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Comment by deanCommie | Hacker News Reader

But that doesn't make any sense. Ostensibly, you were being paid market rate before. If you were to leave, maybe you'll be able to get a raise at another position, maybe not, but the other employees at your company don't change that.

Okay so now you're in a situation where other people who don't work as hard or as smart as you are getting paid close to you, or the same. That doesn't feel good, but what happens next? Well, if you continue working harder than them, you'll be promoted and get a raise, and they won't. And there, the system re-corrects itself.

Now, I COULD buy the argument that seeing people who you know don't work as hard suddenly make the same money as you would make you yourself get lazy and not try as hard. Because surely they can't fire you for performing the same as the rest. But if that's the type of person you are, maybe the company would be better off without you anyway?

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> But that doesn't make any sense. Ostensibly, you were being paid market rate before. If you were to leave, maybe you'll be able to get a raise at another position, maybe not, but the other employees at your company don't change that.

When it comes to money, humans are generally irrational in their decision making, mostly biased towards emotional decision making.

This actually happened to me when I was 16 years old. I started working at fastfood job making $4.90/hr, WA state's minimum wage. I was a very strong worker, and was offered a position as a manager a few months later. I politely declined (read: my mother told me I was dumb to sacrifice my education in order make an extra $1.00 or so an hour).

Eventually I was making $5.15 an hour through a series of wage increases due to good reviews. Then the Federal government raised minimum wage to $5.15/hr. I went to the store manager and asked for a raise. My argument was that my wage increases were do to my performance and seniority. Any unproven new-hire would start making the same wage as I do. They did not see it that way, and declined to provide me with a compensation increase.

The feeling was irrational. I still made my wage, and new employees wages didn't come out of my pocket, so it had no impact on me. Still, I felt that my salary should reflect the value I bring to the company.

I ended up putting in my two-weeks about a year later when they promoted an inept person to manager.

Well, if you continue working harder than them, you'll be promoted and get a raise, and they won't.

Or not, if the company has no money left for merit raises because they're paying well above market salaries to others.

But if that's the type of person you are, maybe the company would be better off without you anyway?

So you expect employees to perpetually go above and beyond the job requirements without consideration of whether they'll be rewarded for it?

> But that doesn't make any sense. Ostensibly, you were being paid market rate before.

So were those who got a raise, but the company decided to hand out raises as a gift (not as a reward) to lower performers only - of course this discrimination will be frustrating.

I don't know if you can characterize the people who got a raise as a low performers. Some people's market rate may just be below 70k but that doesn't mean they don't work hard. There are plenty of blue collar workers that bust their ass everyday.

But performance has less to do with butt-busting than with choices in what to learn/how to spend your time, don't you think? E.g., I could be working long hours manually moving data around, but if you come in and script that, you're already the higher performer. It's about where you've chosen to direct your effort vs. where I've chosen to direct mine.

If it's frustrating to someone working at that company, why wouldn't they feel frustrated working any other place knowing that those people at their former company are still making relatively more than they should? In fact, it seems as though they would read the news every day and become inconsolably frustrated.

> If it's frustrating to someone working at that company, why wouldn't they feel frustrated working any other place knowing that those people at their former company are still making relatively more than they should?

Because the frustration came from being treated unfairly by the management, which they've cut ties with. Also, they might earn more at their new jobs now as well.

But the problem is that discrimination is a function of perception, and that is 9/10ths of reality.

What the company was trying to do was correct a perceived culture wrong that some people were compensated less because their job was perceived as less important.

The reality is that those "less important" jobs frequently actually keep businesses running smoothly. Only a smoothly running business can afford to invest in strategy, thus smooth operation should be as important as strategy.

That (^) right there is another "perception" and is increasingly the one reasonable people are adopting EXACTLY because of what Seth notes:

"It's possible to create dignity and be successful at the same time."

But the importance of a job isn't what determines the salary of a worker, it mostly a function of supply/demand. A job may be absolutely critical to running a business, but if there's an oversupply of suitable applicants for the position, that is going to naturally drive down the compensation since there will be more applicants available willing to take a lower salary.

Live by the demand curve, die by the demand curve. The company will often have trouble when their model of the demand curve is (obviously) less precise than a worker's, and they are surprised when a worker leaves.

They would mechanize the role, removing the need to hure low wage staff, replacing them with higher wage maintenance staff at much lower numbers.

Would you ever run a competition where the first prize monetary value is less than the second prize? What kind of incentive would it give the participants? It is not always the absolute value that matters but the relative value of the rewards.

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