Hello Money After Graduation readers! My name is Erika, and I run the blog From Shopping to Saving where I talk about personal finance from the perspective of a 24-year-old former shopaholic. We get deep over there and talk about saving, shopping (or lack thereof), self-improvement, and more. Click at your own risk!
There is an unspoken rule in the workplace that salaries should not be discussed amongst employees. I’ve always wondered why everyone was so secretive of this, especially since I’m quite the nosey type. I prod and poke at people, and I try to guess how much they make. From personal experience, this behavior has caused detrimental effects and I don’t do it anymore.
Salary isn’t everything, yes, but it has great effects on people.
When in undergrad, I worked at a law firm for 30 hours a week while going to school full-time. I was the attorneys’ “slave” aka their file clerk, and definitely should have been earning more than minimum wage for the amount of work I was doing. I was juggling everything from receptionist duties to legal secretary and paralegal duties. After working there for two years, a girl with a bachelor’s degree took on a file clerk position (same job as me) and was getting paid $2 more per hour. It didn’t make sense to me at the time that she was getting paid more than me, especially since she had zero experience and I was training her. If she was a hard worker, I would have been at ease; however she was the laziest person ever!
I let that knowledge that she was making more than me eat me alive. I approached my boss at the time and tried bumping up my measly hourly wage. She told me that it was impossible since the new girl had a degree and I didn’t. It bothered me so much that I decided to quit early, right before I graduated. I think they lost a valuable employee, but I learned a valuable lesson.
I don’t want to know how much you make. Especially if we have the same job duties.
Although I don’t ever want to know how much my coworkers make, sometimes they offer this info on their own. At my current workplace, it surprises me how open people are with their salaries. A coworker in my department asked for my salary, but I only gave her a range, and not the specific details. She told me her exact salary and I found out she was making $15k more than me, but with 11 years of experience. Somehow, this didn’t bother me at all because she and I are really close, and I know she works her butt off.
The funny part was that she thought she was making way less than me. I found it surprising that she thought a degree would mean that I was getting paid more than her. In this day and age, and especially with the economy – new grads are making way less than new grads were making just a couple years ago. This puts us way behind everyone else.
I don’t have the heart to negotiate my salary since I am quitting next month, but I doubt that I would have even if I were to stay. Although this particular coworker does not have a degree, how do I measure up against her with her years of experience and knowledge? I just don’t know how to take this information with a grain of salt, especially if it were to come up at my next job in the future.
Have you ever found out your coworkers’ salaries? How did this affect you, and how did you handle it? Did you use it to obtain a raise?
I recently found out how much the girl I work with makes. It just has to be wrong though. It’s incredibly low (compared to mine) and makes no sense. And yes this has affected me because it makes me wonder how much my next raise will be.
It has affected me in the past. Like you, I was training someone, doing more work than them and making about $3 less. Granted it was only $3 but it really sucked when I figured out she made as much as I did but worked less hours. I went to my boss and asked to sit down and have a performance evaluation. It went well and I ended up making $3 more than her.
Right now, I’m unsure of if the girl with the same title as me but who does less work/different work is making the same or not. Obviously I’d rather I make more. I try not to give my salary out. I’ll give ranges if I need to but I just prefer that not everyone know what exactly I’m making.
Good for you for speaking up! I am glad I tried to raise my hourly wage too when I found out, but for some reason I feel like it’s bad karma. I can’t tell if it’s a good thing or bad thing to know how much others are making!
I am the same way, I ask my classmates how much they make. Since I am in graduate classes (was), they saw me as a youngster, and actually shared some specific numbers. Sometimes it sucks finding out how much other people make, especially if they make more and do less.
I second the “make more and do less” part. It aggravates me!
good post. This certainly makes a case for union jobs. everyone is paid the same doing the same job and everyone knows what everyone is paid. having said that, we all know people don’t work the same and if you are picking up slack from someone else, then you should be compensated for that. that is not allowed in union jobs. I think it would be terribly hard to always have to be wondering what everyone else is making. Im not sure if i would tell or not, probably be like you and just give a range so they couldn’t gage where they are from me.
I agree, I don’t want to know. I agreed to work for a specific salary and i don’t want to be unhappy only because someone makes more than me. I think what I am getting is fair. I don’t even want to compare with other people I graduated with, I know we get paid relatively the same amount but I don’t feel the need to get into specific details. As a society we judge our success by how much money we make which is not fair.
Exactly! I agreed to work for a specific salary, and whatever I negotiated with HR should be what I feel is most beneficial for me. What sucks though is that they base you on your resume and past experiences – during our first annual review, there usually isn’t a huge raise. I wish we could start off with a lower salary figure, and then jump up to our appropriate salaries once they know what our work ethics are like.
I guess I’m the opposite.
I like knowing, so I can ask for more.
I definitely want to know!! I’m considering asking for a raise at my 1-year mark at my first ‘big girl job’ and I want to collect as much information before I ask so I know what the range I should be aiming for is.
I also like to be nosey and know what my friends in the same field are making and compare what specific roles/tasks we do so I can make sure I’m in the average or ‘above average’ field…. I would hate to find out I’m being paid $10,000 less than the average person in my field just because i didn’t want to know or research it.
It’s easy to know how much my co-workers make. I work for the government and it’s a set amount for your gs level. I can look at a chart, so it’s easy to find out how much I make for the area I work in. That being said, I can’t ask for raises. I can apply for promotions but, in my current job I make what I make.
I like knowing what other people with my responsibilities do at other places. It doesn’t really matter to me what the person next to me makes. I don’t want salary comparison to get to the person vs. person level that you mentioned, but I have no problem comparing (and leveraging) companies against other companies.
For sure. I like to use GlassDoor.com to see how much people make in my same position at other companies. It’s also a great resource when you are first accepting an offer and you want to negotiate a fair salary.
It is interesting how secretive people can be with their salaries. My mom did some HR work for an overseas company and it was quite the opposite. Many applicants were openly discussing proposed wages with each other which lead to all kinds of extra negotiating. I’ve never been too interested with how much my coworkers make, but I’ve always been in companies where I was the only one doing my specific tasks. I would want to know how much people at other companies are making though. It is important information for negotiating your own salary.
I don’t ask and I don’t tell unless its needed. Being a manager and doing stints in HR in my former role, I knew every’s salary grade and it made me expect more of them when I knew how much they made.
SO TRUE! I would expect so much more from someone who was earning a ton of money. It would also irritate me if they were not doing any work and constantly complaining. My BF’s boss openly complains about how broke he is, yet he makes $20k more than my BF, and works way less. I’d be pissed.
I found out once because a coworker I had couldn’t help from running her mouth. I got angry about it. She had worked there longer than me, but she worked a lot less enthusiastically, let’s say. My bosses had led me to believe that my salary increase was sizable for the company. Maybe it was. But the lazy worker had gotten a higher percentage increase than me. I wouldn’t have been as upset if they hadn’t made it out that they were being generous with me. I think the major reason companies don’t want it discussed is because it leads to discord in the office at least, and law suits most. (Womens vs. Mens salaries, salary differences between races, etc.)
I get aggravated when I realize how much more other PF bloggers make. Both from actual blogging and from their (much better than mine) jobs.
Then again, I’m a recently-quit former Walmart cashier, so I was bound to be the poorest PF blogger ever.
It also bugs me that I’m 28 and people way younger than me make way more. It’s just depressing.
I don’t need to ask. I know they make 50k 70k, 100k a year. I can just go online and look it up, I don’t have to ask them. I don’t know why people act like it’s some big secret.
Wow talk about a well timed post. My boss is on vacation right now, so another employee is in charge of printing out the pays each week. She was busy this week and asked me to put them in envelopes for her. I got a peek at almost every employee’s pay. I tried not to look, but I really couldn’t avoid it. The knowledge of what everyone else is making has definitely armed me with more information when it comes to asking for a raise, however, no one does my job or anything remotely close to it, so there is no one to directly compare myself to, luckily.
Yes, I have many times. Twice, I’ve found out that co-workers who were there a shorter time than me and whom I felt were equally valuable as me, were getting paid a lot better than me. It was a very hard thing to handle. It creates a lot of resentment against your company or boss. It’s not a good situation hardly ever and I recommend against knowing this kind of information. Knowing that you get paid better than others may boost your confidence, but the other way around is very detrimental to your work and attitude.
I understand your rationale here, but I think it’s so important for us to share this information with one another, especially as women. Women are consistently underpaid for doing the exact same work as their male counterparts (even when we have the same experience and credentials). Without sharing our salary information with one another, it’s too easy to let this injustice continue. The only people who truly benefit from employees not sharing salary information is the employer.
Personally, I put in salaries in our HR system, so I already know as soon as someone new is hired how much they’re being paid. Our company seems to place a premium on the degree held over experience, oddly enough. (A former employee with decades of experience was making $26k, and the new guy – with a degree but no experience – was hired in at $31,200. I don’t agree with it, but it is what it is.)
If you find out you’re being paid unfairly, I think it’s your responsibility to act on this knowledge rather than let it cause resentment between you and your coworkers. Easier said than done, I know. But if you don’t act, you’re only hurting yourself.