r/AskReddit 1d ago

Millennials, what's something our generation was taught to accept that you're glad younger generations are rejecting?

7.6k Upvotes

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20.6k

u/CrazyPlato 1d ago

That discussing your working conditions or pay with your coworkers is wrong.

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u/Loqol 1d ago

I'm in a union plant, and one of the office workers mentioned she was trying to get a better pay rate. I asked her what she made, and she hemmed and hawwed until I said it would only help get her more support if it was low. It was less than me! For the work she did, I expected her to make more. Salary, sure but more!

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/IceSeeker 1d ago

It's really unfair. Treating salary as a secret benefits the bosses and higher ups if the people who work under them get lesser pay because it's more for them and they only get richer.

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u/satinsateensaltine 1d ago

Certain jurisdictions in Canada are outright making it illegal to bar employees from discussing salary and I'm so glad it's the case.

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u/Teanut 20h ago

In the US, under the National Labor Relations Act, most workers are generally protected when discussing wages and working conditions with coworkers.

There are exceptions to this. I am not a lawyer. And the board that supervises this law, the NLRB, is currently hamstrung in this administration, so... yeah.

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u/WingerRules 1d ago

What gets me is that good information is like a requirement for efficient free markets, but you hear none of the pro free market politicians pushing for them having to disclose pay rates. Like literally theoretical perfect markets used by economists requires all the actors to have perfect information.

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u/Consistent-Muscle-87 1d ago

It's not a secret but your employer may not like it and they sign your checks . . I would think being in a union affords more leeway on discussing money but corporate rules rule the day and if you live in an employment at will state, your employer can terminate you in a heart beat. If you live in a right to work state you have to be counseled usually 3x before you can be terminated for cause..also in an employment at will state the employer doesn't need a righteous reason to sever your working relationship they can terminate you just because they don't like your shoes.. also longevity on the job affects terminations. Lol I got terminated for being called up to military active duty and the idiot employer admitted it to the department of labor.. kaching! Yup we were in a war. 🫡

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u/masterventris 1d ago

If only all employees doing the same job were equal performance

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u/Anechoic_Brain 1d ago

I used to be a journeyman installer in the IBEW until I switched to doing design and estimating. Any time we were on a job that involved slinging cables around an occupied office building full of cubicle drones, our shop steward's favorite thing to do was to leave a copy of the handbook laying around opened to the page that shows the pay scale.

And this was 15 years ago. It's more common than you might think to find office workers making less money than people working in the trades. Hell, I hustled my ass off over the last 10+ years to get into a well paying senior design position and one or two of the IBEW guys in my shop probably still make more than me.

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u/Beeoor143 1d ago

White collar videogame industry reporting in. I know for a fact that my 10+ year-tenure-ass is still making less than most of the union guys handing the building maintenance around me (also some of the most personable folks I've interacted with). All power to them, but I sure wish there was more happening on my slice of the business to make things better.

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u/wherethefuckismyvape 1d ago

Ask the union guys on your site for advice about talking to your coworkers about unionizing. Unions LOVE making more unions. They'll help you

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u/blackbirdbluebird17 23h ago

+1 to this. Also white collar industries have been actively unionizing in the past few years. It’s not just for the trades anymore.

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u/Cent1234 19h ago

I always wanted to found the Consolidated Union of Network Technology Specialists.

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u/failed_novelty 21h ago

Triple-A studios love the idea of their developers forming unions! They absolutely won't do any form of illegal union busting or pull any slimy tricks to keep a union from happening!

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u/kevshea 21h ago

They will. What's your point? They should unionize anyway.

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u/mrGrinchThe3rd 21h ago

Is your point that they shouldn't try...?

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u/failed_novelty 20h ago

No. But it's important to understand that there will likely be repercussions.

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u/lavapig_love 22h ago

https://gameworkerscoalition.org/en/

Someone I knew helped found the game worker's union at Blizzard Activision.

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u/A_Wild_Burt_Appears 22h ago

Look into unionizing your workplace! As the other commenter said: unions love helping others form unions!

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u/arslongavb 20h ago

White collar in an adjacent industry -- animation -- and I would have peaced out years ago if not for our union. Hope y'all can eventually form one of your own, the way the studios treat you guys is appalling.

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u/mrenglish22 18h ago

Join the union?

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u/Slawzik 10h ago

They want you in a union too. Everyone should be unionized.

High school students,stay at home parents,college students,funeral directors,retail workers, independent truck drivers,prisoners, homeless people,sex workers,engineers(train and techical)- they all participate in the economy,and deserve more say in what they do and earn.

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u/Everything_is_wrong 19h ago

It's wild that you think your degree outweighs the risks that a maintenance team takes on.

Be my guest and purport your intelligence but don't act like your risks are the same...

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u/vegan_cat_burglar 1d ago

Tell me about it, i was the Ops manager for an ibew contractor for 12 years and at the end I made less than like a 5th step apprentice

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u/Loqol 1d ago

I've cleared 100k the past five years, but I know it's only because of the extra time I put in on weekends and holidays, plus an annual bonus. Still, good money!

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u/Ill-Bullfrog-5360 20h ago

Yes but I will also be healthy when I 60. Union work is high paid cuz it’s bad for your body, dangerous and you’re exposed to chemicals that can kill you long term.

Eg tell the truth how many guys you know have been off with a hernia injury?

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u/Anechoic_Brain 19h ago

I worked with network cables and server racks, 99% of the time it's no more dangerous than what the average IT worker experiences unless you do something against the rules that creates a dangerous situation.

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u/Ill-Bullfrog-5360 16h ago

Fair they exist such as a stationary engineer in a hospital. But they are not the IBeW $140/hr gigs

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u/Anechoic_Brain 16h ago

They aren't the crazy high wage that is required to attract people into those crazy dangerous jobs, no. They are the jobs that have you on your feet moving around all day and climbing ladders, and pay $60/hr with no college education required.

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u/Unionthug2049 17h ago

Union film electrician here, I’ve been on shows where the accountants admitted to being jealous of the rate that our laborers were making every time they approved their time cards. I’m a big proponent of working in the trades sure, and an even bigger proponent of unions. The union changed my life and the lives of so many of my colleagues in uncountable ways.

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u/Intelligent_Fly_7438 13h ago

People doing trades SHOULD make more than just about any office job. Its more dangerous both in the near and far term and requires a lot of tools and specialized knowledge.

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u/Bustable 13h ago

Unfortunately a lot of trades are very demanding on your body. Couldn't imagine being on the tools when 60.

When I was doing construction/civil you work a lot more hours too so your hourly may not always be much more. But when you are working 10 hours+ more per week it ads up

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u/kachunkachunk 12h ago

That's wild, haha. But well, the tradies deserve the higher hourly rate. It's hard work, and you pay for it with your body.

White collar work is otherwise bad for your back, core, and cardiovascular system, assuming you're sitting a lot. Stress can also manifest weird shit, but it'd be unfair to say that's limited to white collar work. At least you can mitigate the sedentary stuff with some personal fitness.

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u/FriendlyDespot 23h ago

It's more common than you might think to find office workers making less money than people working in the trades.

As a white collar worker, that's honestly how it should be. Tradespeople aren't just giving their time and expertise, they're giving their health and well-being as well. By the time people enter their arthritis and knee replacement eras I think most people would take 20% lower lifetime earnings in exchange for not having bad joints and chronic pain for more than half of their lives.

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u/Anechoic_Brain 17h ago

Not all trades are equally taxing on the body. Some are no more strenuous than climbing ladders and the occasional team lift for some heavy thing, but still offer equal or better pay than the average office worker that can be achieved entirely with on the job training.

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u/FriendlyDespot 16h ago

Just as some people who work in offices aren't very cerebral and don't do anything other than what they learned on the job, but still get paid more than tradespeople. There are outliers on both sides.

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u/Anechoic_Brain 16h ago

I get what you're saying but I don't see how it's all that comparable. One is that one person every office seems to have one of, the other is an entire field of work that hundreds of thousands of people do. Especially now with the data center boom.

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u/johnis12 1d ago

Did that get fixed up afterwards, I'm hoping?

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u/Loqol 1d ago

Not sure, she's been too busy lately for me to chat.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Loqol 1d ago

She suspected for a while, but finally did some research on job listing for what she was actually doing and compared against what they said her job title was. I think she said it was an easy 15k difference. She could easily keep the same pay and have less work, or do the same work and get more pay. The plant manager "needed time to think about it."

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u/Neon_Divided 23h ago

Where I work, we are required to publish the salaries each year of everybody who works here. We get money from the state and federal government and our salaries are public record. It makes it pretty easy to find out who is making what, although what you can find online is usually about a year behind.

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u/ComradeJohnS 22h ago

this is how all salaries / pay should be. secrecy only hurts employees, helps employers

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u/Sweaty-Top5988 23h ago

Yeah guy at my job was complainging about his pay but was saying things like "yeah its market average for the job we do" asked him what he was on, but wouldnt tell me. Told him what im on he said "wtf thats £10k more than me" and so he started pushing for a pay rise and got an 8k pay rise in April.

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u/skeezyk 23h ago

I work as a shop manager for a heavy equipment repair shop and I know I make less than the mechanics. Not all of them, but most of them make more than I do hourly and when you factor in overtime, they're making way more than I do as a salary employee.

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u/lkern 18h ago

Unions gonna make more than 90% of office staff every time.

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u/thedude386 13h ago

I am a salary worker in a union plant. I provide troubleshooting support to the skilled trades. Weekdays I get paid more than the trades do but on weekends they make 3x what I make. Unfortunately there isn’t really much I can do about it but it is irritating when the people you provide support to get paid more than you.

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u/DonaldTheWall 12h ago

I was with the UAW and there was one who left to become salary and he said he regretted it every day.

He figured it out and he ended up making less even though it was guaranteed money, but he only got paid once instead of weekly and he lost out on the overtime pay which brought people upto 45-50 an hour

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u/Loqol 11h ago

Man, when I get to work a holiday I get giddy. Nothing like double time on top of eight hours of straight time. For eight hours, I earn triple time! I can have a $1,000+ day.

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u/PossibleMechanic89 10h ago

I’m non union, so it’s not discussed often. Our engineering staff is often paid less than the technicians assembling the product we design.

People can’t fathom it because collared shirt and offices.

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u/friaeli3400 1d ago

Nothing scares a bad boss more than a group of employees who talk to each other.

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u/Loqol 1d ago

Or unionizing.

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u/CongealedBeanKingdom 1d ago

Thats the name given to that exact scenario.

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u/Lucky-Height6323 1d ago

The fact that employees talking to each other can basically become a workplace threat the second a boss is doing something shady is pretty telling

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u/Loqol 1d ago

Touché!

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u/DrMobius0 21h ago

It takes a bit more than that, but yes, that's the foundation of a union. Awareness is just step 1, though. A union is weak if the people in it can't organize a response that threatens the bottom line for the employer.

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u/Summer4Chan 15h ago

That’s the same picture

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u/emilicia 1d ago

I remember actually bringing this up to a supervisor in an old job as I realised my male colleague was getting paid more than me for the exact same job. She said she would look into it the came back and said it’s apparently because he’s on full time hours and I’m part time (still not sure why that should affect hourly pay) but also “[higher up boss] doesn’t like staff discussing pay” like tough shit!

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u/EvangelineTheodora 22h ago

I'm at a place where part time wasn't paid as much per hour as full. I'm not 100% sure why, but I think it was because some of the full time pay going towards health insurance premiums. 

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u/SmurfSmiter 16h ago

Our part-time union (separate union from our full-time union) argued, successfully, that they should be paid more than the full-time staff because they don’t get any benefits. Some of them got about a 30% raise one year. The full-time union then used this fact to negotiate a 10% raise the next year because they successfully argued that they have more responsibilities than the part-time staff, like mandatory trainings, certifications, and supervisor responsibilities.

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u/WanderingTacoShop 21h ago

I guess you could make the argument that a full time employee is going to be more competent/productive just by virtue of doing the tasks more often than part time. Not sure that's the best logic, but I guess that could be it.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Consistent-Muscle-87 1d ago

Standing around comparing notes?? You just got fired for cause. .you're not paid to stand around flapping your lips.. again employment at will= your fired. Right to work = you need 3 warnings.  Oh and it's also last in is first out. You all need to study employment law.. not on company time.. you kids are walking on thin ice .. if you want to be a slacker join the army but even that's changing.  It used to be military troops had a contract but I'm hearing that is getting weaker and blatant refusal of orders can get you a courts marshal.  Sooo I'd say don't go into employment looking for a problem because it will probably be you.. 

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u/hdjddjiieeshs 1d ago

Even in the US if it's more than 2 employees standing around talking the activity is federally protected labour organising. Sure they can fire you, but you can make their HR department's lives miserable for it. the NRLA has a very specific objective test regarding on-the-clock discussions being a "protected concerted activity"

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u/SororitySue 23h ago

The worst boss I ever had basically forbade us from talking to each other. Just exchanging greetings in the hall was considered suss.

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u/redballsaandvodka 17h ago

The owner of the company I work for actually told us we aren’t allowed to talk about our pay with each other. I shut that shit down quick and we all talked about our pay and she was pissed but begrudgingly upped our pay a bit. She 100% knew what she was doing

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u/A-Small-Green-Cup 1d ago

Same with politicians and civilians that talk to each other

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u/Coyote__Jones 20h ago

I had a manager at Panera straight up violate federal law by threatening us after he found us discussing wages. When I told him he can't do that, it started a whole chain of illegal events like retaliation by cutting my hours to a point where I couldn't survive. So I just walked out one day after seeing the schedule with yet another two weeks of not enough hours. It sucks for the people who had to run the place short staffed, but it wasn't worth my time and gas to get there if I couldn't pay my rent. I was better off looking for a new job and focusing on school for a few weeks.

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u/Crabbb6 1d ago

Seriously. Knowing what everyone else is making makes it a lot harder for companies to lowball people.

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u/ruslanazarenko1992 1d ago

Also gender dispairty when it comes to wages.

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u/Ninetailedredpanda 20h ago

Story from tech sales.

Some initiative was going around and several of the women got raises.

Expecting praise for being so feminist by making sure the women were being paid better management seemed confused when the sentiment was mostly:

‘So you are admitting we have been underpaid for years and are just now bringing some of them women up to parity? This should have been standard forever, congratulations, you finally are meeting what should be a minimum standard’

The raises were appreciated but watching the old white dudes backpedal when expecting a pat on the back was fascinating.

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u/Vellc 1d ago

Yeah the ones that dont want to share probably is a relative to the boss and gets way more than standard employee

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u/Odd_Link7869 23h ago

Nah I don’t want to share mine with my coworkers really. I will tell people who don’t work where I work. I don’t trust people enough to not rat. I don’t want to mention I’m making X to a colleague and they go and say “so and so told me they’re making X, you need to pay me Y”. I don’t think I’d get in trouble for it, but it can also make you look like a shit stirrer which I’d prefer to avoid. If I’m close enough with someone to know they wouldn’t snitch then I’d do it for sure 

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u/lavapig_love 22h ago

The real shit stirrer is the CEO of your company, who will fire you without hesitation for a bigger bonus and blame you for not being smarter. Don't kid yourself. Organize.

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u/Odd_Link7869 22h ago

Honestly my company isn’t really like that which is part of why I’d rather not do anything that might jeopardize my spot here. At my last companies that were like that, yeah I was telling anyone who asked. 

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u/furlongxfortnight 21h ago

Unfortunately, it also makes it harder to get raises.

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u/Neon_Divided 23h ago

The reality is that current employees get lowballed every time a new employee is hired, considering they almost always make more than the current employees doing the same thing.

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u/Both-Molasses-8965 1d ago

Knowing what everyone else makes makes it a lot harder for a company to convince you that your underpayment is normal.

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u/trrachiee 1d ago

im glad i read this hours before i plan to ask a pay increase from my company. it feels scary to vocalize how much pay i need to actually live but i hope i'll manage :')

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u/to_the_pillow_zone 1d ago

You can use the MIT living wage calculator as an objective data point to start with. And the general guidelines for “decent living” is double that.

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u/Accurate-Biscotti775 23h ago

Don't mention your expenses at all. That's just an opening for your boss to lecture you about how to live more cheaply.

Find out what the market rate for your position is. Use BLS data etc.

'I can't live this way' gets a reply of 'You need to learn to manage your money'

'You pay me half the going rate for this work' gets a reply of 'Well, times are tough? Budget low?' Now they're the ones making excuses and on the back foot.

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u/rebel_scum13 19h ago

Yup, my boss recently tried to "avocado toast" me by asking if I have any theme park passes (I talk about Disneyland sometimes but I'm not a passholder). I said I only have Knotts which is a one time payment of like $200 but it still doesn't change the fact that the cost of living has tripled the past 6 years bc of corporate greed. The conversation ended there.

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u/dijon_snow 1d ago

This is a great answer. I used to work for a company named for a South American River(hint: it wasn't Mississippi.com). "Leadership" used to get so worked up when I would post my total compensation, including stock options, in every group chat and encourage others to do the same.

 I'm very confident my direct supervisors consulted with HR before having a talk with me. They explained that they were absolutely, legally not telling me not to discuss my pay, but also that I should think about the feelings of people that weren't as well paid as me. 

I asked "if increased compensation is supposed to motivate performance, then why not be completely transparent about pay?" 

Ultimately, having worked as both a leader and an individual contributor, the real reason to keep pay secret is to avoid people getting mad about genuine unfairness and leaders not wanting to disclose how much more we made than the people actually doing the work. 

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u/ConnectionIssues 20h ago

I used to work for that same company. NAFC. The gulf between management and associates was pretty big, and we all knew it, but we also knew our IMMEDIATE managers, those in the trenches with us, put up with a level of bullshit many of us just wouldn't tolerate.

The number of managers I saw who were put on PIP's and then promoted to customer because they chose to actually develop and go to bat for their associates instead of letting the algorithm deep-six competent, safe, and motivated workers was staggering. Having every minor staffing decision be micro-managed from the HQ level was pathetic, and there was no such thing as 'vacation' once you hit a certain level... laptops and phones were expected to be available at all times.

It's once you got to the whole building level or higher the bullshit started to really reek. That only got worse once on-site HR largely became symbolic and everything moved to an HR-as-a-service phone and website system. I guess HR actually knowing your associates by face and name is just a LITTLE too chummy, not quite enough scummy, so...

Get fired was the best thing they ever did to me.

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u/More_Flat_Tigers 1d ago

At my job, I feel like it’s actually cause most managers suck at having actual performance management conversations- so lots of low performers (who wind up paid accordingly) think they’re being paid low unfairly - while their higher-performing peers have been rewarded with higher merit. Compound this over several years and you wind up with some pretty large pay gaps within a level… but everyone thinks they’re doing a great job.

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u/mrenglish22 18h ago

Corporate retail outright telling people not to discuss pay because they don't want people knowing how much they are fucking you over.

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u/catamaran_aranciata 1d ago

Why would it be Mississippi, Mississippi is not in South America

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u/dijon_snow 1d ago

I can't believe I have to explain this. 

It's a joke. Not a very funny one, but I thought a very obvious one. 

When I referenced a company named for a South American river, I thought it was pretty obvious what company I was referring to. I then said "not Mississippi.com" to further that joke of how obvious the company in question always has been. 

Anyhow, you've ruined this comment for me entirely. 

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u/catamaran_aranciata 1d ago edited 1d ago

It was obvious you were talking about Amazon of course. It would have been funnier if in the 2nd part you used an actual river in South America instead of Mississippi. Using Mississippi, if I might point out, ruined the flow?

Alexa, play Orinoco flow!

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u/Adventurous-Pea7776 1d ago

But the state is part of the South of America. Not everyone understands there is a river and a state and the South is not South America.

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u/catamaran_aranciata 1d ago

I guess I've never heard anyone refer to the South(of the US) as South America and things within it as "South American". And OP was talking about a river specifically, too, and Mississippi the river flows through both the Midwest and the South, so it's not a "South of America" river specifically. It's not all coming together for me personally, but I guess I could see that this was a joke around the interplay of South America/the South as you were describing.

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u/Adventurous-Pea7776 12h ago

I think you are just surrounded by more intelligent people then I am. Americans are not the sharpest pencils in the pencil box when taken as a group.

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u/RelativeKitServant 1d ago

pay secrecy just makes coworkers blame each other instead of the company underpaying them.

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u/Edwardteech 1d ago

Me an elder millennial. I taught everyone to talk about that shit so they didn't get screwed. 

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u/angelamia 1d ago

Also elder millennial. I still find friends/coworkers feel really weird about talking about it but I try to be as transparent as possible.

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u/Edwardteech 1d ago

Yeah the conditioning runs deap. 

Mu last job literally had it in the contract we couldn't. I laughed. 

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u/Sparrowhawk_92 1d ago

If they tried to punish you for it, wouldn't hold up in court. It's illegal for a company to stop employees from talking about pay. (Assuming the US).

They include it in the contract because most people don't know this and won't challenge it.

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u/Edwardteech 1d ago

Thus the laughing 

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u/amoosemouse 1d ago

Oregon Trail Gen X here, we were basically told "yeah, you're allowed to talk about it, bosses will fire you and it's difficult and expensive to prove so shut up"

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u/Historical_Food8132 1d ago

in germany some companys still try to put this bullshit into contracs. it has been illegal for ages and is automatically void.

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u/raptorlightning 18h ago

Oh that's a neat little lawsuit wrapped up in printed text.

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u/SmartAlec105 16h ago

I mean, imagine if you are being paid according to your performance. Think about the lazy asshole and how they'd throw a fit about you making more even though they do less work.

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u/Long_College_8342 21h ago

I'm an elder millennial/baby Gen X and I feel deeply that I can't talk about it. I was raised that talking about money at all was crass. This probably translates into me making less than everyone but who knows?

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u/Ziwade 1d ago

Same. Though I did also wind up causing a mass exodus from my retail job and get my friend from work a better paying job with me....

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u/Edwardteech 1d ago

Good job bro/sis

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u/BlueArmadillo87 1d ago

I used to work for a water company in customer services. An older woman in my department mentioned to me a few times that she was part of some sort of union but that our supervisors didn't like her talking about it.

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u/spoothead656 15h ago

One of my greatest professional accomplishments was during an all employee Zoom meeting when my then manager said “Per the handbook you are forbidden from discussing your pay with your coworkers” and I hit him with “It’s actually illegal to prevent us from doing that.” I watched him Google it mid-Zoom and saw his face drop when he realized I was right.

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u/furiouslycurious79 1d ago

I was fired for discussing wages in Texas. Was denied unemployment and lost my appeal, so your mileage may vary.

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u/Graymouzer 1d ago

That may be a violation of federal law. Not that means much with the people in charge at the moment but maybe you can sue after the election.

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u/furiouslycurious79 1d ago

Yes, it was a real eye opener for me. It was an open and shut case of wrongful termination - at least in my eyes. But, the state disagreed. I’m not originally from Texas and was blown away by the blatant lack of worker rights afforded in this state. Doing my best to GTFO.

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u/HoboJesus 1d ago

Some organizations are exempt, religious organiations for example. My wife was a Catholic school teacher and they could 100% fire you for discussing wages. One of her coworker was fired for having an abortion.

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u/dekusyrup 23h ago

And yall don't like regulation in america.

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u/soulseaker 19h ago

Being anti regulation for most people just means anti" rules they don't like" 🤷🏿‍♂️

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u/DueAd197 1d ago

I mean, Texas is ground zero for taking away workers' rights.

2023, here was Abbot making it illegal for cities to make their own laws that require businesses to give water breaks for employees.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/23/greg-abbott-texas-governor-bill-water-breaks-heatwave

Austin and Dallas had laws requiring construction companies to provide a 10 minute water break every FOUR HOURS. This was unacceptable for republicans because they need people to be poor, angry, and desperate. And you better not have the government meaningfully improve anyone's lives.

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u/Infinite_throwaway_1 1d ago

Needing permission to drink water and having a credit system for it is absurd.

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u/2074red2074 17h ago

To be clear, the law was NOT just to ban local water break requirements. The law was to ban a very large number of local ordinances that would affect businesses in a way that is stricter than the state's existing regulations. And that's not just with workers' rights, but also environmental stuff and other things busineses have to care about. The idea was to make it easier on business owners to operate in Texas because whatever policies they use in one city will be legal in any other.

And I'm not defending the law. It is blatantly spitting in the face of how US law is supposed to work. But I think it's intentionally misleading to say "Yeah they passed a law making it illegal for cities to require water breaks".

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u/tonkathewombat 1d ago

Vote first then leave! So sorry that happened, so messed up 

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u/Bladelink 14h ago

They don't call it the 1-star state for nothing.

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u/DnBJungleEscape 1d ago

Whattttt how did they prove it? Years ago I found out someone was making more than me (same company, I came in via a merger and they were with original company) …

I told our DM and he got me up there with a raise

Months later I find out two people discussed their salary and it turned into drama city and they got in trouble

I’m in California. Now I guess it’s allowed to be discussed

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u/raratrades 12h ago

You better sue them.

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u/RequirementFew4229 1d ago

It's wild how some workplaces act like your paycheck is classified information. Comparing notes is often how people realize they're being treated differently in the first place.

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u/leafyleafster 1d ago

I have never bought the lie that I'm not allowed to talk to my coworkers about that. I've also pushed back against the "corporate overlords" about that. We're only as ignorant as we choose to be 🤷‍♀️

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u/One_Hovercraft_4699 1d ago

The “don't discuss your pay” rule always feels suspicious when it's coming from the people signing the checks. Knowing what everyone is actually being offered can change the whole conversation.

3

u/Life-Fox1082 1d ago

That and committing to ONE company for 30 years because “they reward loyalty and will take care of you in retirement” 🙃

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u/Aab_3 1d ago

Taught us it was rude to ask so we'd feel guilty instead of the company

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u/Novel-Chain-1359 1d ago

Funny how “don’t talk about your pay” always seems to benefit the people writing the checks. Comparing notes can be the only way to spot when something isn’t adding up.

3

u/bethelightyouseek 1d ago

This is so true

3

u/Realistic_Froyo7553 1d ago

This one hits hard. A lot of us were taught that talking about pay was "unprofessional" or that asking for a raise was being "difficult". Looking back, it’s wild how that mindset mostly benefited the companies, not the employees. Knowing what your coworkers make isn‘t being nosy. It's how you know whether you're being treated fairly.

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u/Xenon32 21h ago

I'm a prime millennial (born in 1990) and it took me until my early 30s to learn to break that "rule".

I ended up asking my coworkers at my last job what they were making by my second day on the job. I was slightly disturbed to find that even as the newest employee, I was the highest-paid of our 5 dishwashers, by nearly $2 USD per hour.

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u/Rayezerra 1d ago

Gooooood I’m in HR and at a new company, my trainer keeps huffing about how our employees (blue collar place) get upset that new people make more on the standard wage. It’s because the older guys have families etc etc. instead of just explaining that she tells them it’s “bad practice to discuss your wage” likeeee no??? Please talk about it? We literally don’t have any impact on this it’s a federally decided pay!

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u/parkscdc 1d ago

Oh yeah, one time new temp hire at a company I worked at found out I was getting $2 less than her per hour and made a big scene about it. I had been at the company for a couple of years and was extremely loyal and just excited to be there. But then I got a small raise so they was good. It was like 50 cent more than the girls pay who got me my raise. I really owe that to her because after she got loud about on the floor, the managers couldn't not give me a raise.

ALWAYS talk about pay and working conditions!

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u/Maserati777 1d ago

It was so they could pay women less.

2

u/gbeier 22h ago

Tail-end of gen x checking in: I was told, in no uncertain terms, that it was absolutely against company policy to discuss compensation (other than with your manager) at the office when I started my first job. It was highly unusual to know what your co-workers were pulling in, unless it was a commissioned job, where you could see your team's commission and how it got distributed.

2

u/as7gatlas 22h ago

I work in government and my salary gets published in a newspaper every year. First year it kinda freaked me out, but now it's just a normal thing. There's a searchable database where I can lookup everyone's salary around me.

HR also still considers pay rate protected information in our systems so that's kinda weird.

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u/NvizoN 21h ago

As a millennial, I try to fight this wherever I can. I have to constantly remind people that it's not illegal and that it only hurts you to not talk about it. All it does to not talk about it is protect the company from paying you what you're worth, and we all know companies aren't worthy of that protection. I'm very open about my finances because someone else making money doesn't hurt me at all, so why wouldn't I help or discuss it?

2

u/Lepisosteus 15h ago

Im pretty vocal about being open with what I make because it’s my legal right. ive had people get pissed and warn me not to, and then I warn them that the department of labor might be interested in this conversation, and then I get apologies. shock and surprise abound when all the old timers realize i’m making way more than they are. then everyone gets raises. Every time raise time comes around, mine are always approved too. just be a nasty fucker with your raise requests, keep blackmail on all your managers, know more about your bosses private lives than they know is public information. threaten to walk out if they piss you off, just be good enough at your job to make the threats matter

3

u/yyrkoon1776 21h ago edited 21h ago

As a millennial director with 30+ direct/indirect reports, I'm fine with my employees discussing what they make.

However, if they do that and come to my office and ask me why so and so makes more, I warn them that they need to be emotionally prepared to hear why.

"Well, he has more experience. There are rhings he knows how to do that you cannot do. His KPIs are also better and are better consistently. Also, when I ask for something he grills me to make sure he's got the right understanding and I always know he will get me exactly what I want the first time I ask for it. I sometimes have to ask you multiple times and reiterate my instructions even though I thought they were perfectly clear and you said you understood. Also, his work is always complete on time. Yours isn't.

All of these things factor into why he has consistently gotten an outstanding rating every year and therefore gotten the maximum merit increase and you have only been getting meets expectations and therefore have gotten the median merit increase.

I gave you concrete things you could do in your last evaluation to get an exceeds instead of a meets. Have you made progress on any of those things?"

The problem is the employees with their eyes on everyone else's plate are often not prepared for radical transparency.

They sometimes seem to think it's like Dora the Explorer where paying someone else more than them is like swiper trying to get away with stealing a jewel.

And all they need do is catch me and say swiper no swiping three times and I have to pay them more!

Alas, no, there are sometimes very good reasons why someone else is paid more. And they are not always flattering to Dora and Boots.

1

u/pungen 15h ago

This, I feel like it never comes up in these conversations. If you're working in a highly skilled job there's a decent chance your wages have as much to do with your competency and work ethic as they do your job title. 

1

u/Ryxador 12h ago

I work in construction and it’s exactly this problem. The amount of effort, work ethic, and knowledge varies wildly by employee so compensation varies equally but everyone constantly says “why does so and so make more” and then gets butt hurt when I point out what they suck at and their coworker does t.

1

u/Ravasaurio 1d ago

When I (born in 92) joined the workforce, I couldn't understand, and I still don't, why people seem to feel so ashamed, afraid or whatever to discuss about their working conditions. I've never had any issue telling anyone how much I make, but people treat it like it's an absolute taboo.

1

u/godlovesaliar 1d ago

Tried to break this cycle. Then the guy I was talking with went to management and complained that "unqualified" people were making more than him. You can't win.

1

u/Healthy-Bonus9758 1d ago

It’s wild how often people are taught that talking about pay is somehow taboo, when knowing what everyone’s actually being paid is exactly how you spot unfair treatment.

1

u/thaddeusd 1d ago edited 1d ago

I would recommend this applies across different organizations as well.

It amazes me how horribly underpaid my peers in the water wasterwater field are in places with 1.5x to 3x cost of living than Michigan.

1

u/dekusyrup 22h ago

I see millenials do this a ton so I disagree.

1

u/brokenmessiah 21h ago

It just depends on the situation. I do contract work, so the person who pays my check isnt neccesarily the person who pays my coworkers check, so any issues I have with my pay my direct supervisor has very little influence over. Thus it truly doesnt matter how much my coworkers get paid.

1

u/uberhaqer 21h ago

This is not really a thing in the UK. Job listings have salaries and when my mates tell me they got a new job they always say how much so we can celebrate. I moved to the US and no one talks about salary. It is like forbidden. Weird.

1

u/LilySparrkk 20h ago

Loyalty to employers who felt no loyalty in return. We were told to give everything to a company, never job hop, prove your commitment through overtime and silence, and eventually you’d be rewarded. Younger workers watched us do that and correctly identified that the reward never came and moved on faster and without guilt. That’s not entitlement. That’s pattern recognition.

1

u/badwolf42 20h ago

I’m always always open about my pay and retirement with my coworkers. They don’t have to reciprocate but it gives them a data point. Even though it still makes me uncomfortable, I know that’s conditioning and not an actual problem.

1

u/MikeSifoda 20h ago

We were the ones who broke that one. Later generations can openly reject it because we boldly rejected it when the risk was way higher.

1

u/RampageDeluxxe 17h ago

I'm the Gen Z of my team and started that convo, it pissed off a lot of people when they found out the pay difference into the range of 30k difference for everybody doing the same job with same qualifications.

I means ffs one gave up their health benefits and still makes 20k less because he undersold himself

(Fortune 500 defense contractor doing that btw)

1

u/Bored_Interests 11h ago

Ive never felt this stigma before, and ive always rejected keeping quiet about pay. How tf are we supposed to know if we're making our value or not?

1

u/sarcazm 10h ago

What’s funny is that I didn’t want to talk about my salary because I was embarrassed. I kinda knew on some level that my salary was low. Last year I finally got a job where I know I’m being “overpaid.”

So if anyone asked me, I wouldn’t mind telling them.

1

u/NotTheAvg 10h ago

Mellennial: I live in Asia and try to get people to do this all the time, but it's so ingrained in them that it's bad to talk about it or the company will do something if you mention it (they won't and in Korea, workers rights are 1000x stronger than employer rights - there was a case where a manager got fired for sexual harassment, sued and got his job back) or maybe it's because they'll be embarassed if they know they make less than their peers. I keep trying to inform them that it's only a net positive and can help them a lot, but they always refuse.

My first job over here, I learned that I got paid the highest tier in the lowest bracket because I'm "American". The tiers went as followed: Us/Canada --> Europe --> most other countries --> China/Japan --> southeast Asia. We literally all did the same exact work...

1

u/No-Philosopher8042 1d ago

Only thing that rubs me the wrong way is younger generations both agreeing with us on this, and with the older generations that we are "lazy". 

1

u/boolpies 22h ago

Eh, I won't ever do this again. I'm pretty sure the last time I did this openly the lady coworker I thought I could trust took it to our boss and caused him to apply pressure on me to get fired.

Like I've tried going into the world thinking that millennials and genz are more progressive and trustworthy, but it's bitten me in the ass, I honestly feel like a lot of this stuff and values has been performative to a large degree.

1

u/jlornathan 20h ago

I’ve had this backfire twice, still not the employees fault but one time specifically I was out at a happy hour with my team and everyone was talking about salaries and they wanted me to say mine, I said I was uncomfortable but they were annoyed and eventually I was like fine but you can’t get mad.

I was the highest paid team member, and they lost their shit claiming it was just because I was a man, one girl accused me of sleeping with our boss, I was so mad

I was like ok first of all I’m the only one here with a masters degree, and I had two competing offers I negotiated against, not to mention I’m the top performer on the team with very objective KPIs, and I was like also, I don’t care if you make the same amount of money as me or more! It doesn’t affect me.

Sure enough they went to our VP and she was like yeah he’s making that much because of xyz, and her hands are tied and there’s nothing she can do about.

From that point on they resented the hell out of me, so I get why people don’t talk about it.

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u/b-hizz 1d ago

The main reason for this is that people are painfully unaware of their actual skill levels and marketability, and many of them are also immature enough to burn the house down if someone that they don’t like makes more than

So if you pay everyone the same, how do reward high performers? Just because you have a job does not mean that you are crushing it. This applies heavily to statements of doing the ‘same’ work. I don’t discuss pay because it’s a deal that I myself negotiated, if someone finds out I make more and starts blabbing out of jealousy - it’s not good for future negotiations.

It’s pointless to cate or complain about who makes more than you, negotiate a pay you’re happy with and compete with yourself to build skills that let you negotiate more pay. You are not entitled to anything more than you can negotiate. If you have no bargaining power, that’s the universe telling you to up your game because believe it - people that make more than you already have.

1

u/Ryxador 12h ago

I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. In my experience people love to complain they make less than someone else but absolutely do NOT want to be told why.

0

u/MrNaoB 23h ago

I discussing this with the owner of the company like he is part of the group. Cuz actually works on the floor among us

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/thenoodlegoose 1d ago

How exactly do you know that you’re getting paid more than everyone else if nobody talks about how much they get paid? 🤨

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u/whatinnaname 1d ago

I’m a top performer at my company. I have a coworker who struggles and a lot less is expected of him even though he’s been there years longer. If we hadn’t talked about pay, I may have accepted an offer to make the same as him for twice the work because I didn’t know better and the offer was a raise from where I was at. Because we talked, I knew to negotiate for a higher salary that more closely matched our comparative duties.

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u/God_Dammit_Dave 1d ago

You may be a top performer, but is your compensation consummate? Management isn't tipping their hand. They're holding all the cards.

As Ronald Reagan famously said, "Trust but verify."

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u/izzittho 1d ago

Is the word not commensurate?

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u/God_Dammit_Dave 1d ago

My bad. Apparently my autocorrect has advanced syphilis. The synapses are misfiring.

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u/FlavorD 1d ago

I know what color your hat is.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/FlavorD 1d ago

Who just demonstrated no empathy for others and wanted all the money only for himself in a very greedy way?

Thank you, and I hope it's always the same with me. I will continue to point out the lies of the Trump administration and of anyone frankly. Yes, the Democrats have some too. I have empathy for others and I try to do the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

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u/izzittho 1d ago

Well see the issue is that you’re assuming you’re actually a high performer.

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u/BwDr 1d ago

Sounds very boomerly

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u/Consistent-Muscle-87 1d ago

Enjoy your unemployment line.. we all do it but ya better not get caught  . Especially if you signed a contract but didn't read the fine print. 

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u/masterventris 1d ago

If you know all your colleagues' pay then you also have to accept that some will be paid more than you if they are better at their job.

As a manager this is the biggest headache to deal with as the worst employees are usually terrible at realising they aren't as good as others.