
My Struggle with the Last Great Taboo: Admitting My Salary - luu
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/im-terrified-tell-people-much-make
======
dennish00a
I find it interesting to read about this "taboo" because, as a scientist at a
public university, the issue is...nonexistent! If you are a scientist writing
grant applications with other people (the norm), then you need to know their
exact salaries in order to fill out the application. This includes the
salaries of people above and below you in the food chain. There is no mystery
or taboo in it whatsoever. Working at a public university, the mystery factor
is even lower, if possible, because all the higher salaries are published
online.

I remember dimly when I thought this complete transparency was strange and it
made me uncomfortable. Now I don't usually give it a second thought.

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

~~~
Cederfjard
Isn't it sort of taboo here too, though? I've seen people being told to fuck
off for asking that question, or at least politely declined. Even my close
family have always been reluctant to divulge their exact income to me, with a
few exceptions. It's not a thing that I would ask someone without feeling
pretty certain they wouldn't mind.

~~~
ersii
In general? Yes, it's still socially frowned upon (ie. Taboo) and socially
awkward to talk about your salary or someone you knows salary in Sweden.

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

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

~~~
mattlutze
From the employer side, if one or the other is a more valuable employee, I
need to be able to compensate them more so that I can ensure they stay with
our team and don't go to a competitor.

From the employee side, if I go out and learn new skills and abilities, I want
to be able to negotiate compensation that reflects the value I bring.

Particularly in creative fields like tech / IT, unionization fails both of
those needs, and promotes stagnation over innovation.

So, no.

~~~
sukruh
Having professionals negotiate for the team doesn't necessarily mean the pay
will be equal among the team.

Actors, who also work in a creative field and also have vast differences in
talent, use many kinds of intermediaries.

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teekert
>"Without that knowledge, I would never have known I was being suckered."

Suckered by yourself you mean, and suckered by the people that never taught
you the principles of a free market where the assumption is that when two
parties agree, the situation is satisfactory for both. If not, there is no
agreement, no deal. The other party was not suckering you, you were happy with
the deal, you took it. Why do you put something as important as your salary
entirely into someone else's responsibility and then complain later?

Whoever raised or educated you forgot to mention some critical things to you.
Like objects, people's skill have no intrinsic value. It is you and the other
party that set the value to an agreeable level. Wow, you even got pissed at
others that did receive the lesson in time. Well, just be happy someone taught
you in the end.

What helps me in negotiations is thinking not about coworkers but about how I
could be working less (later in life perhaps), how my wife could be working
less, how we could travel more... If only I can convince them I'm worth more.
I know myself well enough to see that I need the reason to be "not just for
me". I wish it was enough to just do it for me though.

I do think the situation is a bit different in the Netherlands where very
often there is a collective work agreement (with all wages defined) which puts
people in levels. The requirements for the levels are clearly defined. At the
healthcare company I work we have "key areas of responsibility tables" where
you can see what to do exactly to go to the next scale. I check them before my
yearly progress meeting and indicate to my boss if I should be at a higher
level. Your salary within the scale is determined by the progress you make. It
makes the gaps with coworkers less, still there is a lot of room for
negotiation.

Also we have [http://www.loonwijzer.nl/home](http://www.loonwijzer.nl/home)
where everyone can enter their salary and you can look up how you are doing.
That said, I find it difficult to compare directly to others.

~~~
pparkkin
I think what she's referring to is a situation of information asymmetry, which
puts the employee in a position of less power in the negotiation.

Of course it's up to you to negotiate for yourself. That's pretty obvious. But
if the other party holds more power, you're negotiating at a disadvantage. And
the way I understood the article, that is what she meant by being "suckered".
Being put at a disadvantage when negotiating for something important to her.

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

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

We really should stop playing the victim.

~~~
lsiebert
If you have a network. If people in your network talk to you. If people post
to glassdoor about the company.

Don't make the mistake of assuming that this is true for everyone. Also
remember that even if you have a network, if it is influenced by your gender
(women with women friends) , or race( black people with black friends) you
might not have an accurate picture.

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daeken
I've come to realize lately that I have absolutely no idea what I should be
making. I know what I make and I know what I have made in the past, but I have
no idea whether it's above or below average.

The only way I can think of to determine my value is to go interview in a
bunch of places and see what they offer. However, I have no interest in
leaving my job right now, and I feel like it's dishonest to go through the
process knowing that I wouldn't take anything but a ridiculously great offer.

How do other folks deal with this? (Edit: Glassdoor has no decent information
for my position, at any of the companies I've looked at.)

~~~
johnward
My problem is that glassdoor has information for my specific position, in my
city, in my company but it's double what I currently make. I don't _think_ I'm
that underpaid but the taboo of employees not discussing salary leaves me
without any real idea of where I really should be. I know for a fact I make
more money in one quarter for the company than I earn in an entire year. I
still asked for at least 20% more and am awaiting a response. Also applying
for other positions.

The only big increases I've ever gotten were by switching companies or
bringing a competing offer to my boss. People say the latter is career suicide
but they are wrong.

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

~~~
disillusioned
She chickened out. But it's hard.

~~~
yitchelle
Its probably a Wired policy to not disclose your salary.

~~~
sukilot
Which is a situation where getting fired for breaking policy is going to be
more profitable than keeping your job.

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omahlama
In my previous job at the Finnish software consulting company Futurice
([http://futurice.com](http://futurice.com)), there was a long discussion
about this that ended with a volunteer-based publication of peoples salaries -
around half of the 200 people opted in. The result was a bit anti-climatic:
peoples wages were consistent and fair, no big drama.

After switching jobs to another software consulting company Reaktor
([http://reaktor.com](http://reaktor.com)), I brought up this topic and the
discussion was very similar. I decided to try a different route: I created a
wiki-page called "Voluntary salary information" and added my name and salary
to the top of the page. I then wrote a post to our discourse board explaining
why I thought this was important. As of now there are 68 names on that list (
with only 1 obvious troll ) out of about 300 employees. Our head of HR replied
to my discourse post with a detailed explanation of how peoples salaries are
decided. Overall a great day for transparency.

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mkagenius
I have had three managers till now. I have asked all three what was their
salary. Only one told me his salary, rest two didn't.

I keep asking salaries when I become friends with my coworkers, mostly because
its a taboo and hence makes it fun. It makes them laugh when I suddenly in the
middle of a conversation ask their salary becuase nobody has in the 10-15
years of their careers. I am a fresher, though.

~~~
yitchelle
That is interesting. Did you disclose your salary to your coworkers, and if
you did, did that effect your relationship with your coworkers?

~~~
mkagenius
All three of my managers know my salary (of course).

Apart from that, people with whom I am close with know my salary and I know
theirs. Mine is the lowest even though one of my friend is IC1 and I am IC2,
others are senior to me.

Some of them tell me to talk to the manager for my salary. My priority is
learning, so it doesn't bother me much. But I did talk to the manager (and her
manager's manager too), because if you don't, they take you for granted.

By knowing I had the lowest salary gives me lot of opportunities to crack
jokes :-)

~~~
yitchelle
From an office scenario, having a coworker knowing your salary is very
different to having a close friend knowing your salary. This is especially
true if the average salary of your peers makes it difficult to have a
comfortable lifestyle. Luckily for the most of the HN crowd, this is not the
case.

Salary is something I have an open discussion with my manager about, actually
my manager encourage this type of discussion with him. This is a healthy
practice.

~~~
mkagenius
Oh maybe I wasn't clear, I was referring to people I am close with at work and
in the same team know my salary.

My salary is comfortably above market's average hence doesn't bother me much
that I have the lowest in my team.

Agreed, totally healthy.

------
wavefunction
Transparency can only lead to a freer market, which is something many
capitalists truly fear.

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pixie_
If salaries were transparent wouldn't that create an incredible amount of
animosity between co-workers? When HR has to negotiate and pay someone more to
join the company everyone else is going to be extremely jealous. You think
people are going to understand? They are not going to. People are not
rational. It's more common sense than fear. Disclosing salaries is going to
create way more social problems than it solves. Companies aren't forcing
anyone to keep their salary secret. People themselves don't want their
salaries disclosed, and for good reason. Kind of hard to work together when
everyone is reduced to a number.

~~~
pavlov
You can already see how 100% salary transparency works in Finland or Sweden.

Anyone can look up a co-worker's salary from data made available by the tax
office. (Of course the information is about a year out of date because it's
based on tax returns.)

Are employees "reduced to numbers" in Sweden and Finland? Certainly not. On
the contrary, these societies are considered some of the most open and equal
in the world. Maybe salary transparency has something to do with it too.

~~~
morgante
Actually, I believe employees _are_ reduced to numbers in Sweden and Finland.
You don't see star employees or developers making what they make in the US.
Everyone is in something of an equilibrium—decent pay, but not much incentive
to strive for more.

~~~
hliyan

       decent pay, but not much incentive to strive for more
    

Isn't that a good thing? I mean striving for more based on _intrinsic
motivation_ than financial. My observation in over the past 12 years working
in the software industry is that bad motivation (both carrot and stick) tend
to drive out the good (desire to build something or solve a problem).

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godzilla82
I feel this is a faulty exercise. Would you disclose your salary if you _knew_
you made more than your peers? I guess the end effect would be, only those who
_feel_ they are making less would disclose.

~~~
falcolas
Because you would like to see your peers get paid equitably? They can't use
your salary as leverage in their own negotiations unless they know what it is.

------
pearjuice
Spoiler: at the end he still hasn't admitted what he makes at Wired. Link bait
confirmed.

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

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

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

~~~
gamechangr
There is quite a bit lacking from your logic.

For example, maybe the previous boss had been on the job 10 years. Maybe his
starting salary was also $35,000 less than when he ended, in which case they
would be valued equally!!

Maybe she was NOT AS GOOD. I know many people who think they are equally as
good as their boss and are no where close.

Maybe those with the skill to sell themselves should make more? Why is that so
offensive?

Maybe the whole newspaper industry has taken a major hit and the company does
not have the available operational budget that they were once able to spend.

It's disappointing that all of these legitimate ideas are passed over and we
proceed to assume it was gender related. Really?

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somberi
In California, the salary of its state employees are publicly available here:
[http://transparentcalifornia.com/](http://transparentcalifornia.com/)

~~~
dragonwriter
> In California, the salary of its state employees are publicly available
> here: [http://transparentcalifornia.com/](http://transparentcalifornia.com/)

That's not _just_ state employees (its public employees from different public
entities within the state), and its also fairly poorly aggregated from
disparate sources, such that if you add all the pay and benefit columns
together, they often don't match the pay + benefits (and some people who I
personally know have non-zero regular pay show with zero in all pay columns,
an actual number in the benefit column, and a pay + benefit that is both
higher than the benefit amount (remember, all the pay columns are zero) and
lower than the person's _actual_ pay before benefits.

There's another similar source [0], which has slightly different coverage (but
both cover state employees), which has substantially different numbers for the
same years for people covered by both.

Presumably, for state employees, both of those _third-party aggregators_ have
done public records requests for the same public information from the State,
but they've both processed it using different (and opaque) methodologies, so
that no one actually using it knows what they actually mean (the latter
source, by using only one number for each person, doesn't make it _as_ clear
that they are doing something funky with the data; the former tries to do
more, which makes it even more clear that they are doing something weird,
because it makes inconsistencies visible.)

They do a good job of creating the _illusion_ of readily-accessible accurate
data if you are only aware of one of them and don't have any independent
knowledge to verify them against.

[0] [http://www.sacbee.com/site-services/databases/state-
pay/arti...](http://www.sacbee.com/site-services/databases/state-
pay/article2642161.html#req=employee%2Ftop%2Fyear%3D2014)

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valdiorn
What about people with very large paychecks?

I don't want to make my friends uncomfortable when they realize I make
literally an extra zero at the end of what they make.

Should I keep my mouth shut or disclose... for their sake?

~~~
sukilot
Maybe your heart is telling you that you shouldn't be _spending_ an extra 0 on
yourself than your peers. If you acknowledge your incredible luck, and that
there is diminishing marginal return in lavishly rewarding yourself for our
efforts, and you invest the excess in meaningful projects that improve the lot
of the world....

~~~
valdiorn
Your comment doesn't make much sense. I put most of my money into a savings
account as I'm saving up for a house. I don't live a very frivolous lifestyle,
if that's what you mean.

However, I emigrated from Iceland to the UK, and some of the people I left
behind do not have the luxury of doing the same, as they have families or
relationships back home.

How would it be fair of me to disclose my salary, just to show them what they
can't have? Most people know I make good money, but maybe not exactly how
much, and I try not to boast as I feel that is rude.

Constantly going around telling people about my salary would probably not be
well received, even if it was "in the interest of transparency of fairness"...

Edit: I do not acknowledge it as luck, I worked my ass off to get where I am
today!

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wodenokoto
I don't get why this is a taboo. I tell my salary to everyone who cares to
listen, to the point where an employer threatened to fire me if I told my
coworkers about my raise.

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pavlov
In Finland wages are public information. The tax office makes the data
available yearly, so you can easily look up how much your neighbor made last
year.

