bonfarr said:
I am old school and don't discuss pay either. I remember early in my career right after A&M I stumbled upon evidence of peers that made more than I did. I was covering for someone during their vacation and had to manage the payroll for their territory and it included my coworkers salary. I didn't mention it but my boss realized I had to have seen it and explained to me the employees that came from a company we acquired all were paid higher salaries because that company simply paid more. That company went bankrupt too.
Yeah I was ticked but I never mentioned it and every supervisor I had mentioned it in performance reviews and they took care of me and within a few years I was making more than the others and was the one being promoted.
Nothing good can come from chatting over salary. in my experiences if you provide value to your employer the salary will be there.
I am Gen X. I neer shared my pay with anyone in my entire career (except wife and mom/dad). Now I think now sharing pay is nonsense and plays into corporations hands.
If employees knew how much each of them were getting it would be true free market. If I was making 100k and Steve was making 110k, then I had 3 options.
1. Do nothing - Then nothing happens.
2. Tell the boss I want more. He may increase my salary or he can tell me to F off. If he tells me to F off, then I can find a new job that actually paid me more and quit. If I cannot find one, I STFU and take what I am given.
3. I look for another job that pays me 120k. If I get one, great, if not, I keep looking or give up.
But corps ruined it all by making it a "culture" that emps don't share pay. Why? No one knows, we just follow like programmed robots for decades and decades.
Winner? Corps. Loser? Emps.
In Asia (China, India), they all know each other's pay. So they can bargain better or take informed decisions. Here we screw ourselves because we are masochists.
Think about it.