen it coming", and that
often decides these he-said/she-said sorts of things in the employer's favor.

Termination endgames can be played to a win. For one thing, a lot of the
things that people get fired for _can_ be actionable. Let's say you have a bad
boss and try to get away from him using a transfer. In most companies, bosses
fire people who try to get away from them. However, if company policy is to
allow transfers and you can establish that someone of your rank and seniority
was allowed transfer anywhere in the company, but your boss blocked it, you
have a harassment claim. You used a legitimate HR measure (transfer) in a
legitimate way. You can never prove it was the reason for the termination, but
if you document everything you do-- every single thing that can make you look
good-- it is to your advantage. (If he lets you transfer and get out of his
way, that's better. Getting a better job is always better than playing the
termination endgame.)

You're almost always better off getting another job, but if you have some
reason to want to stay at the company, there's a lot you can do to make
yourself hard to fire. Use all internal recourse you have, including HR. (Be
respectful and focus on defending yourself and your reputation, not attacking
your boss. HR is not your friend, but you can still use them.) That will make
your boss angry, and HR will almost always side with management, but if you
document everything you can make it look like the firing is retaliatory.
Health problems are often protected, and everyone over 25 has at least one
health problem. Disclose it, no matter how minor. (If you're presented with a
PIP, sign absolutely nothing, leave the room, and disclose a health problem by
email _immediately_.) If you get put on a PIP, dress up interviews as "doctor
visits" and force your boss to change the schedule of the PIP (if he doesn't,
then start using words like "emotional distress" and CC someone in HR.) This
will exhaust him and draw out the process long enough for you to get a better
job. The goal, I should mention, is usually not to sue the company. It's to
scare them into either slowing down so you can get out, writing a severance,
or agreeing to a good reference so you can move on in your career.

TL;DR: At-will employment is much more complicated than employers want people
to believe. The problem is that the termination game is something people (if
they're lucky) rarely or never have to play, and people who've been through it
don't talk about it and share knowledge.

------
michaelochurch
Unfortunately, compensation is taken to be like a performance review, but
objective, so you often need to change your story later for career reasons. In
finance, some firms won't hire analysts who didn't make top bonus, which means
you need to figure out what that level is-- and it varies widely. (Top bonus
in a shitty year is often less than the lowest-tier in a good year, at least
for entry-level roles.) If you let too many people know what you make, it gets
harder to reshape your story if you need to do it.

(By the way, this should be obvious, but you should avoid naming numbers
unless you absolutely have to. If a future employer asks what bonus you got,
just say, regardless of what's true, "I received the highest bonus available
for my role and seniority and I'm contractually disallowed to give specific
numbers.")

This is also an area where it's hard to tell whether you'll need an upward or
downward revision until you're in that situation. Upgrading makes it look like
you were a strong performer whereas downgrading gives you a socially
acceptable excuse for leaving a job or a better "trend". Of course, the
smartest thing to do is not to give these numbers out ever.

I actually think LinkedIn is a bad idea for a lot of people, for the same
reason, but pertaining to job titles and dates. Accidental consistency risk is
enough of a danger (people who forget their exact job titles 12 years ago) to
be cautious, and then consider the fact that, although people don't anticipate
ever needing "creative career repair", shit happens and sometimes people do.

Finally, my attitude is just that it's none of anyone's business what I,
personally, make. I'll gladly share my estimates of what various levels of
engineer can earn on the market as it currently is, and my general sense of
what engineers are worth, but strategically important information ought to be
safeguarded, especially in this world.

------
pebb
Because most people are insecure. (By talking salary, I helped a co-worker
raise his salary at the company by 40%, matching a new hire. It's
unbelievable)

------
kinble32
This is a US thing. It's not true in many other countries.

