Can't Unsee

I have read a lot about salaries and from that reading, I have reached a conclusion about the author of the quote above, which is, the author does not understand business. I was an English major. I never took a class about business. A lot of what I think about business comes from reading and watching a show like "Shark Tank," where there is a lot of discussion about business. From all of that, I believe that a business exists for one reason: to make money. That's it. The way a business makes money is by getting as much as it can, whether it is office supplies, customers, market share, for as little amount of money that it can. That means a business will pay market value for its employees and that's exactly what it should pay its employees. For the person quoted above, they thought their salary was fine until they learned that a co-worker's contract and salary is worth more than the author's. Why is that? What does that co-worker 'bring to the table' that the author does not? The better question is, "How do I articulate to my boss that I bring as much or more value to the business than my co-worker?" And I have an answer for that: numbers. The author has to find the numbers to justify the author's value. It's not enough to point at the co-worker and say, "My co-worker does less than me; I do more, therefore, I deserve a higher salary." On the contrary, the co-worker likely provides a service that has a higher value to the company than the author. Another consideration might be that the co-worker negotiated the contract better than the author.

I suck at negotiating - I really do. I think I probably wrote about this in another post but I'll retell the story because of its relevance to this topic. When I was hired at NDP (Network Data Processing) on February 10, 1995, the Vice-President of the company offered me a salary of $17,500 a year to be the newest "Documentation Specialist" at the company. Frankly, I was caught off my game when he offered me the position because the interview process had started earlier that morning and no other company I had interviewed with had reached the salary negotiations on the same day as the interview. Yet, there I was, being offered a job. I didn't know what to say except to ask for $18,000. I had done no research on what I should expect for a salary so, because I hate math, all I did was round up to $18,000. Should I have asked for $25,000 a year? Or $50,000? Or $100,000? I have no idea. The point is this: the salary I agreed to accept is what I accepted. The Vice-President perceived my value to the company as $17,500; I perceived my value to the company as $18,000. The Vice-President accepted that his perception of my value was lower than my perception and probably because he had room in his budget for Documentation Specialist, he agreed. If the author above didn't negotiate a salary that was acceptable, that is on the author. During the next three years, I attempted to negotiate a higher salary. I decided that I should be making at least $20,000, but, as you might imagine, that never happened. I had established value to the company and, like the author above, the argument that because "someone else makes more, I should make more" was not successful to the extent that I wanted. Eventually, I had my final day at NDP on February 10, 1998, which was a Tuesday. The next day, I started as a technical writer at Jordan Systems, which is a story for another post.

The ability to perceive my value to a company is a weakness of mine and one that has pursued me like a rabid dog throughout my career. My response to the author in the screenshot above is to determine what your market value is to your employer. If you determine that you are not being paid market value, then you should ask for a salary adjustment. If your employer does not agree with your perceived market value, you need to determine if you are wrong about your number or if your employer is wrong. If your employer is wrong, find another job. I think it's unlikely that you will get a salary adjustment just because your coworker makes more money.